Voice Over Artist of the Week

Known for being the voice of Raphael and Donatello in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Pinky from Pinky and the Brain, and Carl Wheezer from Jimmy Neutron, this week’s voice over is Rob Paulsen.

Born Robert Fredrick Paulsen the 3^rd started his career in 1983 at the age of 24 in a mini-series GI Joe. Also during this time frame he did voice work for advertisements on both tv and radio such as Honda, the dog voice in the Taco Bell commercials, and a few ads for stores and radio stations in his area.

Rob was nominated for an Annie Award 4 years in a row and won in 96, 97, and 99.

Outside of filming and recording voices Rob attends several conventions throughout the year including Comic-Con, JACON, and Anime Overdose to name a few. He also works on his website RobPaulsenLive.com and a weekly podcast  Talking Toons With Rob Paulsen.

Rob with his constant giving to charities and cancer research foundations Rob is an extraordinary person both on and off the camera.

Below is an interview with Rob and at one of the conventions he attends and he talks to YouTuber Black Nerd comedy about his past works, and character and how they affect a television shows fan base.

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Going To Conventions

In the entertainment industry, or any other type of industry for that matter it’s a very important thing to go to conferences whenever possible…just about every major city has some sort of conference dedicated to something whether it be a job fair or conventions such as anime, comic con, or something like SXSW.

Some people might wonder what going to a place like comic con would have to do with wanting to be in the music industry or trying to become a voice artist. The answer is simple…NETWORKING, at conferences you never know who you are going to run into, you have the opportunity to meet celebrities, producers, business owners, and some many other people that can open the door to several possible job opportunities.

Plus if you want to do voice overs places like anime conventions and comic con would be the place to go. Thinking about it anime and comics are constantly making animated movies and television shows… this is the type of work as a voice artist a lot of people would hope to get. Its where the money is at.

I personally have been to places where I’ve talked to people for a couple of minutes and sharing common ground with someone have formed new connections that I would not have gotten just by sitting around.

With this in mind I hope you guys think about going to a convention to check it out because they can lead to many chances of meeting someone you might want to work with…and they’re fun!! XD

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Talent Agencies

So I have a knack for going on to google and searching the first thing that comes to mind just to see what I can find. Not too long ago a search on voice actor agency’s in Chicago and of course there are several agencies in the area. I think that it would be a fun job to have because it could be both challenging and rewarding at the same time, but anyways… I found a few Talent agencies out here that cater to the Voice acting industry.

I thought it would be cool to talk about this today just in case some people might want to try getting a few voice over jobs.

The talent Agency I’m going to talk about is Gray Talent Group Inc.

One thing that caught my attention is that they specify on their front page that they work with both non-union and union actors, in this case SAG-AFTRA or the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artist. This is an important thing to know because some agencies will not work with people who are not a part of this union, and union dues are not cheap so knowing they work with non-union actors is a good thing.

The other thing that stood out to me is the fact that they have multiple locations, they have a building in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York allowing people to work with them from a few major entertainment cities.

This company works with people in two ways, the first is people needing talent for projects can go to the site and fill out information and get an estimated quote, and the other way is people looking for voice over jobs can upload an audition of them saying lines and they review it before they ask you in for an in-person interview. They have an FAQ page for people wanting to know more and other forms of contact information available online, but they DO NOT except walk-in submissions.

This site is just one of the many I found online that I found interesting and I hope you find this information useful.

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Voice Over Artist of The Week

When I first started my blog someone asked in the comments if I would ever talk about John DiMaggio, so for this week’s Voice over Artist that’s who I am going to be talking about. As a matter of fact John was in a documentary that I talked about a few weeks ago called I know That Voice, where he talks a little about himself and his characters.

John Has a very long list of things he’s been a part of from television shows, video games, and animated films his catalog starting in 1986 when he was 18 years old up until now at the age of 47 his career has given him great success.

John DiMaggio is a well-rounded voice actor and comedian who Is mostly known for his role as Bender from the television show Futurama , and his role as Jake from Adventure Time. Some other things he has done include voices in Final Fantasy X, Gears of War, Wreck It Ralph.

 The first video clip I have for you guys today is an interview with John and he explains how he came up with the voice of Bender.

The second clip is a little bit of a longer video but I thought it was kind of cool; it is just a video montage of some of the different voices John DiMaggio has played over the years.

I Hope you guys enjoyed this post, What I would like to know from you guys in the comments below, who are some of your favorite characters or voice actors.

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Hey Everyone, for this post I thought that I would do something different and talk about someone that I like to watch on a regular basis when going through my YouTube subscription list.

On his YouTube channel Mikey Bolts he makes all kind videos such as cover songs, Vlogs, and Impressions of different characters from several television shows with over 1.7 million followers and his videos reaching as high as 4 million viewers he never fails to keep his viewers entertained with his Family Guy and South Park impressions.

YouTube is home of so many talented people some of which are constantly being noticed by starting on YouTube and ending up on T.V.

I think that it is nice to see someone such as Mikey bolts who isn’t necessarily a celebrity but a person is simply doing what he loves and showing it to the world.

The video that I have to show you guys today is with Mikey bolts doing different cartoon character impressions, He signs songs, and talks in their voices throughout the video in an interesting and comedic way.

I hope you guys enjoyed this post and comment down below

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Voice Over Artist of the Week

 In honor of Robot Chicken’s 10 year anniversary and His 41^st birthday this month, this week’s Voice Over Artist of the Week is Seth Green.

He’s a comedian, producer, writer, and director for shows and movies that we all know and love. He stared in his first movie when he was only 10 years old called “The Hotel New Hampshire”. Today at the age of 41 he has had the opportunity to star in so many films, animations, and a few voices for video games such as, Weird Science, Austin Powers Goldmember, Rat Race, He is the voice of several characters on family guy as well as his own show Robot Chicken. As an actor he has one several awards for outstanding comedian, directing in an animated television production, outstanding animated program, and best cast.

The first video I have for you guys is a panel interview with the cast and creators of Family Guy and Seth Green talks a little bit about how he got the part of Chris Griffin and the voice he gives the character.

The second video I have for you guys is an interview with Seth Green at the New York Comic Con conference in 2012. He talks about Robot Chicken and its growth during second season.

I hope you all enjoyed this post, leave your comments down below and tell me what you think.

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If Characters Voices were to change

Hey you guys,
So I had this little conversation on the phone with a friend and we were talking about how we would feel if we watched are favorite show and the main characters were suddenly done by different actors. I would like to know What you think about this.

Voice Artist of The Week

Sometime when I sit here writing these post I feel like I just sit around watching cartoons and trying just figure out who’s voice it is…As awesome as that sounds I don’t do that, however on my free time I do sit around googling random things, for example I don’t know… who speaks for SquidWard in the Show SpongeBob SquarePants, Which happens to be a guy by the name of Rodger Bumpass.

Although Rodger is mostly known for his role of SquidWard, like most voice actors he is a man of many voices. Rodger had also done voices for television shows such as Invader Zim, Cars, Ice Age, and Monsters University, and he has played voices for video games such as Infamous, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Mass Effect 3.

Growing up in Arkansas Rodger got started with acting in high school in the schools theater program then he attended Arkansas State University where he majored in radio and television with a minor in theater, while doing this he had the opportunity to do jobs like announcing, cameraman, and audio technician, so throughout his years in college he became a well-rounded individual with quite a bit experience in television.

The video clip I have for you guys today is just a quick interview with Rodger Bumpass at an Anime convention in Sacramento. He explains a little bit about how he got the part of SquidWard as well as some of his other favorite characters he has played.

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This person has been in several movies and does voiceovers for cartoons as well, one show in particular that catches my attention when I’m not binge watching family guy. She started off acting in movies such as Boyz n the Hood, Poetic Justice, Friday, and in 2005 Miss Congeniality 2, her name is Regina King. Regina King grew up in Los Angeles and eventually graduated from University of Southern California. Regina has been nominated and won several awards for best actress and outstanding performance throughout her career.

Her past has been filled with success and so is her future, from 2005 until 2014 Regina worked on the television series “The Boondocks” where she played the voice of two young boys Riley and Huey, Riley being the little boy who thinks he’s bad but just is always all talk, and his older brother Huey who is very laid back, smart, and knows every form of Karate and Taekwondo there is.

What I like is that Regina is able to bring such life to the 2 boys and you would never know it was a woman who talked for them. That’s one of the things that can be so fascinating about voice acting, it’s not uncommon for men to play little girls or for women to play little boys, in fact the actors for the cartoon show the Rugrat’s were all women except the one man who spoke for Chuckie, so playing opposite rolls isn’t something new. It’s a career with no limitations.

Just a little video of Regina King Recording lines for Riley and Huey

Interesting Documentaries

Hey everyone, so I thought I would share a little with you guys a documentary that I watched not too long ago that I found to be pretty interesting, especially seeing how it was just all about voice overs.

The documentary is called “I Know That Voice” directed by Lawrence Shapiro back in 2013. The film is a 90 minute film about being in the voice over industry, several voice actors and actresses such as they man who speaks for SpongeBob Tom Kenny, PowerPuff girls Tara Strong, and Seth Green, along with others talk about the first cartoons and little bit about how the man how came up with voice of bugs bunny became one of the main influences for artist today.

Throughout the film they also talk about themselves how their careers got started and how they came up with some of the voices that they can do.

I always find it interesting to learn about others and their creative processes or how they take a part and decide “I want this character to sound like this” and then it eventually becomes one of the most popular/funniest voices on television at the time.

Below is just the “I Know That Voice” were a few of the actors are reading scripts in some of their most well know character voices.
I would like to know what you guys find interesting, what’s your favorite cartoon or voice actor, let me know in the comments.

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Voice Artist Of The Week: Susan Bennett

Besides the obvious cartoons there are so many other types of Voice overs. For example our Telephones now days we can talk to our phones and a voice simply responds with the answers to our questions. With this in mind I thought I would talk about another voice over artist, Susan Bennett.

 Susan graduated from Brown University spending her time as a singer and pianist, as well as studying to be a teacher. She started her career back in 1970’s were she became Tillie the All-Time Teller, the voice for the first ATM which was at First National Bank. She also has done work for companies such as Delta airlines, Ford, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, and Cartoon network.

Despite all these different companies she has done work for she most commonly known as the GPS voice and SIRI. Susan can speak in several different accents as well as styles . In 2005 a ScanSoft Inc. were working on this project now known as Siri and they picked Susan after their original artist was absent. They took the words she recorded and turned them into sentences and phrases allowing eventually making it where Siri will have a response to just about anything. Susan didn’t know that she was the voice of Siri until she got her phone call from her friend.

Everyone that she has worked with over the past years considers Susan to be a wonderful person to be around and say is an extremely talented musician and voice artist. 

Below Is a video With Susan Bennett where she explains some of here past jobs and she talks about being Siri.

Stay Calm

I think that no matter if you are successful public figure or just an opinionated person, I think that some people need to realize that getting into arguments can make you look bad.

This audio clip is just something I found where Kanye West Takes Sways question the wrong way.
I want to know how you guys feel about this conversation, Was Kanye right for reacting how he did??

Just A quick Video

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Voice Over Artist Of The Week

Hey everyone, One of the things I would like to share with you guys are some Actors and actresses who are known for doing voice over work, so this week I decided to talk about the creator of one of my favorite television series, Seth Macfarlane.

Seth Macfarlane is an actor, comedian, writer, producer, and singer/song writer from Kent Connecticut. After graduating from college with a Bachelors of Fine Art he was invited to Hollywood and became an animator and writer for Hanna-Barbera Productions for shows such as Johnny Bravo, Dexter’s Laboratory, and I Am Weasel.

Macfarlane is known for his show Family guy, the show were that dad (Peter) does stupid things while the baby (Stewie) is a Maniacal baby genius who constantly tries to kill his mother and take over the world. Originally created in 1999 family guy was then canceled a few years later in 2002 due to low ratings. But in 2005 after the shows reruns became the most watched program Fox brought back the show. What I always find interesting about this show is that even though the show has so many characters in every episode they are all played by 5 or 6 people and Seth speaks for a majority of the main characters, the baby Stewie, the father Peter, the Dog Brian, and Peter’s friends Joe and Quagmire are just some of the many voices Seth plays during this show.

Seth has worked on several other shows as well as worked on his first feature film Ted back in 2012. 

Some of his awards include 2 Emmy Awards along with 17 nominations for Family Guy, 3 Grammy nominations, Annie Award and MTV Award nominations as well.

Seth Macfarlane is a very talented successful person, and that’s why I would consider him to be one of my personal favorite voice over artist.

What...You Mean Like Cartoons?

One of the most common things that come to mind when people mention voice overs would be cartoons. With cartoons actors record the lines while watching the characters mouth, physical movements, expressions, and watching what the character happens to be doing while on the screen in order to be able to have their voices match the intensity of the character they are portraying.  They have to pay close attention to these things because the characters are just animations and do not make any noises. This is what I find so interesting about working on cartoons, the creative freedom. With Cartoon characters the actors can freely come up with how they feel the character should sound and how they tend to articulate their words in order to make them funny. If re-recording the voices for non-animated films actors can’t go through that creative process, but however they would have to try to match their emotion the same way they would for cartoons.

This video shows a little bit of the daily routine as voice actors working in the studio while recording their parts. The artist in the video happens to be Hank Azaria. Hank Azaria is an actor, producer, and comedian who plays many voices in several cartoons such as Chief Wiggum in The Simpsons, Gargamel in The Smurfs, and my personal favorite show Family Guy where he plays different characters in each episode. During the video you will be able to see Hank in the studio recording as well as his characters in the scene.

A Little Introduction

Hey everyone welcome to Creating the Voice. I’m Chris Foster and this is my blog. Since I was a child I have always appreciated music and what is has to offer, dancing and singing around the house to a favorite song or going out partying with friends on the weekend music was something I've grown to be passionate about, It wasn't until I started going to college when I realized that music is my only option as a career in the Audio industry… I get to learn about music and recording bands but I also get to learn about sound for films. Combining music with movies and being able to create sound effect gives me the best of both worlds. One of the most important parts of working on a films sound are the voices, a lot of the time ADR or Automated Dialogue replacement is required in order to get the best sound quality for dialogue. Without voice overs so many things would not be as good or interesting, cartoons would still be silent films and even technology would be different. For example Siri without voice over technology there would be no automated voice on out phones responding to our questions. This site will be all about voice overs and how they are created. I will explain some techniques and give information about recording your talent. I also will show video clips and talk about what I feel is good or bad about them. I hope you enjoy what I have to share!