On Labor Day my New York sound designer son had me read some scripts for voiceovers in an upcoming video game. He turned to me because he doesn't know any "old men in New York," as he explained, and needed someone whose voice had "matured" with the rasp and crackling punctuations of middle age. Fine by me, I said, and while his brother recorded me in his school media center studio in Kissimmee, I read the lines in the the best characters I could muster as an amateur.
I don't know if they'll actually use what we sent up electronically, but I got a congratulatory cellphone call on our way home from the Disney parks saying I did a really good job. If they can't use it, it will be because of the limitations of our recording equipment and ambient studio noise rather than my lack of good stuff. It made me feel just great.
What was revealing to me was how many ways there are to say the shortest dialogue lines in a recording. One of my characters spoke only three words, but I had to record it dozens of times and learn background motivation and the situation for the utterance to get it anywhere near "right." It gave me a new appreciation for what actors and actresses have to do, involving not only all of what I did but with action and expression as well, and without the script in front of them, by memory, scene after scene. No wonder they're so exhausted with their long hours and so flamboyant in their escapes and relationships. Acting's a whole lot harder than I ever realized, and so is production in general.
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Over the years, time has been kind to my voice, but not in the way most people consider.
I used to have a voice like Charlotte Church -- well, maybe not that fine, but with that extremely clear, youthful quality. The problem was that, even when I was in my 30s, nobody would take me seriously over the telephone. Telephone salespeople would inevitably ask me, "Is your mommy there?" One dialogue with a particularly insulting salesperson went as follows:
Me: Hello.
Annoying Insulting Salesperson (in extremely sugary voice): Is your mommy there?
Me (in icy voice, as deep as I can get it): No. My mother is not here, as she lives in another state.
AIS: Well, then, are you the lady of the house?
Me: Well, I'm the one who pays the bills, if that's what counts.
AIS: But, are you over age fourteen?
Me: Yes.
AIS: Well, you don't sound it! (hangs up abruptly)
I have no idea what that salesperson was selling, since she spent the whole phone call demeaning me instead of giving the sales pitch.
At last, my voice has taken on enough roughness that I don't get taken for a kindergartner on the phone any more. I suppose if I smoked, I could have accelerated the process, but I don't exactly care for the other side effects, such as cancer and emphysema.
Ha! Gee,Charlotte,I had no idea. Thanks much for the vivid scene and your candor.
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