Episode 011 - Crew Sessions - Voice Directors

“Every animated character has a voice, but who decides how it sounds?”
In this latest Crew Sessions episode, Dave and Stuart sit down with acclaimed Voice Director Tracy Nampala to go behind the mic. Discover how animated characters are shaped through performance, how voices unlock emotion and personality, and what really happens before a character ever speaks a line.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

For the majority of animated shows, there are voices for the characters on screen, voiced by actors bringing life and performance to the characters. To help those actors give as much as they possibly can, they usually need some steering. And for when maybe the show director is unable to be at the performance session, we need a separate voice director to ensure that we get the performances we need. So, welcome to the director's club. Cruise Sessions, the voice director. Hello, my name is Dave Osborne, and I've been directing for about 30 years or so.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

And I am Stuart Evans, and I've been directing for about 27 years or so. For this episode of Cruise Sessions, we speak to an experienced voice director of animated shows to learn more about her career, approach to casting, and the process of getting the very best out of the actors for the best result possible. Welcome, Tracy Nampala.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Hey, hi! Hi guys, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

So, Tracy, can you tell us how you got into the animation industry and some career highlights if you want to give us a little bio? That would be fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

So I uh was always a big fan of drama. I always acted as a child, so school plays, university, lots of drama, specialised in audio drama, and that's kind of relevant in a way because I've always loved drama. I ended up writing children's stories and sent a pilot into an animation company that I ended up working with with Mr. Stuart Evans at one point many, many years ago, and so really kind of started as a production manager in children's TV and then kind of worked my way up to producing. And my first freelance job was producing a sort of Muppet show, actually, um, with Disney, and they were re-versioning um animation programs, so Little Einstein's Higley Town Heroes, and it was when programs would come out with the original US voices, and so it was a cast of American children, and I was asked to re-version with an English cast, and at the time that was actually quite unusual, that wasn't the done thing, it would be broadcast to the UK with the US voices. So that was kind of how I really kind of got into the voice directing specifically. Um, and I've just loved it and stayed in that arena ever since, and predominantly preschool um animation shows as well. So the projects I've worked on um recently, um Pudsy and the Thread of Hope, which went out on BBC, which was for children in need, went on the BBC um and CBBs over Christmas, which was beautiful. That was a 25-minute special. There's a series called Super Tato that is currently on CBB's, something called Tim Rex in Space, which um we completed as well, which is on Nickelodeon and Milkshake, um, and lots of other shows. Yes, I've just recently done the fourth series of the new Gojetters spin-off. I'm now to say that now because it is officially out there, um, and lots of other uh preschool animation shows over the years.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Fantastic. Yeah, that is absolutely brilliant. Um and at what uh when you when you are employed on these jobs, at what point in the animation process are you first involved?

SPEAKER_00 3:35

The way I particularly like to work, and the majority of my shows, I'm brought on just as production is starting, so at casting point. So I'm brought on, I talk to the executives, and it's a very collaborative experience when you start casting. There's a lot of people with a lot of opinions, it's very subjective, so it's trying to get a really sort of clearly um definitive idea of who those characters are, what are those voices we want. So everybody's in agreement because you could spend months and months casting if you haven't really finely tuned what you're looking for in terms of age, accent, performance. So that's why I really like to get involved right at the very beginning. So we have that discussion with the production team, and then once we all have a clear idea, then I can reach out to the agents and start finding the right voices for the role. So normally I'm there from the very beginning at the casting session and then voice directing in the studio. Occasionally I've been brought on just to do the voice directing, um, but normally I'm there right from the very beginning.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Would you say that it's important for uh the overall series director to give you a full steer and say, okay, this is what I see in my head, or would you would you rather have that an absolute definite idea of of what they want, or do you do you enjoy having a little bit of leeway, a little bit more freedom?

SPEAKER_00 5:06

I think it's nice to offer suggestions as well, but I found it really is a collaborative in sense of the whole of the uh production team in terms of all the execs so the broadcasters as well. Um in my experience, it's been very rare that it's just the director now that that has that that one steer. Um, all the executives um have to be completely in agreement as well. Um, but it's a really good collaborative experience in terms of we can offer suggestions, we can work together. Um, and all of the shows I've worked on recently have just had such a brilliant vibe, and we really have felt like a team.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

When voice directing children and young people, is there a very different approach than with adults?

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Oh, most definitely. So I work with children from four all the way up to 16, teenagers, and then obviously adults as well. The majority of my children have never ever been in a recording studio before. Because when you're working with young voices as young as five, I mean, why would they already have a career as a voice recording artist? That would just be a bit odd, wouldn't it? So, um, and most of these are kids that just go to normal schools, but they're signed up with agents, so they love acting. So you're already winning from that point of view in terms of this is something they really want to do, and you can tell when a kid loves acting, you can just tell. Um, and you can hear it in the voice as well. So when you're working with a four or five-year-old that that has never been in a recording studio before, it's very daunting. Daunting for the casting session, daunting for the very first recording session, as you know, everybody's there, all the execs are there, uh, the animation directors there, that you know, someone from the broadcaster might be there as well. So that's a lot of eyes and ears watching somebody, and it can be really, really intimidating. So, for me, the most important thing working with children is that sense of uh making them feel really relaxed, really comfortable, um, and adapting each child is completely different. You can't work with one child the same as you'd work with another. You know, you have to adapt to how that child is in the studio. I've worked with children that we do we do short little bursts, and those short bursts are really, really productive. And then other children we might do sort of longer bursts, and we'll have the parent in the booth because they feel more comfortable with the parent. It's all about remembering that they're children first above everything else, and performers second. So when that child is feeling happy, they're enjoying themselves, the banter is really, really important. You know, being able to have a laugh, have a giggle, have a little chat. Um, and that that comes from the ground up with the recording studio. So you choose your recording studios really carefully as well because the engineers have such an important role. It's all about creating this really safe, fun environment where the children feel free to experiment and play with their delivery because there is no right and there is no wrong. It's it's just uh being really relaxed, and you'll work with those children for a whole year. If you're working on a series, you know, there might be six when they start, and they might be coming on to sort of seven, eight when they finish. So that's a whole year of their life that you're checking in with them maybe once or twice, three times a month. Um, and so you do you do have to work slightly differently with children. Um, and I sometimes obviously give reads. I do I will do a read, read a line, and then ask the child to parrot it. Um, and they'll parrot it much better than my original delivery, which is brilliant because we want an authentic child's delivery. Um, with adults, I don't like to give line reads, I find it quite insulting. Um, I can give directions and we can give ideas as to you know what the character's thinking, but I would never really give an adult a line read and say, do it like this, um, because that's why we're hiring an adult. We want their creative input. Um the children have less experience.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Yeah, yeah. I d I I made the mistake of uh of giving a line read uh early in my voice directing aspect. Uh I I gave a line read to uh to an adult actor and the producer producer went never never do that again. I went okay unless they ask. And and also also with with all all actors, if they are enjoying themselves, then it will come through in the performance. So if they're feeling really pressured, it's not gonna come out, it's not gonna feel natural, but I I always take a good sign of them really enjoying it. Whoever it is, whether it's a whether it's a a child or an adult. If they start moving around, if if they're off the chair and they're remoting and the hands are coming out and they say, Yeah, you might just just keep keep close to the mic. But you can please do please do move around and they're putting some physical acting into it instead of just sort of sitting in the chair and just reading the line. So you can you really can tell when they're when they're enjoying themselves, and it's such a joy. Do you like to be up at the up at the booth window and just say just keeping them up and keeping the eye contact going?

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Do you know it's all it's changed a bit? So um, I mean, we would always have them standing anyway, if unless they're really tiny and sometimes it's like okay. We're just up and down, up and down at the mic, just easier if you stay in one spot. Just stay sitting, that's fine. Whatever works for you, we'll adapt it. But generally, being up, having you know, getting that physicality, we want that movement. The physicality is so important in animation. Pre-COVID, I would always be in the booth, always be in the booth with the child, um, absolutely sort of bouncing off the lines, or if it's the younger children saying the line and they would sort of parrot it back. Post-COVID, things kind of change. We would we were doing remote records, and then we had the COVID restrictions where we were only allowing certain people in the booth. We were social distancing when we were going back in the studio, and we kind of got into the pattern. Well, actually, you know, the parent will go in with you because the chaperone, often the parent, will has to be within eye line. That's their responsibility to be there at all times to be within the eye line so they can see if their that child is is distressed or just to make sure the child is fine. So the child the the chaperone would go in the booth with the child. I'd be there on the other side of the glass, gurning away and on the talk back.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

One thing I wanted to sort of um ask or talk about is that you know, quite often, you know, when I've done voice you know directing myself, you have that period when predominantly obviously adult actors, but also children come into the booth or come into the room when you first start. I actually find that's quite an important period before you actually start, especially with some adults.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right, especially when you're starting a new series and you're working with these this talent for the very first time. It's really important to come in, show them some designs. This is what your character looks like, this is the setup, this is the world. Or maybe if we've recorded some other voices, this is this is you know, if you're playing dad, this is mum, these are the kids. We've recorded these, this is the style of the show. Immediately that gives them an idea of the level of the energy, the style of the performance. Um, but just having a little chat about the character as well. Having a chat about the character, having a maybe a chat about the script, seeing if they've got any questions, but but putting that trust in them as well. And what's really important is it's a two-way thing. There is generally not really one big ego that dictates we will only have it this way. I think it is such, and I use that word collaborative a lot, it really is a collaborative experience because the actor is putting the flesh on the bones. We've got the skeletal structure of a character, it's the bare basic, it's the bare bones. The actor will come in and add the flesh to this character and the the beating heart and the soul, and they will often come up with suggestions. Little ad libs might end up being a catchphrase. So I really encourage, and some actors are really comfortable with with writing little funny ad libs, and you know, and that just kind of embellishes the character, but it's giving them the confidence that yes, it's okay for you to do that. You are in a safe, safe space, as it were. We encourage that. And it can't, you know, if a line doesn't read that, doesn't sound natural, doesn't feel natural, it's okay for you for us to to retweak that. If you want to change that word, let's try it. And we are open to obviously don't rewrite the whole script because you know it's been through various processes and it's been signed off. But sometimes a little bit of tweaking, it just adds so much character. And the scripts are really funny. The the majority of the shows that I work on are just hilarious. Tim Rex in Space. I mean, I'll read those scripts and they'll I'll be laughing out loud, Sweet Potato as well. Ridiculous, ridiculously funny script. So everybody that comes in is generally buzzing because they just really want to be part of that world. Um, and working with comedic actors is an absolute treat because they will, you know, they will really inject that humour and elevate it to a whole other level. So it kind of almost exceeds your expectations for that character.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Um, and what what do you say to an actor? I think you did you did touch on touch on this when they just can't get a line delivery as it's written, they just can't get it right. Do you just do you just say, okay, well, let's let's see what we can do to make it easier for the actor to deliver, or do you sometimes have to say, I'm sorry, you've really got to get this nailed.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Yeah. Do you know what? It I a lot of the time a retweak of the line, it's like sometimes you can work and work and work and work away at the line, and you know the actor's a brilliant actor, but there's just something not just something about that line's not working. You know, you'll try it pacey, or try you'll try different slightly different energy, but it just still just won't sit right, and it's no disrespect to the actor. And and sometimes just the smallest little tweak to the dialogue, or just flipping a few things around in a slightly different order, and it's like a gut instinct, isn't it? When you hear a good read, you just you just you don't know why, but it's like that one. That that's it. That's that's perfect. That's just it. There's just something about that that feels like a real, honest, genuine conversation. Um, and that little retweak is good. Other times you can't hear the wood for the trees. If you've done a line so many times, these are just words now. I don't even know what they mean. Let's like let's just go away, let's go on to the next scene. We'll listen to that in the break. You might listen to it in the break. We'll say, What's wrong with that? That's absolutely cracking. Let's we'll just keep that. I don't know what we were thinking, we were having a mad moment. Or we'll come back and say, Do you know what? What it needs is this. So it's just moving on. And with the kids, you don't want to be doing take off to take off to take off to take. The attention span is um it is a lot shorter. We want to keep it fresh, we want to keep them excited. An adult will understand that we're redoing this line because we just want to play with it. A child may uh interpret that as I'm doing something wrong, I'm doing something wrong, I'm still not getting it right. Oh no, I can't do it, and the energy will just deplete. If you do it a few times, you move on. We always circle things. If we want to come back to it, we come back to it later. But there's always that sense of we're moving forward, we're progressing. Um, but you're right too, in terms of with animation, there's a level of energy, and as and comedy is always really, really important. And you will find that with the um casting process, sometimes people, if they haven't worked in animation, it's really hard trying to find that balance of the right level of energy, but the right level of realism because the broadcasters all want authenticity, however, if it's too authentic, it will just be as flat as a pancake. There aren't enough nuances, there isn't that there's not enough fun. So, how do you inject that fun and not make that character a goofy, woo, wacky caricature? Finding that balance is actually really quite difficult because you have you got it's it's really finely tuned. Um, and I think that may sound harsh, but people are either funny or they're not, and I know that's something people can work on comedy skills. Um, but you know, we we all know actors that could read out the instructions for a washing machine, and and it would just be hilarious. We don't know why, they will just make that incredibly funny. Um so comedy is a really, really important skill, I think having comedic chops for animation. Um, but but the base of it all are finding really incredible actors. Above all, we need brilliant actors. I don't care whether they've done animation or not. Um so Super Tato is a wonderful guy called Alex Sawyer, who happens to be the lead Hamilton in the West End, and he is just a phenomenal actor, full stop, a phenomenal actor that happens to be really funny and has just his this was his first animation gig. He grew up watching The Simpsons, and his dream was to be in an animation series. And in on that first audition, I was just sitting at home, he'd recorded it on his phone. I'd listened to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of voices, you know, very nice voices. But I listened to his, he threw himself into it so much, it was all distorted. It was like you know, the quality wasn't that brilliant, but what shone it was just like a choir of angels, and it was ha ha ha. The sh the the the light came down on the laptop, and it was just there was just something magical about his performance. It was like everything that you want in a lead comedic character was right there, and it was very exciting, very exciting.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

How do you how do you approach how do you softly approach changing someone's attitude when they're when they're fixed on a particular type of delivery or a particular type of voice? Do you do you allow allow them to sort of run with it and try it out and then pull it back?

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Absolutely, on that first run, allow them to play with it, and then I think it's giving it's giving notes in a positive way, in a supportive way. It's not being critical at any point, it's that okay, let's try this angle, let's now play around with this. We could try this. We want to avoid, you know, with preschool, everything's got to have a smile. We we've we've got to, you know, we've got to tick all those boss boxes that no one can ever be hurt. So if someone falls, we have to that's a fun falling over. It's um, you know, there's a giggle in there, and there's usually someone saying, I'm okay at the end of it, so that we know that nobody's been hurt during that process. You know, we can't have anything that's too traumatic because that that could be potentially, you know, quite triggering, scary for the young audience at home. So everything kind of has to have that lightness. Um, and so that that's kind of a good thing with preschool. There's always that lightness, there's always that level of, okay, that was that sounded terrifying, or that sounded way too painful, or that person's just too angry. The kids are absolutely going to be hiding behind cushions here. We've just got to find that preschool way that we know the executives, the audience at home, we're ticking all of those boxes, but what we don't want is the patronizing, overly, you know, which is kind of that slightly outdated version of preschool performance where we're, you know, talking down to the audience. It's we must never underestimate the intelligence of our young audience. Um, so it's playing around with that, and I think it's easier to do that within the preschool realm. Um but yes, I think it's all diplomacy, really, because you've got to continue that session and everybody's got to be moving in a positive uh place. Everyone's got to be feeling good about what they're doing. Um, and and so you obviously can't be critical, it's good to let people have. room to play but it's just finding the right way to get there yeah and all and also also finding the finding the right the right language and the right approach towards towards actors to keep that positive uh positivity and uh one of one of the best voice directors that I've worked with uh a guy called Steve Cannon who who was an actor himself and so he knew and he said to me he said I know how to speak actor how to how to keep the energy up keep the positivity up and he said that's lovely we're just gonna try something just a little bit you go oh wow okay and everything was okay yeah and and they're saying oh well that was good we've just tried something different that's it not wow that stunk the place up we're not doing that again and but yeah you keep it yeah that was lovely because everything everything does have its merit and that and they will know if the actor will know if they've really really messed up and they'll usually go oh wow okay yeah that was terrible I'm gonna do that again so thank you very much and you won't need to say because they'll they'll know they'll know they're professionals they'll they'll know all that but it's just that mantra as well you know and I know we we say it to the children that there is no right or wrong way of delivering this line there are 101 different ways to deliver this line and and each one is valid in their own way and it's kind of the same thing with adults it's it is so subjective. If I've got the animation director in the booth he might have in his head oh that that could be delivered that way whereas some an executive on Zoom will also have their opinion of how that line should be delivered we'll all have our own different take oh no this word needs to be emphasized or you know that needs to be pastier or the inflection needs to be different and we could all be right and they're all valid it's just finding the one that that kind of works for everybody that keeps everybody happy because we want to keep pickups to a minimum as well.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

What's the what's the uh what is the the magic number of bad takes that you get to where you say we'll just we'll come back to that have you have you got got a magic number you say if you if you get to 10 say they're not gonna get this let's move on and we'll come back to it.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Do you know what I've never really sat and thought oh I think if you were getting into double figures I'd be worried to be honest with you. I mean normally we're in under double figures. If we're not it's generally because it's a line that we're sometimes having a lot of fun with that we're it's not necessarily a bad thing. It could almost be that we're having too much fun with that line um because we're adding too many ad libs or we're we've decided to just tweak it a little bit and well let's try this or that oh wouldn't it be good if we did yeah let's try this and then everybody's getting a little bit overexcited because we're all throwing ideas in and then you realize oh hello we've done about 16 takes maybe we should just kind of really pin it down as to because we've got you know the rest of the script to record. So for me it's very rare that we would get to that point where you you're thinking oh my gosh that was that was a toughie um and I and I think that's yeah and then that's testament to all the wonderful actors that we work with but generally normally I think it's just a little bit of a retweak of the wording but with children which like anything sort of under double figures you want to be moving on you want to be moving on you want to go on to the next line and come back um and then you know hearing it with a fresh pair of ears is great.

SPEAKER_02 25:41

And you have acting workshops with children to bring on new generation of voice actors I believe.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Yes because I you know a big part of my job is listening to hundreds and hundreds of voices of lots of lovely wonderful child voices and I don't think um these children are really kind of prepared or prepped or have had any experience of how they should approach a casting brief um and also the agents uh are are lovely but they're sending out briefs for live actions commercials um you know musical theatre uh movies it's very specific acting for animation is very specific in terms of the level of animation everything that we discussed you about not going too big too theatrical a lot of the reads I get in are just very loud everything's really loud and shouting it's like my head is literally going to explode um or that you know it's just adding all the the efforts the walla it's like how do we approach a casting brief and I call them like my five superpowers these are the things that we need to think of you know pow these five superpowers that if we think about this when we're before we hit that record button for that self-record that is going to equip us or that's gonna help our voice stand out from everybody else so that's why I'm doing these workshops they're lots of fun um so I'm doing them in person in in small groups we'll we'll if a kid hasn't done any acting for animation they won't understand how important physicality is um it's so so important hearing you know what what that what is that character doing are they running are they stretching you know what's their what's their position like what's their physicality so acting everything out the emotion being able to go quite small but quite intimate it's really really important that you want that cliche light and shade those little nuances of being able to cover the really small intimate stuff as well so um that's what we do but the workshops are lots of fun and the walla challenge as well which is my favourite part where you know I give them the physical action and they have to make the noise for it. You know that could be something small from you know the animation directors ask for a closed mouth laughter you know the character's got their mouth closed mouth but so how would that sound that's very different to an open mouth giggle you know or just a really short sharp giggle how's that going to sound or you know a belly buster um and and kids can feel really self-conscious doing this they're just like oh I'm not really sure I might you know and the more you do it the easier it becomes and and they're just prose by the end of a series they're like the king and queen of Walla and they don't even think about it. So yes that's what the workshops are um so specifically looking at how to help kids to kind of really excel in their sort of castings for animation but also very good for me because it's research for future projects. So if I hear a voice that stands out I am going to be making a note of that voice for when I'm casting my next project. And these might not be kids that are signed with agencies because it's open to child actors who are signed with agents. It's just open to kids who enjoy acting but you know it's anybody who wants to come along. And and it's an in-person session that you do is it you you go into a studio space or you go into a rehearsal room of some kind or yeah yeah we'll go into a theatre space or I'll be uh booked by uh the the child acting agency who'd like me to come along and do a workshop for their children. Um and I did one recently actually last summer and um I've had such great feedback saying it's the kids are really approaching their casting briefs differently now that that you know the laughter the laughter in the delivering the line the way they're thinking about these lines is an there's a noticeable difference in terms of the material that she's now hearing back from the kids that were at the workshop. So it's really good that they've remembered because it's it's a lot to kind of cram into an hour if it's something that's completely new. But yeah lots of fun.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Thank you for all your great answers but now the time has come for the for the real for the real killer questions. I'm sorry oh gosh they're going in the big book.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Oh hello okay are you ready I'll I'll do the first one Dave let me just make sure I've got the got the word myself ready fuel myself up wee she's already answered it first question is tea or coffee well we know it's the coffee thank you very much the coffee right and the second thing what's your favourite thing on toast you know what it's gotta be peanut butter smooth with butter first melty melty butter then when that's all like a gooey pool of gorgeousness then we slap on the smooth we've got then it then it the two mixed together they become two become one and it's lovely so thanks to our special guest Tracy Nampala who's given us a great insight into voice directing in animation and as always please like and subscribe to the channel and remember that as our wives have always repeatedly told us we're not saving lives it's just bye