Voices of Character Panel at AMPAS
One cool thing about living in a big city is that important people actually come by. And the thing with Los Angeles is that you've got people who are involved with film and television here. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science (aka the organization that puts on the Oscars every year) had an event tonight featuring the works of voice actors in animation, which I just got back from and it was AWESOME.
(They didn't allow cameras in, so unfortunately I couldn't take pictures. The above is a picture of the program I took home with me)
As someone who's passionate about animation and film/tv history, this was just a dream to go to. I had actually gone to an event a few months before that featured music in animation called "What's Opera Doc" also put on by AMPAS that featured a panel with Michael Giacchino, Pete Docter and Bruce Broughton. That in it of itself was pure win, I didn't think I'd be able to do something so awesome again so soon, but lo and behold I did! Tonight's event was called "Voices of Character" and focused on the work done by voice actors for animation. The moderator was Charles Solomon, who my friend took a Disney class from at UCLA (I had a class conflict that quarter, so I couldn't take it with her. Boo). According to my friend he has written a lot of books on Disney and is really passionate about animation, and seems like a really nice guy from the looks of it. He must be pretty good friends with the big-wigs in the industry because Bob Peterson asked him about his tie which featured Gromit (from Wallace and Gromit) and Charles said it was a gift from Nick Park. Nick FREAKING Park!!! How the crap do you RECEIVE a gift form the genius that created Wallace and Gromit????
Anyways, the night started off with a montage of clips from movies, each followed by a clip from an animation corresponding to the live-action actor. It began with clips from very early movies (e.g. Pinocchio, Snow White, early Loony Toons, etc.) and ended with the most recent movies (e.g. Finding Nemo and Shrek). It was actually a really cool thing to watch since I had never seen movies from actors that a lot of these iconic voices came from. Some of these people even had voiced things I never knew was them before and was amazed. This was followed by a clip reel from Monsters, Inc. featuring 30 languages it was dubbed in (you can find this clip reel in the extras on the dvd). After that was the first panel that featured James Baxter (animator for Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Enchanted, Kung Fu Panda, etc.), Rick Dempsey (producer and senior vice president for Disney's Character Voices), and Bob Peterson (Pixar director and writer). The first panel was mostly about working with voice actors and the dynamic between animators and the voice actors. They discussed things like how they get voice actors that match the characters they've created, the process of animating before getting actual voices and etc.
Following the first panel was a clip reel of Walt Disney doing voice work for Mickey for Mr. Mouse Takes a Trip. This was such a cool thing to see since the footage seems to be the only known clip of Walt actually recording voice work for Mickey in existence. It was so weird knowing that Walt has a naturally deep voice, and there he was doing this falsetto for Mickey. Still awesome though. This was followed by another clip reel featuring clips from works that people from the second panel had worked on.
The second panel featured Susan Egan, June Foray, Yuri Lowenthal (who's pretty cute irl, but I was sad to find out he's 39 =[), Bob Peterson, and Russi Taylor. Jim Cummings was supposed to be there, but he couldn't make it which was disappointing. They didn't explain why, but I just hope it's not because he was sick or anything. This second panel was really fun because all the voice actors were so lively and personal. They all seemed like such nice people.
June Foray is pretty up there in age, but I was surprised to see that she's still able to walk on her own (albeit she needed some help on the stairs) and remembered so many things. She also seemed like a real nice lady; I would love to be able to chat with her some day.
Russi Taylor also seemed like genuinely nice woman and was completely adorable. Her natural voice is a lot like Minnie's, so it was pretty much like you were watching Minnie up there the whole time. It's a little sad though because she was married to Wayne Allwine (the voice of Mickey) who passed away last year, but she's just so cute and funny that it's not so bad.
Susan Egan is simply gorgeous and has a beautiful voice and I was shocked to see that there was such a distinct difference between her real voice and the voice she used for Meg. Meg is sort of a snarky, sarcastic type and Susan mentioned how she played Belle on Broadway and she was told by the directors that she needed to be more aware of her voice acting work with Meg because her snarkiness was blending in with Belle while on stage. It was actually pretty funny because she was like, that should be Beauty and the Beast 2: the divorce with Belle becoming all snarky and not taking crap from the Beast (which I would love to see btw).
Yuri Lowenthal was sort of adorable since he's not so well known as the other voice actors and he and Susan were like, "We don't know what we're doing being on the same stage as these legends". Yuri has done a lot of the English dubbing for anime (like Sasuke from Naruto), which was kinda funny cuz during the clip reel you'd see old footage that June Foray did for Loony toons followed by stuff from Naruto. One of the things the actors talked about was how voice acting isn't just about the voice, you really do have to act since you're not allowed to use other methods to express emotion (like facial expressions). Yuri mentioned how when he was voicing Superman he didn't notice that he actually stood in the Superman pose until the directors asked him if he did that for all his voice acting roles.
Bob Peterson was awesome simply because he is awesome (how can you not love the voice for Dug?). If any of you have watched the special features on Pixar dvds or listened to audio commentary for some of their movies you already have a good sense of what a nice person he is, but to see him in real life was spectacular. He actually passed by me right before the show started and I was IN AWE. Seriously, big geek out in my seat. If it weren't for the fact that the program was about to start and he was surrounded by people, I would have gone up to meet him. Charles Solomon actually asked him to tell Dug's squirrel joke and speak in Roz's voice, which was pure win. He actually sang a bit of "Maria" from the Sound of Music in Roz's voice. I didn't think I could love Bob Peterson more until he did that. Roz + Sound of Music = Win. The fact that he sang Maria instead of the more popular songs like Do-Re-Mi was a bonus.
Towards the end, all the people on stage did a reading of Fractured Fairy Tale Aladdin (from Rocky and Bullwinkle). Bob Peterson being a real director, was given the task of assigning roles to the rest of the panelists. Charles Solomon was the narrator, June Foray was Aladdin (HA!), Russi Taylor was the Genie (double HA!), Yuri was the Baazir(??), Susan was Sally, and Bob assigned himself the role of the King (lulz). The first go around was hilarious becuase you got to see all these voice actors in their element, but then Charles made them do one of the pages over again in different voices to change things up. This was even better because Bob did the king in a Western cow-boyish voice and Russi Taylor did this Brooklynish voice, but then Susan Egan was like "You totally stole my voice!". Oh and btw Bob Peterson did the sound effects for the poofing of the Genie. I love him for that.
The voice session with the reading was the last part with the panelists and they ended the night with a montage tribute to Mel Blanc which was really touching. I knew Mel had voiced a couple voices for Loony Toons, what I didn't realize was that he had done practically EVERY voice on Loony Toons save for the ones June Foray did. My respect for him multiplied 100 fold because of that.
All in all it was an absolutely fun night and really informative. And being the geek that I am, I totally flipped out seeing all these people I grew up hearing in all my favorite cartoons. I had a smile on my face the whole time; my cheeks hurt by the end of it. It was worth it just to see all these people in real life, but to hear them talk about animation and voice work put me over the moon. I seriously wanted to go up to the stage and hug June Foray and Russi Taylor because they were just SO. FRIGGIN. CUTE. To top it off, there were other voice actors in the audience such as the current voice actors for Goofy, Donald, and the new Mickey. There was also KATHERINE FRIGGIN BEAUMONT. Yes, Alice/Wendy herself was there! Ugh, my life is pretty much complete now. I can't wait until they have another event like this since this one was so much fun. Hopefully I can actually meet one of them and get an autograph next time. <3