Learning How Cartoons Get Their Voice + My Olaf VoiceOver!

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I was provided with an all expenses paid trip by Disney in exchange for my coverage. All opinions are always my own!

One of the fun things I got to do while in LA aside from learning about how characters turn into characters aka rigging, sitting down with the producers for a Q&A. and a few other things I’ll be talking about over the next few weeks was I got to learn how characters get their voice. While we were at the Disney Animation Studios we got to go into a real sound studio and learn how they work and do our own voice over with Gabe Guy, Original Dialogue Mixer for Frozen.

During my trip in the sound studio I learned that they record the voice prior to animation, with a written script, because this saves the animators time and money from recording lines that may never make it into the movie. They also video record the whole session so they can see the expressions that the actor is doing and incorporate them into the character in the movie. There are hundreds and hundreds of hours of recordings from Frozen, but only 1 hour and 42 minutes of those recordings made it into the movie. Crazy, right? It was also pretty cool learning that the same room we did our voice-over sessions in is the same room where Frozen was recorded with Kristen Bell and the hit song “Let It Go” by Indina Menzel.

Photo courtesy of Suburbancouponmom.com

When I stepped into the booth I was really nervous. I’m not one who likes to speak in front of people and have 10 bloggers watching you along with the sound guy can be a little nerve racking. You walk into the room and put on the headphones and there is a screen with the words on it and animation. I know our voice-over was a little different than when they make the movie, since all the animation was already done and other characters voices recorded. With the headphones on you can hear every little sound in the room, breathing included, and I’m sure you could hear a pin drop. The words moved across the screen for me to say and it moved along so quickly.  It was a totally surreal experience and in typical Jamie fashion I got tongue tied at one part and made up my own word and now the world gets to hear it too! It’s an experience I’m forever thankful for and one I’ll never forget.