First off, let me caption this photo. It's the cast and director at a recording session for The Garfield Show. Front row, left to right: June Foray, Stan Freberg, Jason Marsden, Gregg Berger. Back row, also left to right: Frank Welker, M.E., Laura Summer and then Wally Wingert. Why did I post this? Because Jack Lechner asked the following…
As a devoted reader of your blog, I find myself curious about something you often mention, which is your work as a director of voice actors. Could you please write about how an animation recording session works? (For instance, how long does it take; do you record more than one actor at a time; do you get wildly different versions of the lines, or do you know what you want ahead of time; etc.) I think a lot of your readers would be interested.
It's not all that complicated. First, I cast the show. On The Garfield Show, we have a group of regulars (the folks who do the characters who are in every episode) and the semi-regulars (who voice recurring characters). Since each of these folks can do multiple roles, I can often do an entire episode with just them. We very rarely need anyone new…and actually, one of the toughest parts of my job is dealing with all the actors who are submitted by agents, all the actors I know who call up to see if I have any work, etc. Many of these folks are brilliantly talented and loved but they outnumber the vacancies by at least a hundred-to-one.
There are shows that work in "splits," which means they bring each actor in, one at a time, and record his or her lines. For some reason, most animated features work that way. Some TV shows do but not the ones I direct. We get all the actors into a studio at the same time. The second toughest part of my job is working out that schedule with the agents. The third most difficult is handling all the paperwork and such to get everyone paid promptly. I'm kind of obsessive on that point. When I've edited comic books and had the power to influence the accounting procedures, we always paid everyone within 24 hours of them handing in their work. On The Garfield Show, we pay 48 hours after a recording session and I sometimes have my assistant drive the checks over to the actors' homes or to their agents. I figure: We expect them to be prompt to the recordings so we oughta be prompt with the moola.
The actors convene at the session. I work off a script that contains all the dialogue and all the action. Each actor gets a script with just the dialogue (for everyone) and all the lines are numbered. I assign all the new roles and then explain the plot of the story and how I imagine certain lines being delivered…though I try not to give them too much input up front. It's always interesting to hear what the actors come up with when they aren't trying to read it the way Mark said. If what they invent on their own is good, we use it. If not, I can always give them additional input later. If the show has been properly cast, you have clever performers there and you really want to work this way. Ours often come up with readings and interpretations I would never have imagined.
They're all in a booth. Each actor is at a separate microphone with his or her script pages laid out on a music stand before them. The less they have to touch paper while we're recording, the better because paper makes noise. They all mark their lines and every actor has a unique, personal way of marking a script to indicate which voice goes with which line. Some have little codes to indicate inflections or emphasis on certain words or when to take pauses. Some sit but most prefer to work standing-up so they can put their whole bodies into the performance.
I'm outside the booth, sitting at a console next to the engineer. On my other side is my assistant who will mark the selected "takes." After we get the mikes all adjusted and we're ready to record, I'll say, "Okay, let's try lines 1 through 30" or whatever seems like a healthy run. There is no rehearsal because there's no reason not to record the first time they read the lines. We can always do it again and again.
The engineer records a slate. He'll identify the episode and the date of the session and say, "This is Take #1." Then an actor reads Line 1 and someone reads Line 2 and so on. I may have them do it two or three times or ten or I may use the first take. Between takes, I'll impart whatever comments or suggestions I think will improve things. Whenever I feel we have a good reading of that hunk of lines, I may go back and do pick-ups, meaning we'll redo just certain lines. Once I'm satisfied, I'll turn to my assistant and say, "Okay, let's use 1 through 12 from Take #3, then 13 through 30 from Take #2 but we'll insert the pick-up of line 9 from Take #5 and the pick-ups of lines 22 through 24 from Take #4." She will notate this and the engineer (who takes his own notes as we go along, also) will use his notes and hers to assemble the final version later.
Once we have 1 through 30 done, we'll move on to lines 31 through 55 or whatever…and on until we finish the cartoon. An 11-minute Garfield will have between 90 and 120 lines. That includes dog growls, sounds of snoring, people who go "Oof!" when they fall down, burps…any sort of sound we need an actor to make. Each of those is a line. We hire very good ones and once they get warmed-up, you'd be amazed how swiftly it goes and how often we wind up using first takes. I think I'm the fastest voice director in the business, an achievement that is wholly accomplished by having the right people in the booth. We've been known to record an 11-minute episode of Garfield in 30-45 minutes. Allowing for necessary breaks and occasional technical problems, it usually means we start at 10 AM and have four cartoons done by 2:00 or 2:30. If we try to do much more than that in a day, the energy suffers and the episodes begin to take longer and longer and not sound quite as good. Once in a while, we have to do more but we try to avoid it.
I have an advantage over most voice directors because I'm usually directing scripts I wrote or story-edited so I know the material and probably tailored it for the players. It takes me longer to direct something I didn't write because I have less of a sense for how lines should be delivered. It also takes longer if, as occasionally happens (though not on Garfield), I'm directing actors I didn't select. You develop a rapport with certain performers and a kind of shorthand…and above all, a sense of what you don't need to tell them. You also learn how to maintain a friendly, constructive atmosphere in the studio so no one feels competitive and no one feels embarrassed when they're corrected or asked to do multiple takes. I think the most important thing a director influences is the mood of the session.
And that's really all there is to it. I may or may not be involved later in editing the voice tracks. I don't have to do much of that because I usually work at a studio called Buzzy's Recording and they're phenomenal. The fellow who runs it, Andy Morris, is as sharp and skilled as any engineer in the business. When I've been forced to work at other studios on other shows, the recording takes longer and I have to keep a closer eye on the editing. It's one of the jobs that doesn't feel like work and at the end of every session, everyone's attitude is like, "Oh, playtime is over?"