After writing about a Voice123 job last week that almost went to the Oscars, I had the chance to follow up some more with the lead voice actor in Dolphin: Story of a Dreamer, Robbie Daymond. He agreed to share this information, and we hope you will get some amazing insight out of it!I have come to learn with the many success stories voice talent write to me; they all display an amazing balance of flexibility, talent, and desire to create a work of art, that all voice talent ‘doing it for themselves’ should study:
Executive Name-Calling?
(I played two roles). Carl is the main sidekick in the film, and since Dolphin Films and Fox weren't sure about billing the two main characters as the same actor, they used my Christian name; not my stage name for that character. Random, but funny.
The long and short in 10 Steps!
- The auditions were pretty standard. Just your regular Voice123 job posting; budget undefined, international animation, dubbing from Spanish to English, multi-character ADR project working remotely.
- Open auditions, then direct contact with the producers for callbacks.
- Conversation with director and Bada bing! Hired!
- The original idea was for them to send all of the actors syncing material over the net.
- Then we were to do our own ADR, and send it back for them to mix and match.
- It kind of worked for the smaller parts, but we soon realized it wouldn't for all of the material needed for the main characters.
- So, the director flew myself, and another cast member down to Peru!
- We recorded for two weeks, got an awesome paid vacation and solid pay.
- We thought it was over. No!
- Four months later I got a call from the director, saying that the dude, originally cast as Daniel, needed to be replaced and we needed an English singer for the theme song.
Flexibility & Networking...
- I brought in my friend and old college roommate Steven Booth to redo one of the parts I had done that had a similar sound to Daniel.
- Then I agreed to re-voice the main character as well.
- We did a couple of tests with Fox to make sure they couldn't tell both Carl and Daniel were the same guy!
- A week later I'm back in Peru for 10 days! This time with Steve Booth and Debbie Repashy; an incredibly talented vo artist who did, multiple female voices as well.
- We banged it out, and got a rough mix done less than a week before the 20th Century Fox deadline. Made a lot of friends, did a lot of work.
Reflecting...
- I think the best thing about this was that when we were hired, it was never specifically for the movie itself to be aired or sold. Our voices were being used as a selling tool for the USA and International market. There was no guarantee that it would be us in the final English version. But, we really put our hearts into this little Peruvian Indie film and Fox loved it, and here we are!
- They're using our voices for the DVD. It is also getting a full, North American DVD release.
- It was the #1 box-office film from Peru, all time.
- It was one of the top 20 films being considered for an Oscar last year.
- It all came from just your normal, maybe even "risky-no-budget-might-pass-it-up" type of project on Voice123. Gotta love it, and it goes to show, you never know what could come out of any audition, no matter how small it may look.
Speaking of animation! Webinar!
News came to us today that Voice123 coach Bettye Zoller is offering a webinar this Monday night on voice overs for video games and cartoons!
Click here for more info on how to register!
If you are a voice over coach, and wish to be part of our program, please let us know!
Steven Lowell
Community Development Manager
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