Rob Paulsen- A case study

It would not be unreasonable to state that Rob Paulsen is one of the voice actors that inspired my interest in the field, and certainly one of my idols. As a child of the 90s decade, there were very few cartoons I would watch which Mr Paulsen wasn’t involved in for at least an episode.

Rob Paulsen landed his first credited job as an “additional voice” on The Smurfs (IMDb, date unknown), and was in work consistently from the mid-80s onwards. His personal website lists his most well-known roles as Raphael of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987), the title role of Mighty Max (1993), Arthur in The Tick (1994), both characters of Stanley Ipkiss and The Mask in the animated series of The Mask (1995), Carl Wheezer of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius (2001), Jack Fenton in Danny Phantom (2004), and Bobble in the Tinkerbell DVD series (2008-present). With a career this long-lasting and wide-reaching, Mr Paulsen is an imposing and knowledgeable figure in the voice acting industry.

He was born in Detroit, and raised in Michigan. From an early age, he was an avid fan and player of ice hockey, but soon found that he did not have the skill or temperament to play professionally. So, at the age of eighteen, he decided to dedicate himself to acting and singing, his other passions. It was clearly a wise choice, as he has had a varied and prolific career, with some on camera roles, character voices for animations and video games, and commercial voice-overs all evident on his resume.

Rob Paulsen currently offers one-on-one and group seminar sessions in a bid to raise money for children’s’ and veterans’ charities.

His awards include:

4 nominations and 3 wins- “Annie” awards, voice acting in the field of animation

1 nomination and 1 win- “DVDX” awards, best original song in a DVD premiere movie

2 nominations and 1 win- “Daytime Emmy” awards, outstanding performer in an animated programme

I think, personally, my admiration for Mr Paulsen stems from his tendency to portray particularly talkative characters, displaying a mastery of wrapping his mouth around particularly difficult phrases. My first knowledge of him as a performer came from his role as Yakko Warner in the 1991 cartoon Animaniacs, a particularly good example of Paulsen’s ability to be both wordy and witty. With the pointed yet drawling New York tones of a teenage Groucho Marx, Yakko was supposedly the elder of three ink-blot style cartoons, who used a special brand of music and mayhem to make an entertaining, educational programme. The wordiness of Yakko’s character did not end with witty one-liners and parodies of famous speeches, but extended on into songs that listed the presidents throughout American history, the planets of the solar system, ingredients in ice cream and chocolate bars and, most famously, the countries of the world.

If there are two things Rob Paulsen’s career can teach the aspiring voice actor, they are that commitment, practice and perseverance are invaluable skills, and breath control.

Investing in Awesome

So, I've wanted to be a voice over artist for years. This project is really just the incentive, the push to actually commit to the idea, but I've wanted to do it since I was old enough to realise that it was a job. And now, here I am looking into the field, and it's more than a little scary. It's scary because I'm committing to the realisation of a dream, it's scary because I'm very close to putting myself in a position where I may be told I'm not good enough, and not least of all, it's scary sheerly because of the amount of time and money you have to invest.

It's understandable, primarily. If you want to make good recording, you need good equipment. That's one cost there. Then you can look at online directories like voices.com or piehole.co.uk which, while they seem really helpful and friendly, and are a perfect way into the industry for new voices like myself, don't really come cheap. Free or cheap memberships usually only provide you with the most basic of listings, with very little help or support. Again, it makes sense; a paying customer is more valued to any business, and these directories are, first and foremost, businesses.

The fact that all the expense is completely justifiable almost makes it worse, because it's as if you are saying to yourself "if you truly believe you're good enough at this, you can and will commit. If you believe this could be a profession, paying £64 for an indepth analysis of your voice is a small downpayment to help you along your path". Scary, huh?

Yes, piehole.co.uk is my site of the week for helpful yet scary revelations; they allow you to download or recieve a free copy of their book of tips and advice on technique and ettiquette. This has been amazingly useful, and I'm going to follow up with an adaptation of their plan to help my own developement. Howeer, they also offer, for the price of £64, an in-depth, over the phone analysis of your voice, including advice on where your strengths and weaknesses are, what you should improve and what your next steps should be. A service like this is amazingly tempting, and looking at the site's credentials, I have to say that I would have my utmost trust in them, but the question of price is something that I'm going to have to think about. I'll keep you posted on that one.

In other news, this week I was further inspired by Mr Rob Paulsen, and his amazing podcasts in which he discusses the nature of being a voice actor, along with anecdotes and information on how the job works. The only drawback is that he is of course referring to American voice over, which is mostly geared towards animation for companies such as Warner Brothers, Disney and so on. If I could find a British equivalent, it would be much more helpful, as I knowBbritish voice over to be geared more towards adverts, radio, and only the occasional narration or animation spot.

But, for now, my research continues, as do my dreams.

And so begins a new blog

Hello there. My name is Vikkie Moule, and I have started this blog to help chart my eight month long project:
I aim to become, at least at an amateur level, a voice actor.
Now, I know that it takes far longer than eight months to become a talented or noted actor in the field, but the next eight months of researching and developing my efforts will be charted in order to support my degree (a BA hons in Drama and Theatre Studies). My goals for the next eight months are:

• to check in here at least twice a week with some sort of progress or reseach
• to use my free time to further my understanding and skills in teh field of voice acting
• and to begin amateur projects to help myself towards at least semi-professionalism

So please follow, reblog and help me get the word out there; I am trying to promote myself, in the hopes that I will manage to become, or at least understand, a part of the voice acting world.