Okay, since the voice track is the next important step we need to take, I thought I'd share some information with all of you. First, Leah has pretty much agreed to do it....she hasn't looked over the script just yet, but she is excited at the idea anyway.
The second part of all of this touches on a subject Matt and I were discussing on the storyboard thread, and that is the process involved to actually record the voices.
Our case may be a little different than what some of you are used to, but serves a couple purposes. First, an explanation of the basic process:
The actor goes into a small room with soundproof walls and windows, and has a microphone, headphones, and music stand. The windows are so the actor can see others in the room. The headphones are so the actor can hear themselves and any instructions from the editor or producer. Finally, they read their dialogue into the microphone, which is run into a soundboard and recorded as a digital file on the computer. These files are broken down into their individual pieces for later use.
Now, in our case, being a small studio, we have to record the VO for TSATG in a very particular way. First, our VO booth is only large enough to comfortably seat 1 person at a time. This means both of us can't be recording lines simultaneously. This is actually not that negative, as I prefer to record dialogue tracks completely separate from each other so there is no overlap. The problem is that without another actor to respond to, lines can sometimes come out sounding a little forced.
The workaround I have set up is actually quite simple. While Leah is recording Nia's lines, I will be in view of the VO booth window, and have a microphone that is only routed to her. She can hear me and act off of me, while my voice never gets recorded. Then we swap spots and re-run the scenes. Yes, it's a workaround, and yes, it will work out just the same.
As we complete each scene, we stop, break the clips down by best take, and save them with a file name and number relevant to the scene and character. This is where I think you might have misunderstood me earlier Matt. We won't be running through the whole thing at once, over and over, rather taking it one scene at a time until we have all scenes recorded to our satisfaction. We record a scene with both actors, complete with any retakes, cut it up, piece it together, then move on. It takes a little longer, but you know what is done is done.
Some interesting things to note: we will have a camera at a slight angle shooting into the VO booth recording each of us speak the lines. This is to help with the lipsync later on
Also, Lorna will be videotaping the session so I can put together a 5 minute behind-the-scenes vid for everyone. Since you can't be here, this is like second-best. Also helping will be Mike (Leah's husband and my longtime friend and coworker) who will be engineering the session, logging the clips, and possibly voicing one of the miners, and Eric, who will be the other miner. Eric is actually great with voices, but most of them are cartoon, so we couldn't put him to better use unfortunately.
ETA for this session is 2-3 weeks by the way. Leah still has to give me the 100% approval, but Mike says she's already wanting to be a part without having read the script yet, so it's pretty likely we're all set. Now we just need a quiet Saturday that all of us are available.
