Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Mythic Journeys Update: The Cast

Yesterday we held the voice recording sessions for MYTHIC JOURNEYS at LA Studios in Burbank. It was an incredibly exciting day as I got to meet three of my longtime idols, back-to-back-to-back.

First to come in to record his role as the Sorcerer was one of my all-time favorite actors, the brilliant LANCE HENRIKSEN.
He's probably most recognized for playing the role of the "artificial human" Bishop in the movie "ALIENS", which my brother and I saw about 25 times between us when it first came out. When the session began and his deep, resonant voice came thru the speakers everyone in the recording both did a take--you could feel the marrow in your bones vibrate...He completely dove into the material and gave us a chilling performance!

Next to record his role as the King, the incomparable TIM CURRY. This man needs no introduction, and I was completely starstruck the minute he walked in. He settled right into the mood of the piece and gave a powerful performance as the King. Both he, and Lance before him, infused the readings with bits of their own in-the-moment inspiration...I could see the personalities of our characters coming to life...

And finally, in the most challenging role as the Corpse, the incredible MARK HAMILL. Of all the sessions this one really blew me away. The Corpse is an insanely wordy character, and Mark freakin' nailed it. He summoned this unbelievable character out of the most difficult dialog you can imagine. I was sketching key poses for the Corpse while Mark was giving his readings--he was so animated, it was pure gold for character animation. By the time we were done I had so much material and was feeling great about how to approach the movement of the character. Mark was totally into both the mythology side of the project and the stop-mo side. We talked about Ray Harryhausen and Willis O'Brien films--I was in geek heaven.

The day was a blast and it wouldn't have been possible without the genius of our Voice Director, CHARLIE ADLER. If you've seen much animation chances are you've heard Charlie's work. This man is everywhere, both as an actor and a director. Most recently he voiced one of the mechanical characters in the TRANSFORMERS movie, after having been one of the voice actors in the original animated series. Watching him direct the voice sessions was like watching a symphony conductor at work...pure genius. We got so many brilliant takes, which was so important since we only had one day to get everything we needed!

Several animation tests have been done, and the results have been very pleasing. Here's some stills for now; video to come soon....