Now! Voice! This!
What is this?
The Now! Voice! This! tournament invites voice actors of all backgrounds to join a friendly competition where you are given a prompt and a time constraint, and asked to submit a voiceover related to the prompt. It was created by Chuck Huber, the original voice of Android 17 in Dragon Ball Z’s English dub, Hiei in Yu-Yu Hakusho’s English dub, and countless other beloved characters. It’s an awesome opportunity to practice your craft, and since it’s a rather popular event, it’s a great opportunity to get a lot of ears on your voice. There’s no denying the allure of internet points and bragging rights and so I dared to register for the eighth installment of the event. Cut to - making it to the finals on my first try?! It’s been a wonderful experience so far. Here, I’ve set out to chronicle my entries and how I landed on each one (for all 2 of you that care).
Round 1: Give voice to your favorite gif/meme (10s or less)
Off to the races! This was a great first prompt, as it pretty much guaranteed a comedic take from every entry. At the same time, I was immediately aware of a small problem. Memes are often born of pop culture events, so it’s challenging to create them from scratch. And good ones that a lot of people relate to are even more of a finite resource. With the amount of people competing in the first round, there were bound to be duplicates and the last thing I wanted to do was be pitted against someone who did a “better” version of what I did. So my solution was to be as early as possible and at least be the first to do my particular thing. This early submission panic would become a theme throughout the rest of the rounds for me. For those unfamiliar, the Patrick Ceiling meme is a picture of Patrick Star from the Spongebob Squarepants cartoon (and apparently his own show now?), looking down menacingly at something. The picture is usually coupled with a caption describing some nefarious, but ultimately, relatable and funny thing.
Round 2: Tongue Twisters (20s or less)
This one was interesting. Tongue twisters are inherently vocal so it was a great prompt. But a tongue twister on its own is kind of…meh. The theatre kid in me was desperate for something dramatic and exciting for the 2nd round and I wouldn’t be satisfied with just a tongue twister, obscure or not. But thankfully, the theatre kid in me also had a rolodex of patter songs that could apply to the prompt. Enter: Not Getting Married Today. It’s from a Sondheim musical called Company, about a man struggling with his relationship to relationships and marriage. One of his friends is having cold feet on the day of her wedding, and the resulting anxiety and paranoia gives us this number. Miraculously, a good cut from the song fit the time limit. But then there was the matter of visuals. Knowing how funny this song is on stage, I wanted to make sure I could translate a similar experience with my entry. Once more, the universe provided; I had recently seen a TikTok video from another voice actor utilizing a hilarious filter of a woman dramatically running through her Victorian mansion, bustle and all. It was perfect, and resulted in my most popular entry!
Round 3: Let’s Make Some Magic! (20s or less)
At this point, I’d done two comedic entries, and was ready to go in a more dramatic direction. This prompt was bound to invoke a lot of whimsical, fantastical responses, so stepping away from that vibe felt a like a good way to stand out and show my acting range. With those limitations in mind, I came up with the tense moment between two friends, one of whom is not feeling so good. If you’ve never played Dungeons & Dragons, there is a spellcaster you can play called the Wild Magic Sorcerer. They often have to roll dice for some kind of random effect to happen, because they have a hard time controlling their magic. (Get it? Wild Magic? heh.) One of those effects is a fireball explosion right where you stand. These moments are often hilarious at the table, so shifting it a bit darker was fun to do. This also allowed me to play around with multiple characters in the same scene, a great voice acting exercise for differentiating voices.
Semifinals: Urban Legends! (40s or less)
I think I second guessed myself the most in this round. I was once again feeling this instinct to not do what was expected, a literal urban legend. But was what I came up with a little too off course? My instincts had steered me right so far, so I just went for it. One of the first things that came to mind when reading the prompt was: “This sounds like a superhero’s name”. So from there it was a matter of deciding how to tell their story. What felt right was a Batman-esque monologue where he’s talking to someone about how he came to be. That, in itself, was a slight urban legend story about an attempted suicide. I didn’t mention this outright in the entry, but I imagine some listeners caught on. The cityscape ambiance and dramatic music at the end really helped paint the picture, and the image overlooking all the buildings gave a great sense of being on a rooftop, watching over the hustle and bustle below. As much as I was unsure about it, I think this one might be my favorite.
Finals: All the World’s a Stage! (1min or less)
With a whole minute to spare, and only a pool of 25 participants at this point, I wasn’t feeling that pressure to get it done quickly anymore. Though I did still put this together about a day and a half after the prompt was announced. What can I say, when I’m focused I’m focused. The main thing I wanted to accomplish here was utilizing as wide a range of my talents as possible, while still telling a compelling story. The thought process was this: The first thing that came to mind was multiple scenes in multiple locations across the world. This will let me play with different accents. Great. Let’s make them action scenes for an exciting entry. This will let me play around with efforts (I love efforts). What characters would exist in these actions scenes? Spies. Awesome. Give one of them an accent as well. How do we get to all these scenes in a minute? Flashbacks. They’re reminiscing about past missions while on a date. Concept complete. At that point it was a matter of scripting the restaurant conversation and having fun with all the characters I was including. Let me tell you, it was very difficult finding a suitable sound effect for a table falling over with plates and glasses. But the end result was oh so satisfying.
So here we are. At the time of writing this, we’re still in the middle of judging the final round. Fingers crossed for good news, of course, but I honestly had such a good time coming up with each entry, which is the whole point, right? My Sagittarius brain needed me to explain everything I did, so if you’ve read this far, thanks for indulging in all of that with me. Til next time!