Game Night: The VO session

Yesterday I drove over to Editor's studio for a little voice over session. Since it was daylight savings time, the actors were not there at the agreed upon hour, which was cool because that meant Editor and I could make some notes on the existing film and discuss what we wanted out of the voice over session.

The biggest problem is still Former Writing Partner's tendency to look like a wussy face during his manliest moment. He has a gun to his head and he's supposed to push against the gun and tell the other guy aggressively to put the gun down. But in every shot, he's tilted back and the gun presses into his head while he cringes in fear. Even if his voice says "I'm a man now," his face says "please don't hurt me!"

But without that shot of him cringing we get only shots of Lead Actor's arm holding the gun and there's just no tension. And the music in the background is kind of happy, so you're completely certain that nobody is about to get shot.

We were talking about how to fix that, then I realized something. I have no idea if anyone watching thinks he's about to get shot anyway. I wrote this knowing he never gets shot and I directed it knowing that, and I've seen the footage so many times now that my perspective is completely off. At this point I have to take the advice of others on this because I have no idea how the film looks anymore.

So anyway, we did the VO. Lead Actor showed up and had some fun ad libbing a bunch of scenes about how much he wants to have sex and get money. It is really fucking hard not to crack up in the middle of a VO session with that guy.

Chinese Guy who was supposed to VO my Chinese actress' dad did not show up. I can't blame him for not showing because it's not the greatest acting gig ever, but I was kind of pissed that he didn't at least call to let me know he'd changed his mind. Editor said he knows an old Chinese man who can probably do it. We tried using Lead Actor, but it was horrible. Hilarious, but horrible. At one point I volunteered to try it, but Editor nixed it. Too feminine, apparently. Chinese Guy emailed me later and said he'd overslept, so maybe we'll try again.

We also needed one of the girls to do some VO oooohing and ahhhhing over her boyfriend's erection but the actress couldn't make it so I stepped in. Before I got in front of the mic I could imitate her voice perfectly. The second I stepped in front of the mic I suddenly became Candy the porn star with the high pitched voice. This is why I should not be an actress. Still, there were a few usable lines.

So now we're rounding home. Any day now I'll schedule a screening and we'll get this show on the road.