On shows like the Simpsons, when one actor does two voices and they two voices are talking to each other, how exactly does this happen. Do they read the lines seperately and splice them together. Or does the actor basically talk to each other in different voices.
What is the SD?
This would most commonly happen with Harry Shearer when he’s doing Burns and Smithers. Shearer has a local radio show called “Le Show” and he often changes between voices quite easily.
The Simpsons tries to record all of its voices at once with the voice actors trying to match up to the animation. I would imagine that it’s not too hard to switch back and forth for a pro like Shearer. If it turns out that it doesn’t sound right, they could go back and re-record the voices.
This is just a guess on my part.
The voice actor basically does both sides of the dialogue switching voices. For Cartoon Network’s “Cow and Chicken”, for instance, this means long stretches of Charlie Adler sitting there talking to himself, since Adler does “Cow”, “Chicken” and “The Red Guy”. I imagine they might do some limited overdubbing if the script called for two of the characters done by one voice actor to be talking at once, but if you listen to the track on most cartoons, you’ll note that’s rare.
Are you sure? That’s somewhat unusual. As I understand it, the voices are usually done first, from the storyboard, so that the animators can match the animation up to the soundtrack.
Depending on the ability of the voice actor, s/he may either records multiple character voices in one session, or else do them separately and have them edited together. I think the second way is most common. After all, the sound editor is already mixing together the separate voice tracks of the other actors.
In all animation the voices are always recorded first and the pictures are drawn to match the voicetrack (usually several months later).
That is correct. I misremembered an article I read about “The Simpsons.”
The unusual thing about their soundtrack is that almost all of the voices are recorded with all the voice actors present in the studio, so they can interact with each other.
This is different from many animated feature films where each actor records his or her track separately when time is available.
I should also remembered the line from the episode where the ill-fated character of Poochie was added to Itchy & Scratchy.
Homer asked why they were recording the voices before the animation was done.
June Foray responded, in effect, “Most cartoons are prerecorded. Live cartoons put a terrible strain on the animators’ wrists.”