Misanthropos - A Voice Recording Blog - November 2021

Misanthropos - A Voice Recording Blog November 7th - 10th / 2021

It's hard to believe, sometimes, how long ago we started this journey together. Since our first lot of filming back in Nov 2019 in Portugal, it's been a goodly stretch since we few, we happy few were reunited (sorry, I had to). In addition, in the best possible way... it was like the last 18 months didn't happen. A reunion of old friends, and they all still make me laugh. It was just the loveliest experience.

Now the goal for these three days is to record all the audio for the various scenes we didn’t shoot in Portugal. It was a good opportunity to get us back to the core of our work, which is the voice. Shakespeare, without the language, is pointless; so getting back into a unified rhyme of speech and dialogue was very key. I don't know how others work when doing voice-recording (as physical performance is a moot point, in many ways) but I still had to act a lot of it out, to link myself to the role. Which made my final scene exhausting! I had to cry for ages! I must have looked a right mess.

Obviously, a lot has changed since 2019, and I was thrilled to see Emily has joined the cast. I met Emily (They/Them) on the set of "Last Chancers" back in 2018, and we bonded instantly over our love of Shakespeare.

So to have them join "Misanthropos" was pure joy. Ah, just thinking about it makes me smile; and they were uber-supportive and giving during my long crying scene. Which made me feel great! I really can't express how lucky we are to be in this industry, I get paid to hang out with people I adore and respect; doing what I do best! It's a very special job to be fortunate to have; we're so lucky in this industry when we gel beautifully with our fellow cast and crew. Whether it's a gorgeous Italian dinner with Maximianno, coffee with Martin, a cigarette with [REDACTED] (don't want to get anyone in trouble); I just adore my time together with everyone.

The Recording Studio was immense, several recording areas, that huge recording room through the glass where we can watch others work. It was glorious. Unusually for Voice Recording work we recorded this as a group in the scene, rather than individually. Each actor with our own mic stand and sound pack (strapped round our chest, which helped emphasis my new pecs I built over lockdown, whoop, whoop #vain). Voice Recording work is very... alien to me. I did my best, but I don't see anyone calling me up to narrate their story anytime soon. You can't really move, you need to make sure you're not swaying or tilting your head too much, control your breathing, do not cough; while also embodying the character you've already half filmed. I don't know how I did, I'm sure Maximianno wouldn't have stopped until he was satisfied; but it was a great learning experience for me.

Of course, this cast has a huge range of experience in Voice Recording, for some it was their first time, for others they had done numerous Voice Recording jobs (I know John is a very successful narrator of novels, which kept him very busy over lockdown). To be clear, this is different from post-production post-sync Voice Recording or Voice Over work; where you go back and re-record the script in-line with the words. Here we are recording only lines not yet filmed. Each day we diligently worked our way through the scenes not shot yet, then at lunch we went to a very traditional British pub, that served very traditional Italian food; so yummy yum-yum! Those were pizzas! And before we even got cosy our time was up. It was beautiful to be reunited, but... frustratingly brief. It got you hungry to be back shooting with them all, making art, being awesome. *le sigh* Our time will come, and it will be a glorious end to our Misanthropos journey.