[SPEAKER_02]: Hi, I'm Paul Knauer with Crooked Stories Theatre, so we sent down to record a 45-minute actors roundtable for you this weekend and ended up with nearly two hours of discussion.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've decided to go ahead and run the full discussion, but we're going to release it in three parts over the next several days.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll remind you that very soon we're releasing our next projects, starting with a narrated short called Papers, followed by a comedy short alien press conference.
[SPEAKER_02]: Today, we bring you part one of
[SPEAKER_02]: I welcome everybody to Cricket Stories Theatre.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're doing something a little bit different tonight.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to do a bit of an actor's round table where we'll be discussing devils do, which by the way is now available for binging, as well as the business of voice acting.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I hope to give you just a little bit of an insight peek into both of those worlds.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do have one word of warning for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're listening tonight's discussion, we're almost certainly going to contain story spoilers.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you haven't yet listened to all eight episodes, you might want to hit pause on this one and finish the series out before you come back.
[SPEAKER_02]: So joining me tonight, we have most of the cast and crew of Devil's Doos season one.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Paul Knauer, executive producer, writer and director.
[SPEAKER_02]: We also have Justin Cook, who is an executive audio producer, composer, the guy responsible for the sound design on the entire series.
[SPEAKER_02]: and we're joined by most of our great team of actors from Devil Zoo.
[SPEAKER_02]: So tonight we've got Jason Burroughs, Jack Parker, Olivia Swad, Matt Candelario, Ralph Duke, Jared Griffiths, Steve Parker, all joining us tonight.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're going to hear from everyone of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you can kind of take note because every single one of these actors is going to be on future projects with us too.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we hope that one of the things you get out of tonight's discussion is kind of learning a little bit about the personality of our actors on the on the different projects.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you can kind of track them as we go as we go forward.
[SPEAKER_02]: So first of all, hello, everybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jason, Justin, Jared, Ralph, Steve, Olivia, everybody.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for joining us.
[SPEAKER_03]: As you go on, thanks, Paul.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just in one of the kind of start with you, if we could, we just finished up episode eight, and I wanted to see if you had anything that you wanted to share in terms of your experience on episode eight that maybe the people who have just finished listening to it, anything that you want them to listen to specifically, anything you want them to notice specifically.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I'll start with me, okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think, well, right, whatever.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, don't get no worse.
[SPEAKER_04]: What a journey.
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, you know, episode eight and the leading up from every single episode up to eight is so important to nail eight, the feel, the emotion and capturing what the story wants to invoke through audio only.
[SPEAKER_04]: So there's a lot of
[SPEAKER_04]: pressure and anticipation to try and meet those expectations from an audio standpoint, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: So for me, just feeding off the voice actors first of all, everybody did such an amazing job.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, amazing job.
[SPEAKER_04]: It makes my life an job a lot easier when the voice actors can really convey the emotion, the impact, just the overall feel I'm able to just
[SPEAKER_04]: you know, utilize that piggyback off of it and it really does help me create the music.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, everyone has a hand in helping out with the music, or just from your voice, acting alone.
[SPEAKER_04]: And uh, uh, for episode 8 specifically, yeah, it was all about the build up.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was all about meeting the expectation that episode 1 through 7 has led up to.
[SPEAKER_04]: a lot of pressure to make sure that expectation is met too and so you know we're really you've raised in the bar meeting you know the climax the the final episode and uh yeah there was some challenges with it with with trying to make sure we get the feel and just as a musician making sure that you know I'll worry each episode
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I like I went episode the next episode, man, how can I keep raising the bar?
[SPEAKER_04]: How can I keep fighting that climax when you're a songwriter?
[SPEAKER_04]: You got to one minute to five minutes when you're doing this stuff.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is, you know, an hour's with the audio.
[SPEAKER_04]: So you've got to make sure you tie back to each episode.
[SPEAKER_04]: You try to circle back.
[SPEAKER_04]: You try to, um, audience cues when you're doing the sound design and sound effects.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're still trying to have familiarity, but also keep it fresh.
[SPEAKER_04]: Fun stuff.
[SPEAKER_04]: I tried to save a little bit for episode eight as well.
[SPEAKER_04]: I make sure as I'm doing these episodes.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, okay, I'm going to save that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to save that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hmm, what if I do that now and then I can double up on it later as double the impact over us.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe a certain voice act moment, things like that.
[SPEAKER_04]: So not episode eight was a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't have anything else to add with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know I was talking with Jason earlier this week and he didn't realize and I pointed out to him that some of the characters have specific sound cues and a specific sound profiles that we built for them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you talk just a little bit about that process?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: So when looking at
[SPEAKER_04]: And first, when we start a devil's do in the concept, you know, as sound design and musician looking at this, I want each character or character group to have a certain sound and that helps in a book of feel, you know, I wanted to have like this more earthly, more just rooted feel, so I felt, you know, in acoustic guitar might would most benefit him.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, with Nathan too, kind of, you know, that with the whole,
[SPEAKER_04]: characters one and two, I kind of wanted him to have that guitar too, but it's not the same guitar.
[SPEAKER_04]: They each have a different personality with a guitar that tries to express each character's ambitions slightly.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm loosely, but overall trying to approach that method.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, banjo for some of the side, I want to say side characters, but especially some of the characters, the start, maybe to kind of help build the ambience of the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, a lot of times you went to banjo on the kind of the lighter moments.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Dirk and Marvin, correct.
[SPEAKER_02]: And any time you hear Matt Candilario, you're going to hear a little bit of banjo in the background.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ralph Duke, I think we used a little bit on, did you use banjo on James?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm trying to, no, that was harmonica.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we used harmonica on James.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Olivia was had piano notes, and anytime Rachel came, came out of the screen or was mentioned flexion.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not a lot of times, but you'd hear that piano in the background.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then on the preacher, we did, you did a little bit of an accordion kind of a style.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the profiles for the preacher.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, this is a preacher had a lot of elements going on with it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Definitely accordion, the accordion kind of helped lighten it up just a little, but you always don't want so dark and in your face.
[SPEAKER_04]: And in fact, I believe in rises and falls.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I wanted the preacher to have the accordion going on.
[SPEAKER_04]: I also built the special little effect with the preacher.
[SPEAKER_04]: It has like an organ, obviously, it's like a sound design ambience, but also I had a synth going into a guitar amp and kind of, that's something like a dramatic, very vigorous, very
[SPEAKER_04]: very dissonant style of of melody associate with the preacher and you got to filter it in it's very powerful sometimes overwhelming too.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a lesson learned and learning curve.
[SPEAKER_04]: I had to face too with the music and usually if bands and stuff you can push the music here but
[SPEAKER_04]: Here you have to let the world sit in, music sits with the world and the voice actors must carry the story.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's all about being delicate with adding those effects.
[SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, so a lot of fun throughout all the characters.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm sure I missed a few, I had so many instruments in every episode.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I had over 100 tracks.
[SPEAKER_04]: Reach one up and be an overall guitar for a Walt and Nathan.
[SPEAKER_04]: The preacher had the organ, the accordion, and that cool synth effect.
[SPEAKER_04]: And piano for Rachel, Banjo, violin viola helped carry the ambience throughout the world too.
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, Lava Scotto on the orchestra too for some of those hunting or traveling moments.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so one of the things I want to talk about tonight is kind of just about the project overall, so kind of backing up just a little bit, kind of gave everybody a little bit of an idea of how this came together, the very first conversation I had on this project was with Steve Parker in a barbecue restaurant in Kansas City here, and I told him what I wanted to do and Steve was your reaction, actually, that kind of gave me a little juice to go ahead
[SPEAKER_00]: Really, I thought I remember saying, you're out of your mind, this will never work.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's what I was sitting there thinking, I'm out of my mind, this will never work.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you were the first person that I put the idea in front of, and just the fact that you just kind of lean forward just a little bit, and you're like, I don't know if you remember what you said, you were just like, I want to be involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was like, yeah, that was that was something that really if I made real quick just and and yeah, I turned the camera on didn't want to be the only Fuddy that wouldn't turn his camera on like a big baby.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I turned it on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just I don't I need Jason's he obviously does this a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: The lighting there is very impressive with the red and the blue and everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just you know, I'm just in a basin with one light over me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Paul and I for the back for you other guys that don't know obviously Jack knows this Paul baby sat Jack That's how far that's how we go back back turns 29 and May we don't have to play late Nathan Jack or Paul and I have been friends for 30 years and
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen a lot of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know a lot of the stuff that Paul has worked on prior to this.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's been doing this for a long long time and I knew if there was anything I could do to help him push this forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: I definitely wanted to be a part of it because I know he's pretty talented at this as you guys now know and so yeah anything if he was if he was going to do it I wanted to be part of it for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: But for those who know Steve is you're one of our first time actors on this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know you've you've done some light acting outside of this, but this is your your first voice work.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have what 30 years experience in broadcasting.
[SPEAKER_00]: 40.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't mean to short you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm the Steve is one of the most talented broadcasters I have ever worked with.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is just absolutely an amazing talent.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I want to imagine trying to do something like this is quite different than broadcasting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yes and no, um, it's why I will be honest.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a little reluctant to be part of this thing tonight because Paul said, you know, one of the actors to get together and I'm like, well, I didn't act really.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, well, yeah, you kind of did, um, you know, my role was different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I had the most dialogue of anybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just basically me, you know, I maybe tweak the voice a hair, but because because I had so much dialogue, I didn't do it probably most of you did.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know Jack did send him multiple takes of each line.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he and Justin could, you know, pick out the best.
[SPEAKER_00]: They just got the whole thing one time.
[SPEAKER_00]: But
[SPEAKER_00]: By doing that, I recorded my part of the episode one four times before Paul was completely satisfied with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I knew, and I told him, I said, that's fine, because I'm sorry, but can you do this?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, hey, this is your vision.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to be what you want.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so once we kind of nailed it, I started off with a very straight, just dry narration, boys.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, there's a reason I called it the storyteller and not the narrator.
[SPEAKER_00]: He goes, imagine yourself sitting around to campfire, telling this story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I really truly, in my mind, kind of thought that way when I did it, and that's when I finally hit the style and the pace and everything that he wanted.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I remember just him telling, imagine you're sitting around a campfire telling the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, you're not a narrator, you're the storyteller.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, that's finally hidden, but I mean, yeah, it was my wasn't doing a voice like a lot of you guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I was like, you go around, I hear the different regular speaking voices.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even remember who played who other than Jason and O.J.s.
[SPEAKER_00]: was walled.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, it was it was different.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't that much different than what I've done.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was really glad to be part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I hope I get an opportunity to do maybe some acting in future projects because I feel I can do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm I'm pretty sure Paul will give me a shot at it anyway.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I don't know how nice you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, I'm rambling here and
[SPEAKER_00]: I just knew if Paul wanted to be part of it, Paul was going to do something and he needed somebody, I wanted to be part of it, and I know Jack did too, Jack is, and he can talk from self-later, but Jack's really a fan of voice actors, and he's, for those of you that don't know, Jack lives in Japan.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, it's trying to get that all done with him over there, but Jack really really wanted to be part of it too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I appreciate Paul getting this in this and, man, to be admit, you guys are all fantastic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to later on when you guys are all at chance, I want to talk about, I think, the super star of this whole project, and that's Justin.
[SPEAKER_00]: My goodness.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for saying that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please.
[SPEAKER_03]: Please go ahead because if you didn't I was going to go ahead.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he is the superstar of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, just he made it live.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the I heard I love the the bit that he and Paul put up with the two of them talking about it and I I thought
[SPEAKER_00]: that he probably did all the sounds, but then I found out for sure that everything you hear, he produced, unbelievable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything's original.
[SPEAKER_00]: And before we're done just and I'm telling you, I want to hear, they're coming to find you live.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to hear one before you guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can hear that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, uh, and again, I'll let somebody else talk, but it's been great to be part of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm looking forward to the
[SPEAKER_00]: I really do, and I'm absolutely, if he was going to do something and ask me, I couldn't say yes fast enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very important to me, and it was always, always was from the very beginning, but the deeper I've gotten into this, I'm feeling this more, even more strongly, I really want to provide opportunity for people who may not necessarily have opportunities
[SPEAKER_02]: in front of them, for me as a writer, I'm trying to break through, I'm trying to create some opportunity here for myself, and I want to do that for other people as well, so like Steve and Jack, you guys were the two obvious for me, and you both have talked about wanting to get into voice acting, I wasn't going to do this unless I could create some small opportunity for you guys by doing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I want to extend that to other people too.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have a great mix in devils do of experienced voice actors and also first timers or people who haven't done it for very long.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I love having that mix in the team.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so as we go forward, that's one of the things I want to continue to do is to continue to pull in people who want to break through and maybe can't find those opportunities in other places.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I want to put them with people like
[SPEAKER_02]: like Jason and Jared and you guys Harry Dyer's another guy, you know, the people that really have been doing this for a while and really know what they're doing and they're just kind of watch Jack is a great example and we'll talk about this a little bit later to watch how Jack
[SPEAKER_02]: how you grew from episode one to episode seven, or actually episode six is when I really just felt this tremendous breakthrough.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was super fun to watch.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I want to say that the second person I took first person I talked to was Steve and he gave me the the energy to to continue and the second person I've talked to was Justin because I knew there was no way that I could do a project like this without somebody like Justin and
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't even know when I called Justin, I didn't know how good a call that was, that was good to turn out to be, but yeah, that was really fortuitous.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the third point, so I started talking Justin, I realized that this was possible, and then the third kind of gate for me to go through was to try and find whether there was talent out there that would be willing to come on to a
[SPEAKER_02]: And we did a lot of casting.
[SPEAKER_02]: We opened up auditions on a site called casting call club.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as the auditions started to come in, I knew that we were going to be able to find talent, but I still wasn't sure whether or not we were going to be able to pull the project off on this high level.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I ran into Jason Burrows.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was clicking through demos on that website and I found the demo for Jason Burroughs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Jason didn't audition for the part, but I listened to his demo and I was like, I have to get this guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so Jason, I don't know if you want to talk about what it was like when that email pinged into your box, I know what it's like from my side as I immediately realized there was gonna be some convincing to be done.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, thanks.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was a fun, that was a fun exchange, you know, when I get
[SPEAKER_03]: oh my goodness how do you put this when there are so many opportunities to be scammed or taken advantage of as a voice actor yeah I was hoping you were gonna talk about this aspect yeah yeah yeah when you get when you get a direct message through casting call club about a project that you didn't audition for or something like that
[SPEAKER_03]: very often it's someone's very first professional anything they've ever done in my experience or they're very young, very inexperienced, not a great writer and I'd able to find the right talent, maybe you know, we won't talk about rates or anything like that, but usually it's not a great situation for the voice actor.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're getting contacted directly on casting call club,
[SPEAKER_03]: If you ever get directed, direct email through your email for something, there's a lot of opportunities for scams there as well, with voice clones and all, you know, things like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: All the worries with AI, which I won't even get into, that's neither here nor there.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just didn't know, honestly, what to expect, but I said, no, this, let me read through this.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a little bit longer invitation than I normally get.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or rather rather yeah, I'm worthy.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, no, but you're right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, you're you're a writer.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you would be right.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you wrote.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was worried where he has a broadcaster too.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, you wrote a script for me and I read it.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, no.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I read it and I gave it some thought and I'm trying to remember the timeline.
[SPEAKER_03]: Did I respond directly to you like soon or yes?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was true.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was the whole thing went pretty quickly.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think over the course there's just even a couple of hours.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I feel like we exchanged discord information and funny funny story.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was actually taking a bath when we spoke the same way it's over discord and I know you would it I wanted to save it for something like this and I'm reading I said okay I'm relaxed let me read through everything.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and I just read what you had to say and you seem sincere, you know, and most of the times that's what I'm looking for is sincerity, you seem like a professional that want to do do a real work, a real creative work, and put some real time and some real effort into it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And most of the times those are not the invitations that I'm seeing over casting call club.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I knew it was
[SPEAKER_03]: going to be different.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then when we actually spoke over the phone, man, that first call, I think I was on a gig somewhere, but I was able to pull away and talk for a bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think two hours later, we got off that call.
[SPEAKER_02]: Have we had a conversation that's less than two hours long?
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know that we have every time we get on the call on a phone, it's for a long period of time.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that told me right away, we're going to be able to work together.
[SPEAKER_03]: Honestly, it's just your your personality or rapport.
[SPEAKER_03]: You sent me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think some of the script at some point when I started reading through it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, Oh, this is actually good.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm glad I didn't sign up for something that's not going to be good.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I cannot please take a moment and direct this right back to Justin, because I really want to make obviously you're an amazing writer.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I want to make sure Justin gets his flowers on this one like coming from an engineer, standpoint, and from a sound designer, standpoint.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've not done a project, the length of what this one is that he is taken on, and I can speak from experience.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I know what kind of hours you're putting in, brother.
[SPEAKER_03]: You are doing the dog on thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, if no other point there in this anyone says a resounding thank you you're going to get it for me and I feel like I speak for everyone else on here in saying thank you Justin like you put your heart and your soul into this and it shows every bit of it man.
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_04]: I really appreciate that so much.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fantastic job brother.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah thank you so much for that yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I had Steve, I knew I had Jack, I knew I had Justin, and at that moment then I realized now I've got Jason, and Jason, you sent me a sample of, and this is what just locked it in for me, you're like, this is what I think Walt sounds like, and you just kind of laid out just you weren't reading script or anything like that, you were just like, this is what the character sounds like.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I heard that, you sent that by text and I played it and I just looked at my wife and I was like, oh my goodness, we have to have Jason and when you said yes, that was like for me that was that was we're actually going to do this, you know what I mean it was like that's when I realized not only were we going to be able to do the show, but it was going to be of a certain quality.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that for me was a huge, huge moment.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then little did I know that you were also going to drop what three other names on me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you said Paul, you got to talk to Jared.
[SPEAKER_02]: You got to talk to Harry Dyer.
[SPEAKER_02]: You got to talk to Ralph Duke, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that the whole list of, of, I believe it is, so that was in mind that work.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So not only did you elevate the wall character, but then you elevated half of the rest of the story world.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we got super lucky on casting call club and Matt Kendalario, Olivia Swad,
[SPEAKER_02]: Trying to think who else we got.
[SPEAKER_02]: We got Drew Chris Chris had the preacher.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wish he was on with us tonight because He was a huge part of the success of the project But he he just was you know another guy that was like I knew if we didn't walt You know sorry Steve, but I know if we didn't have walt covered and if we didn't have the preacher covered that the that the the project wasn't gonna work
[SPEAKER_02]: But I knew what I had and Steve too.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I knew the storyteller was going to be just fine, but yeah, Jared reached out to you and and I actually think well, I think I just sent an invitation to you for you to audition is that is that how you got involved.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Jason and I had Ralph also, we all worked together on a video game, how last year, and so Jason actually hit me on Discord.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, hey, we got this project that's on cast and call club.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a Western, would you be interested in auditioning?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I checked it out, and I was like, yeah, sure, let's give it a go.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, that's kind of how that happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's pretty much Jason pulled out the Rolex and my name came up,
[SPEAKER_02]: That was, you know, for two of this for us, and as you, I don't know, as the character Solomon, when I first started writing that character, I didn't realize how big of a character he was going to be in terms of the project.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then just as the story started to,
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... develop Solomon just became a bigger and bigger and bigger bigger part of the story and then it turns out in the end uh... that the entire story kind of revolves around Solomon so uh... that was really interesting because you bring this quality to the part that's like this and everybody can hear it this just like soft in control your your voice is like so soothing you know someone's like i was want you to do some sleep stories for us you know
[SPEAKER_02]: But you brought that to the character and it ended up really working, I think, to my advantage as a writer, because then for the story to turn on you in such a dramatic way, I feel like your voice almost set the audience up for that turn.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was setting me up for it, and I had no idea, right, until the last couple of episodes, then you start seeing this happen, and I was like, wait a minute, what's going on here?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you find out that he wasn't such a nice guy after all.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed that little twist at the end there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really enjoyed that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So one of the things I want to get out of this conversation tonight is talking a little bit about the voice acting, the world of voice acting, and you and Jason had a couple of really emotional scenes through the course of the series, and then also you and Olivia, both had a scene that was fairly emotional.
[SPEAKER_02]: off of somebody or another character when you're not in the room with that because the way we did it I don't know how you guys can tell me how other people do it but the way we did it was you literally just here's the script and then you everybody sent me a file of just their lines.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that the normal process for it or how does how would it generally work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nine times out of ten.
[SPEAKER_01]: that's how it's going to work.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are some productions that will do a full cast or a partial cast.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that works really well too, but it's trying to get a bunch of voice actors together at the same time as sort of like hurting cats.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not easy and extremely challenging.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can make it happen great, but otherwise, I think if you do this for a while, it becomes a lot easier to
[SPEAKER_01]: put yourself in a situation, and then use your imagination, and you get pretty good at kind of assuming or anticipating what the other actor is going to do in that situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so even though we're not together, I think especially with Devils do everybody put together a great performance, even though we weren't in the same room.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just a matter of getting to the point where
[SPEAKER_01]: you have a good idea of or a good understanding of what's happening and then you're able to just think about what the other actor is going to say and then react to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So is it easier than like for you like doing the episode seven versus episode three?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it easier for you because you've now you've heard the other actors or not?
[SPEAKER_01]: how we jactor is is taking the role and how they're going to deliver those lines, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So so the more you listen to them, the more capable you're going to be whenever you're reacting to that imaginary situation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know the specifically the scene that I keep thinking of the poker scene that is in the episode five maybe between you and between Solomon and Walt.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I could say when I was adding in that, you know, because the first thing would do is you guys would give me your lines in a file and I would generally with multiple takes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would pick out the, the take that I wanted to use and then I would put it into the mix and then I just go through each line of the script and just put it in order and and so I'm trying to build a feeling for a scene and there's one line in that in that scene that like for me was the key to the, to the entire scene and that was the farm wall.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't you don't you dare say money when they're talking about how what he's going to give him and return for the and you came back with the farm wall and the way you said it like set the tone for the entire scene and so I went back and I was almost editing backwards from that point leading up to that moment.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know how you did it, but you you just you absolutely nailed the perfect emotion and feeling for that for that scene and it to me it just made the entire scene.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that was, I think the poker scene was one of my favorite to do in the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It just gave me so many opportunities to, to kind of throw in little bits of improv or to, like when you have a lot going on in a scene, you know, you're holding cards, there's during a, whatever kind of bar environment or wherever you're at, you're playing cards, there's things happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you're being very candid in the conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was able to bring a lot of that,
[SPEAKER_01]: to that scene.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it also helps that I'm giving you multiple takes, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I can think about how Jason is going to say that line as a vault.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I can give you a few varieties.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, and then the hope there is that one of those hits in that case, you know, it works perfectly.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the random sample of what it takes sounds like from
[SPEAKER_01]: Come on, Walt, killed, I'll come on, Walt, killed, I'll come off it, Walt, you didn't kill him, come off it, Walt, you didn't kill him, I'll come off it, Walt, killed.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I just pulled that because I wanted to kind of give the audience an example of what I hear as a director and the types of choices that I'm having to make.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when you're doing, like you take that line, what is your goal?
[SPEAKER_02]: In that case, you gave me four different takes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you want each take to have a different emotional impact?
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want it to hit a little different, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of times the emotion, I've got a range where I want to be in for that response, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you go too far off of what you're trying to do there, then it gets a little at pointless, because you're not going to use that take.
[SPEAKER_01]: So really, it's just about putting yourself in that scene and then reacting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I try not to think whenever I'm doing this, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So sometimes you'll hear a couple of takes that may be
[SPEAKER_01]: a little too similar.
[SPEAKER_01]: But generally speaking, I really just want to put myself in that scenario in that situation and then I want to deliver those lines with as little thought as possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want to focus on how I'm feeling.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I want to be in that moment and I want to deliver that line and I want to give you a few different deliveries, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd say the line, I reset
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm in a parallel universe.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm thinking about how I'm feeling and then I give you another take on it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I might be a little more frustrated or sometimes I might be a little more playful, but I really wanna kinda keep to a certain range emotionally whenever I'm doing that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I really wanted to pull a series of your takes from episode seven, but I really like I couldn't do it because you must have been in a different little bit of a different mood when you recorded that day because that day every third take you gave me was just a string of curse words.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, you decided, like, Solomon was really upset that day or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I just, I might have been in a mood.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but by the time I got to the end of that file, I was laughing so hard because you would give me, like, you'd give me, like, two takes that were just normal Solomon.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the third take would just be just like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
[SPEAKER_02]: options.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess you felt like Solomon and really the character what it things were ramping on Solomon by episode seven.
[SPEAKER_02]: So maybe you just felt like the pressure was building on him and it was getting to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, right, right, right, you know, that's that's definitely part of it, right, just to give give that side of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, even if it's not necessarily going to be used, it's just there as an option, just in case, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do that a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll leave I have some just in case takes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for joining us for Part 1 of the Devil's Do Actors Roundtable, Part 2 and 3 drop early next week, and then it's on to our next projects, papers, and Alien Press Conference.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see you again soon.