VAM 134 | Interview with Anjali Bhimani, Part 1
Welcome to episode 134 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
Welcome to first part of my interview with theater, on-camera and voice actress, Anjali Bhimani! You may know Anjali from her performances in TV shows like Modern Family, where she played Nina Patel, and the recently released series Alex, Inc. where she plays the character Joya. Anjali started working in theater in such famous touring productions as Metamorphoses which began at the Looking Glass Theater in Chicago and eventually went to Broadway in New York City, and Bombay Dreams which also had a Broadway production run. However, for my podcast audience, Anjali is probably most familiar for her voice acting work as Symmetra in the hit game, Overwatch. Anjali is not only a talented actor, singer and dancer, but she also runs a YouTube channel called “I am Fun Size” where she shares her life wisdom and experience. I was fortunate enough to be a guest on her YouTube series and I’m honored to have her with me here on the Voice Acting Mastery podcast!
In this episode, Anjali and I begin our discussion by talking about how she began her study of acting. She was a very industrious and studious young girl and while she had a passion for performing, it wasn’t until she was in high school that she realized that acting could be an actual career path. Once she made that discovery, she did her best to learn everything she could about creating and sustaining an acting career. Her early accomplishments are a case study in how successful one can be when intense preparation meets artistic opportunity. Anjali applied herself diligently to her craft so that when acting opportunities arose for her, she was able to capitalize on them effectively. However, even with so much good fortune, she quickly learned that she couldn’t rest on her laurels. She realized that no matter how successful she may have been at first, she still had to hustle in order to maintain her acting career.
Anjali has an infectious enthusiasm that I’m sure you’ll hear in our interview and I am eager to share her insights with you! So without further ado, here’s Anjali!
If you’d like to check out her YouTube series, please visit her
Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #134 Here (MP3)
VAM 133 | Interview with Eliza Jane Schneider, Part 3
Welcome to episode 133 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
Welcome to the second part of my interview with voice actor and dialect expert, Eliza Jane Schneider! You may be familiar with her work voicing almost all of the female characters on the animated series South Park in the years between 1999 and 2003. Eliza and I have also been in a number of projects together including Diablo III where I played the Male Wizard and she played the Female Necromancer, and also the Pirates of the Caribbean video games where I voice match Orlando Bloom to play Will Turner while she voice matches Keira Knightly to play Elizabeth Swann.
In addition to her many acting accomplishments, Eliza is incredibly dedicated to the study and mastery of English language dialects. She is a highly sought after accent coach and I’m very happy to have her on the podcast to share her insight and expertise with all my listeners!
In the previous episode, Eliza explained the unique techniques she has developed to master dialects and accents. As we wrap up our time together, Eliza talks about how to approach mastering the emotional component of performing with an accent. She also shares her tongue placement system to help dial in the specific sound of certain vowel substitutions. We end the interview with Eliza’s advice to aspiring voice actors, which includes the reality of how little time voice over performers actually have to give a believable and compelling performance once they’re in the booth. It’s a sobering but honest take on the challenges of working in the voice over industry. I think you’ll find Eliza’s candor and expertise very helpful, so let’s get started!
If you would like to learn more about Eliza’s dialect training, please visit her website at:
Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #133 Here (MP3)
VAM 132 | Interview with Eliza Jane Schneider, Part 2
Welcome to episode 132 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
Welcome to the second part of my interview with voice actor and dialect expert, Eliza Jane Schneider! You may be familiar with her work voicing almost all of the female characters on the animated series South Park in the years between 1999 and 2003. Eliza and I have also been in a number of projects together including Diablo III where I played the Male Wizard and she played the Female Necromancer, and also the Pirates of the Caribbean video games where I voice match Orlando Bloom to play Will Turner while she voice matches Keira Knightly to play Elizabeth Swann.
In addition to her many acting accomplishments, Eliza is incredibly dedicated to the study and mastery of English language dialects. She is a highly sought after accent coach and I’m very happy to have her on the podcast to share her insight and expertise with all my listeners!
In the previous episode, Eliza told us how she broke into the entertainment industry, first as an on-camera actress, and later as a voice actress. In this segment of our interview, we discuss her dialect work and how her music training as a young girl helped inform her technique for mastering different accents. Her ability to hear fine nuances in how people pronounce their words has allowed her to create her own unique way of teaching accents to performers. In fact, in this episode she puts me through my paces and helps me improve my own Australian accent! I think you’ll find her insight as enlightening as I did!
If you would like to learn more about Eliza’s dialect training, please visit her website at:
Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #132 Here (MP3)
VAM 131 | Interview with Eliza Jane Schneider, Part 1
Welcome to episode 131 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
Welcome to first part of my interview with voice actor and dialect expert, Eliza Jane Schneider! You may remember in my previous interview with Zach Hanks how he mentioned how much he appreciated Eliza’s comprehensive dialect classes. Based on Zach’s comments, I thought it would be apropos to have Eliza on the podcast to speak with us! Eliza has an amazingly long and diverse acting career. She started very young as an actress in both school and community theaters. She parlayed her theatrical experience into on-camera acting jobs in college and eventually into voice acting. She’s probably most famous for portraying almost all of the female characters on the animated series South Park in the years between 1999 and 2003. More recently she’s the voice of Agent Rama in the Agents of Mayhem video game, she’s played numerous characters in the animated series Sanjay and Craig, and she’s also in the animated series Breadwinners playing the Tooth Fairy. In addition, Eliza and I have also been in a number of projects together including Diablo III where I played the Male Wizard and she played the Female Necromancer, and also the Pirates of the Caribbean video games where I voice match Orlando Bloom to play Will Turner while she voice matches Keira Knightly to play Elizabeth Swann.
In addition to her many acting accomplishments, Eliza is incredibly dedicated to the study and mastery of English language dialects. While she was still in college, she bought an ambulance and travelled around the country recording people speaking in their native accents. She’s turned many of these interviews into one-woman theater performances where she reenacts her interview subjects on stage. She also studied with Robert Easton, a master of dialects who was once dubbed the Henry Higgins of Hollywood for his ability to train actors. Eliza has taken everything she’s learned from Robert and created her own unique approach to dialects and accents. I’m very happy to have her on the podcast to share her insight and expertise with all my listeners!
In this first episode, we explore how Eliza broke into the entertainment industry. We discuss her desire to be an actress from a very young age and how her experiences in the theater helped shape her approach to acting. It’s amazing how resourceful and ambitious she was in her efforts to tell stories and perform. I think my listeners can learn a lot about tenacity from hearing Eliza’s story!
If you would like to learn more about Eliza’s dialect training, please visit her website at:
Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #131 Here (MP3)
VAM 130 | Interview with Zach Hanks, Part 3
Welcome to episode 130 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
Welcome to the third and final part of my interview with voice actor, director and teacher, Zach Hanks! You may be familiar with his performances as Garnac in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Morgan and Custis Pendleton in the video game Dishonored and Lars Halford in the game Brutal Legend.
Not only is Zach a voice actor, but he’s also worked as both a voice director and casting director on multiple video game projects. In addition, Zach has taught voice acting as a professor at the Stephen F. Austin State University in Eastern Texas. He currently resides in Atlanta where he is continuing to pursue his own voice over career in addition to founding the Voice Over Career Launch Pad, a service that helps voice over artists learn the skills they need to become business-savvy professionals in the industry.
In the previous episode, we explored major turning points in Zach’s varied career and the very practical lessons he learned from each of them. As we conclude our time together, Zach and I discuss his experience as a college professor and the most common mistakes that students tended to make in his acting classes. The time Zach spent working with those students helped him shape his current education program, the Voice Over Career Launch Pad. Zach observed that around the country there were many fine voice performance classes taught by very reputable teachers. Where he saw a lack of education was for voice actors who wanted to develop the technical and business skills that they needed to be competent and reliable in the voice over marketplace. Zach’s experiences as an actor, director, and professor give him a unique understanding of what it takes to help people get their voice over careers up and running as quickly as possible. But I’ll let Zach tell you more about all of those topics himself.
Zach’s Facebook Group: Voice Over Career Launch Pad
Zach’s Auto-Scheduler: Schedule an Online Meeting with Zach Hanks
Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #130 Here (MP3)
VAM 129 | Interview with Zach Hanks, Part 2
Welcome to episode 129 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
Welcome to the second part of my interview with voice actor, director and teacher, Zach Hanks! You may be familiar with his performances as Garnac in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Morgan and Custis Pendleton in the video game Dishonored and Lars Halford in the game Brutal Legend.
Not only is Zach a voice actor, but he’s also worked as both a voice director and casting director on multiple video game projects. In addition, Zach has taught voice acting as a professor at the Stephen F. Austin State University in Eastern Texas. He currently resides in Atlanta where he is continuing to pursue his own voice over career in addition to founding the Voice Over Career Launch Pad, a service that helps voice over artists learn the skills they need to become business-savvy professionals in the industry.
Last time, during the first part of our interview, we discussed Zach’s journey through voice acting from his earliest days starting as an actor, through becoming a casting director, a voice director, a college professor, and finally moving to Atlanta to continue his career. It was an amazing journey with plenty of twists and turns! Every challenge that Zach faced taught him so much about himself and about the industry. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you listen to the previous episode before continuing with this one.
In this second part of our interview, we delve deeper into the different turning points of Zach’s career. I ask Zach to elaborate on the lessons he learned from each of these influential experiences and how he applied them to creating his own unique voice acting journey. He’s got some wonderful out of the box thinking that I’m eager to share with you, as well as some tough love about what it takes to be truly successful! So let’s dive in!
Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #129 Here (MP3)