Celebrity Demo-- what do you think?

Ruben Castillo · **Voice Talent** Joined: 29 Sep 2006 Posts: 4

Hey everyone,

I decided to do a demo of all the celebrity voices I perform and I thought it would be neat to do a "reading" with all of them together.

Please let me know what you think.

I'm really interested in your thoughts and comments.

Thanks

Ruben

Lucas Nugent · **Voice Talent** Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 131

Hey Rueben,
Overrall pretty good! Here's what I thought worked:

James Mason (although I'm not really sure who this is, I think I recognized the voice, and either way the character was there for sure. Good stuff)

Antonio Bandaras (really good!)

Sean Connery (although I'd tone down the "sh"'s a bit. You've got his tone of voice down, no need to caricature)

Al Pacino (needs a bit of work though. But it's almost there)

Evlis was pretty good.

I'd stay away from Arnie and Stallone. Everyone and their mom does those and if you can't do it DEAD ON, it falls by the wayside. Same goes for Brando.

Good stuff man!

Scott Pollak · Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008, 17:58 (GMT) Post subject:

Ruben,

Gotta agree with Lucas. Overall this is fun, clever and moderately well done. Some are stronger than others. I thought your Schwarzenegger was weak. James Mason may be so past our time that you'll find a hard time finding someone who recognizes it. However, throughout this I kept hearing a voice that could EASILY have morphed into Christopher Lloyd, so you may want to work on adding that to your repertoire.

Don't think your Harvey Firestein was your strongest either, and here again you have a celeb that really isn't very well-known and certainly seldom called upon to be impersonated.

Brando... kind of weak. Connery: good.
I didn't realize that was Pacino til I looked. I thought it was Russel Crowe! LOL

This is worth a watch:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=nc3LWxa8GKw

Craig Crumpton · **Voice Talent** Joined: 10 Mar 2008 Posts: 58

Ditto what Lucas and Scott said. Some of your better impressions just need a little tweaking--a little more definition and distinction to be spot-on. Your James Mason is very nice, but dated. Connery and Banderas were great. But I wonder if your voice is actually low enough to do Harvey Firestein or Sly Stallone.

I wouldn't put even an exact voicematch of Firestein on a demo because the voice requires so much sand and salt, if you know what I'm sayin'. The placement and technique needed to pull off that impression is so harsh on your vocal folds that if you did ever book a VO gig doing it, you could risk losing your voice in the process of recording.

On doing Arnold... I recommend watching him in "Kindergarten Cop"--it's an ideal balance of action Ah-nold, comedic Ah-nold, and dramatic Ah-nold all in one tidy package. "Total Recall" is also great for studying the art of the Ah-nold impression. I saw him doing an interview for "Collateral Damage" once and he couldn't pronounce "Collateral"--I laughed my @$$ off.

Also, on Brando...I almost missed this one on the demo. It needed a little something to make it more distinct. Something I see (or hear) much too often is that people think they're doing a Brando impression when they're actually doing an impression of a Brando character: The Godfather. I only do a Godfather impression, so I can't offer any suggestions on Brando films to watch to really nail the impression since I've never had the desire to study Brando's acting style in other films.

Nice presentation overall, clever and entertaining to listen to. I do a similar sketch as part of my stand-up routine of various celebrities auditioning for a movie. If I can find my disc of one of my performances, I'll post it up on YouTube so you can critique me. Cool

Scott Pollak · Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008, 11:41 (GMT) Post subject:

James Lorenz · **Voice Talent** Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 254

Not bad Ruben -

Some were very good (Mason, Connery) some not as much (Arnold, Stallone) but the acting was good.
One bit of advice I got recently was that you don't want a demo like this to tell a story. Each clip should have it's own unique mix, tones, music, etc. so it has the appearance of actual work.
Good stuff though, you definately have the talent.

Best of luck!

Ruben Castillo · **Voice Talent** Joined: 29 Sep 2006 Posts: 4

Thanks so much for your input fellas.

Scott: Yes, that's a Christopher Lloyd voice you hear on there in the chaotic sections...I recorded it and didn't care for it that much so I replaced it with Stallone. However, I'm recording another demo with other Celeb voices on it and will include it there. And thank you for the Frank Caliendo video...he was a big influence on me doing Pacino.

Craig: No, not Kindergarten Cop!! Yes, it was more of a caricature of Arnold and thank you for your insight. I will check out Total Recall to give it a better shot! Stallone works better for me when I train my voice to go deeper (I'm a natural bari-tenor), so I do need to strengthen my deeper voice to achieve this.

James: I was thinking of giving them their own little blurbs and bits, but I thought a "poem" would be a bit more fun. But I think it was a little too long. But thank you for your advice!

Lucas: Dude, there's no extra "e" in my name. I'm a person of Latin descent, not a sandwich! But thanks so much for your insight.

I'm working on a cartoon demo right now...do you feel that there are any past popular knowledge?

One other thing. I'm concerned about the quality of the demo...was there any sound problems or recording problems that you noticed? I'm trying to make this area as sound proof as possible.