Delenn's original voice

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Delenn was originally intended to start off as a male character, as seen in the Babylon 5 pilot "The Gathering." However, before the pilot aired, it was decided to make the character female because changing Mira Furlan's voice proved to be difficult.

However, I just found this old commercial/promo for the pilot with a clip of the original altered, masculine voice. See it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1bNZ7zeRkw&feature=channel_page

 

[Gov Kodos]

It was a good choice to change it to Mira's own voice. I imagine they might have been concerned with having to have other Minbari voices have a similar throaty trill as that sound effect created otherwise she'd have sounded radically different from Lenier and the others, moreso than just a different accent. Thanks for the link.

 

[Praetor]

Wait.

So Delenn would undergo a sex change before marrying Sinclair as well as her other metamorphoses?

 

[Stevil2001]

^ Yup, the chrysalis would have changed her sex and her species.

 

[Praetor]

Wow. On the one hand, that would have been cool. On the other, I'm not sure it would have gone over that well with some people.

 

[Brent]

She sounded like a Goa'uld

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

As much as I like female Delenn, I thought it would have been interesting had JMS kept the character male with the more masculine makeup and with Mira's natural voice. It may have made Delenn all that more alien.

But Mira's electronically altered voice is just... well... different.

 

[Christopher]

It's not a different voice or a "synthesizer voice." Synthesizing means creating something new from basic elements -- a synthesized voice is a from-scratch electronic creation that resembles a human voice but doesn't originate in a human larynx. This was a real human voice, recognizably Mira Furlan's, recorded and reprocessed to sound deeper. As Brent observed, it's basically the same technique used to create Goa'uld voices (or to create Asgard voices, except there they raised the pitch of male voices and lowered the pitch of female voices to make them both sound androgynous). And is similar to the technique used to create Visitor voices in the V miniseries, although in that case the deepened component was overlapped with the normal voice to give it a dual quality. And there are plenty of other examples in SF of the same technique being used on alien voices. If anything, I imagine they dropped it for Delenn simply because it's such a cliche.

 

[Jan]

And there are plenty of other examples in SF of the same technique being used on alien voices. If anything, I imagine they dropped it for Delenn simply because it's such a cliche.

How many of them were around before 1992? I don't think it was a cliche' back when 'The Gathering' was made.

This is what JMS said about dropping the altered voice before the pilot aired:

Well, hmm....I guess I can come out with this now. As you know, it was our plan to go for a very androgynous Delenn _ a male voice (which was to be computer/electronically altered), female mannerisms, and a very ambiguous makeup. We've now gone through about every possible electronic alteration, and frankly, none of them sound as convincing as I'd like. Many of them sound *okay*, but we've taken a hard and fast position on this show that "okay" is simply not sufficient.

So we've decided to leave Delenn female, with the performer's original
voice intact and unaltered. Interestingly enough, when the performance was shown at Wishcon and LosCon, the audience responded very positively to her natural voice, urging that it be left alone. Which is now what we're going to do.

jms

I'm glad to see this. There've been folks convinced that they'd seen Delenn-as-male back in the first broadcast of the pilot but JMS had always said that it was dropped before airing. Nice to know that they weren't hallucinating. I'm glad it was dropped, though.

Jan

 

[Christopher]

And there are plenty of other examples in SF of the same technique being used on alien voices. If anything, I imagine they dropped it for Delenn simply because it's such a cliche.

How many of them were around before 1992? I don't think it was a cliche' back when 'The Gathering' was made.

The technology has been around for decades, both to raise and lower voices. See Star Trek: "The Lights of Zetar," when Mira Romaine is possessed and speaks in an artifically deepened voice. In the other direction, the Keeper's voice in "The Menagerie," which some mistakenly assume is Vic Perrin, is actually Malachi Throne's original voice performance in "The Cage" electronically altered to sound higher (because Throne was playing a different character in the frame sequence of "The Menagerie").

And of course the V miniseries I mentioned were made in 1983-4.

I'm glad to see this. There've been folks convinced that they'd seen Delenn-as-male back in the first broadcast of the pilot but JMS had always said that it was dropped before airing. Nice to know that they weren't hallucinating. I'm glad it was dropped, though.

Well, her makeup in the pilot gave her a more masculine appearance, but she definitely spoke with her natural voice in the original airing of "The Gathering." JMS was right, and those people are misremembering. Remember, the clip linked to above isn't from the actual broadcast, it's from a making-of promotional segment that preceded its airing. As JMS said, the decision to drop the voice processing was made very shortly before the premiere date, so any clips made available to the media before then would've had the processed voice.

 

[Harvey]

I think the idea was interesting, but it's obvious that the technology didn't exist to make it work if they wanted to match it with male Minbari voices. Does the technology even exist now?

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

And there are plenty of other examples in SF of the same technique being used on alien voices. If anything, I imagine they dropped it for Delenn simply because it's such a cliche.

How many of them were around before 1992? I don't think it was a cliche' back when 'The Gathering' was made.

As pointed out, the use of actresses to portray male aliens is a cliche; as is the voice alteration. However, the twist in JMS's original intention was that Delenn would also be transgendered. IIRC, JMS claimed he/she would've been the first MtF (male-to-female*) on televised SF-TV.


*Actual transgender terminology for a male who transitions into a female through sexual reassignment surgery. Of course, Delenn would've been considered Post-Op, not Pre-Op. Then again, the chrysalis wasn't surgical... so... okay, now my woolgathering is getting outta hand.

 

[Technobuilder]

^I remember seeing the original version of "The Gathering" way back when and Delenn's voice was decidedly different as I recall, but I don't remember if that was just a combination of the drastically different makeup and Mira's performance or if it was actually altered. She may've just been talking really low.

 

[Christopher]

I think the idea was interesting, but it's obvious that the technology didn't exist to make it work if they wanted to match it with male Minbari voices. Does the technology even exist now?

Yes -- it's called dubbing over the original voice with a male actor.

There are some basic differences between the timbres of male and female voices, so a pitch-lowered female voice doesn't sound male and a pitch-raised male voice doesn't sound female. If you want a male voice, you hire a male actor. At most, processing can make a voice sound strange and androgynous, which is okay for aliens.

^I remember seeing the original version of "The Gathering" way back when and Delenn's voice was decidedly different as I recall, but I don't remember if that was just a combination of the drastically different makeup and Mira's performance or if it was actually altered. She may've just been talking really low.

Well, as it happens, I still have a VHS tape of what I'm fairly sure was the original broadcast, or at least the first rerun of the original version of "The Gathering." And Furlan's voice isn't altered in any way. Maybe her delivery is a bit more "mannish," but not in terms of lower pitch -- more in terms of being harder-edged, less emotional, that sort of thing. As for the makeup, it definitely has a masculine look to it.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Well, as it happens, I still have a VHS tape of what I'm fairly sure was the original broadcast, or at least the first rerun of the original version of "The Gathering." And Furlan's voice isn't altered in any way. Maybe her delivery is a bit more "mannish," but not in terms of lower pitch -- more in terms of being harder-edged, less emotional, that sort of thing. As for the makeup, it definitely has a masculine look to it.

I too have a VHS copy, taped the very night B5 premiered on Los Angeles' KCOP-TV Ch. 13, in the garage somewhere and I remember it always being Mira Furlan's natural voice. I am 100% certain of this because I reviewed the pilot for my high school paper and taped it to do so; watching it several times.

Christopher is right in his deduction about Furlan's delivery. In interviews and promos for "The Gathering," particularly E! Behind The Scenes, which I also had on VHS tape, Furlan stated flatly that she was playing a male character.

Moreover, I've watched the original edit over and over again because there are elements of it I like more than the "special edition," particularly Stewart Copeland's score.

You can view the original version of "The Gathering" on hulu.com or download it on iTunes, and it is the same version that was broadcast in 1993 -- Mira's voice and all, including the alien petting zoo scene... I mean Alien Sector.

 

[Stevil2001]

Yes -- it's called dubbing over the original voice with a male actor.

There are some basic differences between the timbres of male and female voices, so a pitch-lowered female voice doesn't sound male and a pitch-raised male voice doesn't sound female. If you want a male voice, you hire a male actor. At most, processing can make a voice sound strange and androgynous, which is okay for aliens.

The Dead Zone once had an episode with a female character who was passing as male (or maybe vice versa, it's been a while), and s/he was played by a female actor. There was one scene where a shadowy figure met with someone, and "his" voice was so obviously a woman's voice pitched down that it totally gave the game away.