I was watching the new Hulu ad with Seth MacFarlan. Is it me or does his "normal voice" sounds more fake then the voices he does for Family Guy. Its a creepy mixture of "Movie Phone Guy" voice and "John Wayne" voice.
Seth MacFarlans voice...
- Thread starter Tom Hendricks
- Start date
The ad isn't really MacFarlane's "normal" voice anyway; it's a performance as (a version of) himself, like the other Hulu ads and a lot of celebrity cameos. MacFarlane's casual conversational voice is like what he uses in the ad but less exaggerated.
Listening to the commentary tracks on the Family Guy DVDs, Seth's voice actually sounds like Brian's.
This is true.
I do remember thinking that.
I remember a DVD interview with McFarlane where he's explaining the inspiration for all the voices he does on Family Guy. When he gets to Brian he simply says something like "Brian's voice is my actual voice."
To me, all his voices sound the same anyhow. Yes, he can vary his timbre, but his delivery -- cadence, intonation, attitude, personality -- is always exactly the same, no matter what character he's playing or what emotion he's supposedly conveying. In short, he can't act worth a damn. It gets very tiresome very quickly.
*ha,ha,haa,haaa!a*When you exercise your vocal cords a lot you get a 'radio voice'.
/// used to be a newscaster. Mine did the same when I was announcing.
/// used to be a newscaster. Mine did the same when I was announcing.
I've met local radio people in person before and they almost always sound very different than they do on the radio, so that makes sense.
MeanJoePhaser
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He shouldn't do those commercials. He's damaging the illusion of those character. Voice actors should limit being seeing doing character voices. MacFarlane does it so much that it cheapens things. I think, anyway.
That's ridiculous. It's been decades since there's been any kind of segregation between "voice actors" and screen actors. There are many actors who do both. Most of the cast members of The Simpsons had established on-camera careers beforehand (since many were members of the repertory company of The Tracy Ullmann Show), and still do. Look at any given American animated show of the past 20 years and you'll find plenty of "voice actors" who are also well-known for their on-camera work -- Mark Hamill, Ron Perlman, Michael Dorn, Kate Mulgrew, George Takei, David Warner, John Rhys-Davies, Phil LaMarr, Nicole Sullivan, Lauren Tom, Ed Asner, Roscoe Lee Browne, Olivia d'Abo, etc. And those are just people who make a regular career of voice work, not even counting the many, many more celebrities who have done occasional animation roles in films and TV.
Even so, during the first year or so of the Simpsons, Nancy Cartwright, voice of Bart Simpson, was prohibited from doing interviews "in character" as not to spoil the illusion.
^Which is entirely different from saying that actors who do voice work should be forbidden to appear on camera in any role.
And no one said that.
(emphasis mine)
That means "doing the voices of their characters on camera," not appearing on camera at all.
I don't agree with that sentiment, personally, but it's not at all the argument you've taken it as.
Have you EVER heard her REAL voice? I have, to my shock there was NO differance!
Well, the grammar of that sentence is so messy that I couldn't be sure what it was saying. I read it as "voice actors should limit themselves to doing voices."
Personally, I like putting live-action faces to the voices I hear in animation. I don't think it destroys the illusion, because it's not like I ever believed that a bunch of moving drawings was actually generating its own voice. I enjoy seeing behind the scenes, and I love getting to see animation actors doing their character voices. I've seen glimpses of it on Futurama and Justice League DVDs and the like, but I'd love to see a feature that shows you the recording session for an entire animated episode or movie.
(And it doesn't hurt that some major talents in voice acting -- such as Tara Strong, Jennifer Hale, and Maria Canals -- are really hot. If anything, it's a shame they don't show their lovely faces on camera more. On the other hand, maybe that's why they went into voice acting -- because they're not typecast by their looks.)
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