VOICE 2008 - Bob Bergen

Hands down, for me, Bob Bergen's character workshop was THE BEST session of the conference. From start to finish, I couldn't stop taking notes. He just poured into us. Here are just a couple of highlights

He talked about three parts to making up a character:

1) Voice

2) Acting

3) Signature -- what u bring to a character that makes it memorable like Homer's DOH!, Flintstones Yabba dabba doo, Beavis and Butthead's laugh.

Only have 3 characters? How to make those three be thousands simply by taking the signature of one, the voice of another, and the acting choices of anther. Shuffling these three elements can make an arsenal of characters.

Audition difficulties

Let's say you have a script with disjointed lines
Bobs says that is when they are actually looking for acting choices and adjustments
In this situation, there are three things you want to ask yourself

1) Look at the lines as SCENES and handle them as such

2) Who am I talking to

3) What is my relationship to them and where are they physically (are they near, am I whsipering, are they far - so am I yelling at them etc..)

Want more? Bob will be doing workshops across the county. Based on this one hour 15 minute session, I say do it. Pay whatever it costs. You are going to get your money's worth! I learned so much in this session, I was bursting at the seams. I left with PAGES of notes.

His presentation was entertaining, focused, organized, helpful, engaging etc......

I'm making plans now to be able to do another workshop with him before the year is out!

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