I Know That Voice

Seeing the face behind the voice of my favourite animated characters is something I've always been curious about. It's great fun to YouTube for voice acting in motion. Watching The Simpsons cast appearance on Inside The Actor's Studio when I was younger was pure magic and I've watched my DVDs of Futurama with the commentaries on several times. Fortunately both shows feature heavily in the documentary with Bender's John DiMaggio being a heavyweight presence here. There's two things that I Know That Voice wants to emphasise. A, it's a craft no less than live action acting. And B, it's way more fun. Gathering a great assortment of voice actors with names you'd recognise from the credits of the cartoons if not the faces, the way the film is brought together gives it a wonderful sense of camaraderie.

However, sometimes it can lead to it feeling like they're simply stroking their own and other's egos but the humility of some of the interviewees shines through. It is disappointing that it lacks an enormous amount of archive footage to show the voices in action. They do it often on camera, sometimes to an irritating extent, and you just wish they would provide examples. Oh well, perhaps the rights would cost an extortionate amount. They do great things with their limited budget here but it does suffer from overeager editing with a pacing that so afraid of us being bored that it instead exhausts our attention. I wouldn't say I learned much about voice actors or gained more respect than I already had, but it was fun and interesting.

7/10

This is a terrific 70-minute documentary that goes on for 90 minutes. A huge cast of exceptional voice talent tells how they got to do what they do, why they like doing what they do, why they do and don't get the recognition they deserve, and other green room stories. Each and every interview is compelling and informative in and of itself, but after about an hour the aggregate doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Although the filmmakers have broken the continuity into subject areas and the online editors have done a gorgeous job creating transitions and effects that add to the storytelling, one comes away from "I Know That Voice" knowing what it's like to be a voice actor, but not how a voice actor does her or his job. The film doesn't show it. A major off-putting stylistic decision was having the interviewer sit so far off eye-line axis that the viewer feels excluded from the conversation rather than brought into it. This is a loving tribute to unsung people, pleasant but not memorable.

I've always said that if my plan to become a writer ever failed, I had a plan b: voice acting. And I'm a fan girl who pays attention to the credits to know the names of my favorites--Jim Cummings, Grey DeLisle, Clancy Brown--and I'm happy to say they are all interviewed for this film. Voice actor John DiMaggio takes us behind the scenes of his life interspersed with a history lesson about voice acting. Getting to go behind the scenes with DiMaggio for the final "Penguins of Madagascar" episode was fun and fascinating, as well as his appearance at San Diego's Comic Con. However, I felt the film could have interviewed more actors than they did (Rob Paulsen, for example) rather than spending most of its time devoted to the filmmaker's world. Overall, a great film for fans of the art of voice acting.

I have always been a lover of animation and voices. I remember being in the playground and practicing voices from shows. Then one day I realised that somebody actually has to do that as a job. They don't just generate voices from a computer or record random stuff. Someone has to perform a character to bring that character and show to life. That was when I began my fascination with voice actors. This documentary was so lovely to watch. It was wonderful to hear the people behind so many of my childhood heroes, (and villains), talk about their careers and experiences. The film covered some great topics from Daddy of all VO Mel Blanc to how video games are becoming the next big thing in Voice acting. It was so nice to hear how genuine and humble these incredibly talented people are. I suppose I would have liked to have seen more from certain actors, but you can only do so much in one documentary. It would be incredible if this was picked up and turned into a show, similar to Voice Actor Rob Paulson's podcast "Talkin' Toons" which is also excellent. A fantastic watch for anyone interested not only in Voice acting but also acting in general and filmmaking.

One thing I really enjoyed about this show is the nostalgia. This show will make you think about the shows you watched when you were a child, doesn't matter what age. It is fascinating to see what these voice actors do and see what shows and video games they work on. It is very interesting.

When it showed the voice actors, it would say a different show every time it shows the voice actor. So it is interesting to see what else they work on.

I do wish this documentary had even sections though. The movie will spend maybe 10 minutes talking about one thing and then maybe 5 minutes talking about another. It would have been better if they were all even. It would have made the movie a bit longer, but I see nothing wrong with that. Another thing is that they really never showed any clips whenever they talked about their work. So sometimes I would have to look up a clip to get a better understanding of what they were talking about.

Despite those complaints, this is a fun documentary that shows the voices of our beloved cartoons. It isn't anything that would have been Academy Award worthy, but I Know That Voice is a great documentary that people will enjoy watching.