voice recording

wow - a week I'll not forget in a hurry.
We recorded all the voices in 3 days and then edited them and stuff in 2.
Just home now. Guts busted- must be the stress! But it was tremendous fun too as Father Ted would say.
Katia, Paul, Fabrice, Nora , Kairen and myself were there for the records.
Then just myself and Nora and Kairen did the editing with the engineer a "sound" guy called John (pun intended heh).
We were in Ardmore sound, Tom Caulfield and Barry O Donoghue called in for some of the sessions, it was good craic overall.

Liam Hourican was really cool as a lot of the extra brothers - particularly leonardo.
The voice he did for Friedrich was so funny I cryed my contact lens out!

Paul Tylac did some great stuff as Assoua as well, very big and booming stuff.

Brendan Gleeson did a great performance on Monday , he really got into the character and asked a lot of questions and found really interesting takes on the lines. He gave the character so much authority. Mick Lally and himself seemed to really get into the parts, acting them out physically as well and with their voices.
Brendan Gleeson is such a big guy it was cool seeing him acting opposite little Evan. He really made the character his own and really made him come alive.

Mick Lally WAS Bro.Aidan, even his mannerisms between takes were very inspiring for the character. He really loosened up the dialogue and was very interested in the character. He even said he did'nt think Bro.Aidan would refer to St.Colmcille as "saint" because he probably knew him! It was a cool little insight that will be bring a subtle depth to the character.
Mick had a bit of a head cold, but we thought it will be a neat thing to bring into the character animation, making him more grounded and "in" the world, I started sketching Bro.Aidan sniffing and sneezing and stuff as Mick did his performance.

As all the actors were roughly the age of their characters and also roughly the same build and so on, it was kinda like seeing a real-life representation of them in front of us.
Fabrice shot soem reference footage which will be fun to use in the animation.

Evan McGuire our 11 year star was really great , and the scenes where he played against Brendan Gleeson and with Mick Lally had me shivering, it was so cool to hear so much life put into the lines we've picked at for so long.

Christen Mooney was really fantastic as Aisling, she was really brilliant, had all her lines off by heart and considering she's only been on the planet since 1998 its amazing the understanding she brought to her character! Nora helped get to some of the trickier lines, and listening to them back today it was really exciting.

It was cool to hear it back like a radio play, but strange too, because characters like Pangur and the vikings and stuff were conspicous in their absense! Its gonna all come together only with the pictures and thats as it should be in animation. Their are parts in the film that the actors really liked, and which i guess could be done in live action but I'm really hoping that overall its gonna be something ONLY acheivable in handdrawn animation.

But with the voice performances in the bag it feels like we are off to a great start.

Tús maith leath na oibre as the man says.

T