Rand Unwrapped (7 page)

The term
walla
originated back during the golden age of radio (1930's and 1940's) that was all performed live. It certain live radio scenes when the sound of a crowd was needed, the actors softly murmured the sound
“walla, walla walla”
to create the auditory illusion that it was a crowd of people talking. To the radio audiences of the day, it sounded like the mumbling of a crowd. In animation,
walla
s are those group scenes where several characters are making sounds all at once. It can be a simple crowd sounds observing an event, animals stampeding through a forest or a group of bumble bees flying out of a hive. Whatever the sound, it is recorded as a group sound and often needs no sync other than a beginning and ending time code. In such group settings, if one character's physical actions pop out from the rest of the group, that character is usually done separately from the rest. It could be a character waving and calling out, jumping up and down or just doing something different than the group as a whole. Those character tracks are treated as a
bit
, are recorded separately and then blended together with the rest in the mix later on. Other times, a director may ask that a character who pops out be hit “on the fly” within the general
walla
take. They might say, “When the group of school kids gets off the bus, there is one in the center waving his hand. Put something specific there.” What the director wants is a line to cover a specific action within the take as a whole. When the character is seen within the take, I yell out “Hey, wait for me!” The action is covered. However, most of the time these types of actions are covered as separate
bits.
Also, it should be noted, that the voice actor improvises most of these types of walla bits. A director may give you a specific line to say, but most of the time you just make it up on the spot.

So, my first season of
Robotech
was doing many of these bit characters and
walla
scenes. One character that stands out in my mind from Season #2 was an episode called
False Start,
I played one of the
Robotech
officers. I had a few
bit
lines and a few
walla
scenes in that episode but really was just a background character within the framework of the episode that dealt with Dana having us do all sorts of military drills. So my
Robotech
adventure started slowly playing smaller
bit
characters and
walla.
But that all was about to change.

“We musta missed a turn somewhere?”

- Episode 9 – The Genesis Pit

Performing voices for an animated series is not the same in any way shape or form to a regular job. With a regular job, you go to the same place every day at the same time and leave usually at the same time. In the past, most of the animated projects I worked on were in one to three hour segments mostly during the day. In addition, you often work alone with the director and sound engineer without the other actors.
Robotech
was the same as any other project except that it worked almost around the clock. This was due to the delivery requirements of the series and that Intersound had other projects in production at the same time. I was often was called in to work at night and more often than not had a start time of midnight or later. I used to make myself a large chrome thermos of chamomile tea with a screw top for a cup to get me through those night sessions. It was weird getting up and going to do voice work at that time of night. As I drove there, it seemed as if the whole world was either asleep or ending the day as I was just beginning mine. That sensation changed, as I would turn onto Sunset Boulevard. Now, the Sunset Strip, which I had to drive on to get to Intersound, was a much different story. The street was filled with cars, neon billboards and people walking. There was a kind of trendy nightclub disco right next to Intersound called
Nicky Blairs.
It was actually owned by an actor named Nicky Blair who, back then, referred to himself as “the most well-known unknown” because he had been in over eighty or so movies and about a hundred television shows but the only thing he was really well known for was owning a string of restaurants where the rich and famous hung out. As I walked up toward the front door of the Intersound, I could see the limos dropping off celebrities and paparazzi taking their pictures. The only thing that separated
Nicky Blairs
from Intersound was that one slim driveway that sloped downward toward the parking lot at the back of the studio. One night as I walked by, the veteran actor Tony Curtis came running out to a to a limousine and a flurry of camera flashes and on another evening a guy that looked a lot like Mick Jagger stumbled into a waiting car. But don't take my word, it was late at night and it could have been anyone. Case in point, one night about 2:00 AM, I also saw a guy that looked a lot like Elvis swagger out the front door. You know the older Elvis, with the rhinestone jumpsuit and I thought to myself, I must really be tired because at that time Elvis had been dead for almost a decade. What would have been really funny or strange is if I saw a Yellow Dancer come running out the door into a waiting limousine. Then I would know I'd have to stop drinking that Chamomile tea and get more sleep. Today,
Nicky Blairs
is just a faded memory of the wild and tumultuous eighties. I think that building is now an office building on Sunset Boulevard and may still have a restaurant on the site. But it is a far cry from that way it was then when it was one of those “A” list Hollywood spots that was one driveway and a universe away from
Robotech
.

This intense production schedule applied to everyone involved in the series including the writers, directors, post-production folks as well as the voice actors. When you're working under such boiler room conditions there were often times when, shall I say, tempers flared a bit in the studio. These flare ups would happen for lots of reasons mostly though because we were all very tired. However with that said, I am a firm believer in the
creative process and that artists in a collaborative effort should be courteous with one another. But no matter how tired we were we always found time to find a bit of joy in the work. As I said before, working with Steve Kramer and Greg Snegoff, I never worked so hard at getting it right but also had a great time doing it. The creative process in any artistic endeavor is a complicated one of the inspiration, trial and error in order to achieve a desired creative goal. To further complicate the matter, film and television are collaborative ventures that rely on the creative contribution of many people. Often you have many diverse points of view coming together along with fair amount of fatigue and frustration. When that happens, the only thing you have is your craft as an artist and civility toward on another. You have to believe that everyone is trying to do the best they can and get the best possible result. However, when all that goes out the window and you are not treated with a fair amount of respect that would be due another person, then you have to as I think Rocky Balboa once said, “You gotta do what you gotta do…” And so anyone that has ever worked with me, (in and out of
Robotech
) got to know if they treated me badly or in a way that one human being should not treat another, I was not going to accept it. You might be thinking what does that mean?

I have been privileged to work with talented directors the likes of Greg Snegoff, Bob Barren, Steve Kramer and Mike Reynolds and many others during the run of the series. However, there were some (a few) directors who worked on the show, that were not as committed to the series or creative process. Either they just were not into it or had other psychological or physical issues going on in their lives at the time we made the series. I will leave them nameless. However, one night around 2:00 AM, I was working with one of those directors. The session (as it always was with this person) was difficult. He was usually
wired, edgy
, ill tempered and often screamed at the top of his voice and threw things around in the studio. During recording sessions, he often took breaks in the men's bathroom and returned to the studio more
“wired”
and
“edgy”
than when he left. To say, I didn't like working with him was an understatement. On this night, he was extremely erratic and when he returned from one of his many bathroom breaks, he began to get physically violent. He threw something across the studio then slammed his fist down on wooden stand that held the script because the sound engineer didn't cue up the portion of the script he wanted. Then, he turned his anger toward me and got real close to my face yelled at the top of his lungs and slammed his fist again on the stand which held the script. I had enough ranting from him for one night. I quietly told him that he was
“done”
for the evening then
extracted
him from the studio. I finished my lines with the engineer (without incident) and went home. I wish I could remember which episode we were recording. I don't regret my actions that night and if we went back in time, I would do it all over again only I would add the Thomas Paine quote
“Lead, follow, or get out of the way.”
to whatever explicative phrases I may have shared with him on the way out the door. In his case, he needed to get out of the way so we could finish what we were trying to do.

I want to confess that I had then and still have now within my genetic makeup a propensity to be a
scrapper
. I grew up in an Italian family was from New York. Two strikes against me and really the
scrapper
part of me I get from my mom. She was the type of person who would not be afraid to tell you what she thought and would defend herself and family if anyone tried to hurt them. I had that instilled in me as a young New York Italian child. I will talk about this in more detail later but I will tell you a short story
of something that happened to me as a young Italian child of about seven. Every Sunday, my uncle would take my cousins and me to church and after Mass I was required to attend Sunday Catechism. These Catechism classes were taught by the nuns at Saint Catherine's of Siena Church in Franklin Square, the Long Island town I grew up in. These nuns were a tough bunch to say the least dressed in black and white habits, which covered their bodies completely except for a small hole in the front where their face popped out. They were strict and had little patience for any form of human expression. The way they saw it, you were just supposed to sit there, not move and do whatever they told you to do without question. I didn't go to Catholic School during the week so I wasn't accustomed to that sort of military discipline. I went to a public school and it was a lot more civil. But I figured, I'd try my best not to get into trouble because Catechism was only once a week. One Sunday, in Catechism class, I think her name was Sister Mary Catherine (who was from Ireland) was asking us individually to recite a portion of a little brown missile book that the class all held in their hands. The recital went something like “God and the Virgin Mary are really your mother and father and your parents (the ones at home) are just guardians while you're here on earth.” Don't hold me to the exact wording because it was a long time ago. I had a problem just repeating that statement and raised my hand to ask a question. Sister Mary Catherine barked at me, “no questions just repeat it.” I refused to just repeat something I didn't understand and she promptly slapped me across the ear and face. The class giggled and I started to cry from the pain. But then something came over me; I stopped crying, sucked it up and as she stooped down and yelled at me again in her Irish accent, “Repeat it!” Before she could slap me again, I cocked my arm back and socked Sister Mary Catherine right across the jaw causing her to fall backward onto the floor. The only thing I can remember about it was her laced black boots flying up in front of my face as she fell backward onto the shiny linoleum. That got a gasp out of the class. Sister Mary Catherine mumbled from the floor in an Irish brogue something that sounded like, “You're going to hell for that one you little fucker…” and I whispered back, “See ya there Sista!” At that moment I thought to myself, there's only one thing to do now…
Scram!
That's New York slang for
leave the scene at once
! I took off out of the room and ran all the way home without stopping. I might have broken a speed record for the half-mile. Later that day, at home the doorbell rang and a priest came to my house and spoke to my mom. I was hiding under my bed so I really couldn't hear what they were saying. At that point I thought my life was over and that I truly would go to Hell but after I told my mother what had happened, she let me off the hook. But sternly warned me not to hit anyone ever again (especially nuns) because fighting would never solve a problem. I knew in my heart that she was just telling me that but really didn't believe it. My father took me aside and said, “Don't be afraid to fight for what you believe in… even if they're bigger than you. But whatever you do, don't hit any more nuns. Especially when a lot a people are looking at ya!” I thought that was useful information for a seven year old but never got to apply it until I started fighting Invid.

One morning, after working on
Robotech
until the wee hours the previous night, I got an unusual call from the Harmony Gold offices stating that they wanted me to come in that morning. I of course agreed and found myself driving down Sunset Boulevard but this time going to the Harmony Gold offices rather than the recording studio. The Harmony Gold offices were about a half a mile from Intersound just about the same distance that I
lived from the Saint Catherine of Sienna church where I hit the nun. I thought I must have really done something bad this time. I didn't know what else to think. My acting teacher Milton Katselas once told me, “Never agree to go to a meeting unless you know what it's about.” I always thought that bit of advice made a lot of sense but somehow that morning it was of no comfort to me. When I arrived, I took an elevator up to the Harmony Gold offices I was met by the then marketing director – I think his first name was Stuart. We sat in his office a while and we just talked generally about the show. I still thought I might have been in some sort of trouble. I mean I really had no reason to believe I was in trouble but as I sat there and talked to him all sorts of things kept running through my mind. I thought, did I use foul language during one of the sessions and was it recorded? I often improvised my lines between takes and sometimes they were recorded. Maybe this was why I was there? Then I thought about a host of other things that I might have done wrong and when I couldn't think of any, I started imagining things that I might have done. It was a downward spiral of self imposed guilt and I would have confessed to anything at that point. I would have said, “Yes! Yes! I did it! I couldn't help myself but I did it!” When about half way through the conversation, Stuart mentioned something about going to New York City attending some sort of toy convention and playing Rick Hunter. What? Rick who?