Another reminder that nothing stays the same. The only constant is change.

Your last sentence reinforces one of the comments in my post – animator or janitor – you have to be there.

Technology notwithstanding, it’s always been about business and somewhat less about art. In the past, the form of animation was somewhat limited to a few practitioners and the form itself tended to be the sell. The “house” behind the work could be trusted, much the way we respect seeing “Pixar presents”, “From the Producers of the Simpsons” and so forth. Apparently though, the boast from a a solid celebrity is needed to send the marketing over the top. From what I’ve seen, this need for celebrity rarely equates to any better acting job than one can get from a no-name actor. This becomes even clearly when we see Pixar productions featuring the family and friends of its workers as voice talent. It seems that marketing is the only justification for a project hiring both several multi million dollar A-list celebrity actors and also hiring Brad Bird’s dry cleaner, doorman yoga instructor.

As for the man of a thousand voices, I suppose to some extent I fall into that category. It works a little differently now, whereby the hiring bodies seem to mostly be concerned with only one of those thousand voices at a time.To illustrate, 12 years ago, I was the voice of 5 of the main characters in Twisted Metal: Black. This year, I’ve been resurrected for Twisted Metal for PS3, but only for the role of Sweet Tooth. Individual actors have all been hired for each of the other parts. It’s still a bit like the old days for casual games, for example for some iPhone and Facebook games I may play 5 or more characters per game. And certainly there are episodics like Futurama, Family Guy and the Simpson’s, where at the very least, actors portraying main characters will often do a tertiary role.

The doors to Hollywood swing much differently these days, it seems that in many ways, an animator working for Pixar has a better chance of performing v.o. for a major animation than an unknown actor with perhaps even thousands of credits.