A voice actor (also a voice artist) is a person who provides voices for animated characters (including those in feature films, television series, animated shorts), voice-overs in radio and television commercials, audio dramas, dubbed foreign language films, video games, puppet shows, and amusement rides. The Japanese term for a voice actor is a seiyuu. When singing is called for a role, a second voice actor is sometimes cast as the character's singing voice. This is a Root page - a common introduction to several more specialised pages. ... A voice-over is a narration that is played on top of a video segment, usually with the audio for that segment muted or lowered. ... Generally speaking, advertising is the promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas, usually by an identified sponsor. ... Radio drama (audio drama), which had its greatest popularity in the United States and in most other countries before the spread of television, depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the story in her or his minds eye. In the television era, some audio... In filmmaking, dubbing refers to the recording of voices for a movie. ... A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ... // Headline text A puppet is any controlled character, whether formed by a shadow, strings, by the use of a glove, by direct mechanical contrivance (for example a cable-controlled figure for film or TV) or electronic guidance (such as a radio or infrared remote controller). ... Types of amusement rides include: Bumper cars Carousels Dark rides Ferris wheels Freefall towers Hall of mirrors Log flumes Loop-O-Plane Motion platforms Observation towers Octopus (ride) Roller coasters Scenic railways switchbacks Horror train Shoot-the-Chutes The Zipper Tilt-A-Whirl See also Amusement park Closed rides and... For the article about the company named Seiyu, see Seiyu Group. ... Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, often constrasted with speech. ...

Broadcast media

In a live-action production, voice actors may be called upon to read the parts of computer programs (Douglas Rain; Majel Barrett), radio dispatchers (Shaaron Claridge), or characters we never actually see on a show who give instructions by telephone (John Forsythe in Charlie's Angels) or mailed recording (Bob Johnson in Mission: Impossible). Douglas Rain is a Canadian actor and narrator born in 1928 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. ... Majel Barret Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (born Majel Lee Hudec on February 23, 1932 in Columbus, Ohio) is an American actress and widow of television director/producer/writer Gene Roddenberry. ... Shaaron Claridge, now retired, was a radiotelephone operator or police radio dispatcher for the Los Angeles Police Department. ... John Forsythe (born John Lincoln Freund on January 29, 1918) is an actor. ... Charlies Angels was a television series broadcast from 1976 to 1981, about three women who work for a fictional private investigation agency, the Charles Townsend Agency. ... Bob Johnson (IMDB:nm0424614) (b. ... Mission: Impossible is the name of an American television series which aired on the CBS network from September 1966 to September 1973. ...

It is not unusual to find amongst the ranks of voice actors people who also act in live-action film or television, or on the stage. For those actors, voice acting has the advantage of offering acting work without having to bother with makeup, costuming, lighting, and so on.

A common practice in animation voice casting not widely known to the general public is to have young boy-character roles read by women. On The Simpsons, for example, Nancy Cartwright plays Bart Simpson and several other juvenile males. This casting practice goes all the way back to circa 1939 with Bernice Hansen as Sniffles the Mouse, and continues with Elizabeth "E.G." Daily as Tommy Pickles on Rugrats and All Grown Up! today. June Foray, even as a senior citizen, can still faithfully voice Rocket J. Squirrel. Casting adult women for these parts can be especially useful if an ad campaign or a developed series is expected to run for several years, for while the vocal characteristics of an adolescent male actor would change over time, the voice of an adult female will not. One half of a bronze mold for casting a socketed spear head dated to the period 1400-1000 BC. This article is about the manufacturing process. ... Homer, a safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, is a generally well-meaning buffoon whose short attention span often draws him into outrageous schemes and adventures. ... Nancy Cartwright Nancy Campbell Cartwright (born October 25, 1957) is an American actress and voice actor. ... Bartholomew Jo-Jo (Bart) Simpson (voiced by Nancy Cartwright) is a fictional character featured in the animated television series The Simpsons. ... 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Sniffles is an animated cartoon and comic book character in the Warner Bros. ... EG Daily Elizabeth Guttman (born September 11, 1961), better known by her stage names of Elizabeth Daily and E.G. Daily, is an American voice actress, actress, and singer. ... Tommy Pickles is a character from the hit Nickelodeon shows Rugrats and All Grown Up!, and was among the series original characters. ... Rugrats was an animated series, produced by Klasky-Csupo, Inc. ... All Grown Up! is an animated television series. ... June Foray (born September 18, 1917) is an extremely versatile voice actor who has worked for most of the studios which produced animated films since the 1940s. ... Bullwinkle (left) and Rocky (right), the stars of Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show. ...

Notoriety

For much of the history of North American animation, voice actors had a predominantly low profile as performers, with Mel Blanc the major exception. Over time, many movie stars began performing voice acting roles in movies, with one of the earliest examples being The Jungle Book, which counted among its cast contemporary stars such as Phil Harris, Sebastian Cabot, and Louis Prima. The film which truly brought about this modern perception, however was Aladdin which was marketed with a noted emphasis on Robin Williams' role. The success of this film eventually spurred the idea of highlighting the voice actors as stars of a film becoming the norm in movie marketing, with a greater focus on hiring Hollywood celebrities for name power, rather than performers with more experience in voice acting. By contrast, using anime voice actors as a box office draw was developed far earlier in Japan. Political highlights of North America North America is the third largest continent in area and the fourth ranked in population. ... Melvin Jerome Blanc (born May 30, 1908 in San Francisco, California; died July 10, 1989 in Los Angeles, California), was a famous American voice actor for both classic American radio programs and many animation studios, primarily the Warner Brothers and Hanna-Barbera studios. ... A movie star is a celebrity who is well known for his or her starring, or leading, roles in motion pictures. ... The Jungle Book is the nineteenth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. ... Phil Harris (b. ... Sebastian Cabot (July 6, 1918 - August 22/23, 1977) was a British-born film and television actor, known for his portly figure and deep, melodious voice. ... Louis Prima and Keely Smith singing for the radio in the 1950s Louis Prima (December 7, 1910- August 24, 1978) was an Italian-American entertainer, singer, actor, and trumpeter born in New Orleans. ... Aladdin is an animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation that was released on November 25, 1992 by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution. ... Robin Williams performing in Iraq. ... Movie marketing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... The cinema of the United States, sometimes simply referred to as Hollywood, can perhaps be summed up by the title American film critic Pauline Kael gave a 1968 collection of her reviews: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. ... This is the current Anime Collaboration of the Week. ...

Voice actors have a small but dedicated fan base, with appearances at large events like Comic-Con International, various anime conventions, and sites such as VoiceChasers.com dedicated to profiling their work. Comic-Con International, commonly known as the San Diego Comic Con, is an annual comic book convention held during the summer in San Diego, California. ...

SAG and aliases

A voice actor may be occasionally credited under an alias. Sometimes producers aren't willing to spend the higher cost of hiring members of the Screen Actors Guild, which prohibits its members from taking non-union jobs; but a voice actor needs income, so he/she may take a job under a false name in an attempt to avoid the SAG's notice. If caught, SAG may respond with fines and suspended health coverage. So the actor has an obligation to do all he can to discourage people from linking his or her name with the alias. Look up Alias in Wiktionary, the free dictionary The term alias may refer to— an assumed name, or pseudonym. ... The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is the labor union representing over 120,000 film actors in the United States. ...

See also

• List of notable voice actors
• Amateur voice acting