 The Voices of "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" This weekend's forecast for a big box office success for the new 3-D animated version of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was accurate. The film's estimated weekend box office is $30.1 million, which puts it at the top of the charts. The popular children's book penned by Judi Barrett and illustrated by her husband Ron is a library and schoolroom standard, much loved by parents and children for its imaginative rendering of a city where food rains down from the heavens at the command of a young inventor named Flint. Part of the success of an animated film is in the creativity of the artists and storytellers. The other part is from the actors who voice the characters. Their performance gives life to the story and often serves as the springboard for the artists rendering the characters. It can be a tedious process, often requiring multiple takes of just a few words.
 First-time directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller came to the project with very little experience directing a full-length feature film, but a distinct idea of what they wanted from the actors. "The directors did Clone High for HBO," said Bill Hader, who voiced Flint (at left). "They were really good. They were very specific about what they wanted. They'd tell us where we were, where were beforehand, and where we were going."
Anna Faris (voice of Sam) agrees. "They were never searching. They had a very specific vision they followed." That makes the actors' job simpler in the long run, even though it might require multiple takes.
Often basic character drawings are complete when the voices are recorded, but the animation is not complete. "They had a drawing of Sam," Faris said, "but it wasn't until much later that I saw her animated. I love her. She's feisty and frustrated."
As artists are animating the recording, they calibrate the animated performance to the actor's voice, so it makes sense for them to have a whole array of emotions to use. Hader says "There are some scenes that you know for sure what the emotion should be. You're always going to be scared in the face of a spaghetti twister. But on the other hand, some scenes aren't so distinct."
 The work of voicing for animated characters is very demanding. "It's physically demanding because you're on your feet for hours," Faris says, "and you're giving a full physical performance."
Hader agrees. "Every take you do like 20 takes. It's called a series. You have a script in front you and every line is numbered. Then they tell you what line to do. 'Read line 124.' It might be something as simple as 'Close the door,' but you have to say it in a variety of ways. Then they might say to do it a little more scared. So you do it for 20 minutes and you think you're going to go insane."
Hader, who has done a lot of characters and voices, recalls the difficulty he had developing the voice for Flint. "There were some sessions that we scrapped because I came in and had this voice all prepared. It sounded like an Abbot and Costello scene.
"They'd say, 'No, I don't think that's the voice.'
"So I'd ask, in my normal voice, what they wanted me to do.
"They'd say, 'That! What you just did! The way you're talking right now.'
"Right now?
"Yes.
"Then I'd say my lines and unwittingly fall back into another voice. I had to teach myself not to break into another voice."
 Bobb'E Johnston voiced the part of Cal, the young son of Swallow Falls' police captain, when he was nine years old. (At left, Bobb'E as the voice of Cal with his father, voiced by Mr. T) When asked about the challenge of creating a voice for the part, he said it was pretty simple for him. "It wasn't hard for me because it was the same as doing it onscreen, just without a camera, hair and make-up."
Like Faris and Hader, he credits the directors for their ability to create. "It was great. They were really open-minded and gave me room to do a lot of improv."
Typically voice actors for animated films do their work with only the director in attendance, but Hader and Faris got together for a couple of sessions. "That's pretty rare," says Faris, "But I don't think they used any of it. It was helpful to gauge how he was playing his character and how I could play my character off of that."
"We kept talking over each other," said Hader, "so they couldn't use it."
In the end, the parts that did make it into the film are terrific. The actors captured the essence of their characters and contributed to a very entertaining film.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is playing in theaters across the country, in 3-D as well as in standard projection format. ©2009 ChristianCinema.com | 
