Regular BSR! Friend and Forumer, “Baldassbat”, was at Star Wars Celebration V. He has written a pretty in-depth summary of his time there and was kind enough to share it with us here at BSR! So, if you have been looking for a good day-by-day break down of a first-hand experience at Celebration V, here you go!
Be sure to check back throughout the rest of the week for a new day’s summary!
Arrival-
Florida in August is stupid hot and even more stupid humid. I’ve been to the south in summer before but this was insane. Every time you walk out of a building, which is freezing ass cold because of the full power a/c constantly blasting, you feel like you’re being punched in the stomach by the heat and humidity. It takes a second to get your breath. My wife’s glasses would fog up whenever we were outside.
The three of us all bought 4-day badges which we swapped for crew badges because we were working with Official Pix (Sara and I) and Reed Exhibitions (Jon). These badges proved to not be quite as handy at this event as they were at CIV but they were still useful.
Day 1-
Nothing major happened on the first morning. It was a good opportunity to explore the main exhibition hall and talk to lots of people. We took a lot of pictures. In the afternoon Sara and I had shifts with Official Pix. Sara started as a guest escort for Matt Lanter (The Clone Wars voice of Anakin Skywalker) but ended up working crowd control and escort for James Arnold Taylor (TCW voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi). In the meantime I was guest escort for Tom Kane (TCW voice of Yoda, Yularen and news reel narrator). http://www.flickr.com/photos/28216824@N07/4905035757/in/photostream/
The time I spent with Tom Kane was entertaining and enlightening. Obviously it wasn’t a formal interview since I was supposed to be assisting him but I did my best to get some stories from him and I’ve retained some of the information. He started voice acting at 15 years old. He is an anomaly because he started in voice over work. Most people start as actors or radio DJs and move into voice work. He is very prolific – juggling 300-400 clients a year while working from the studio in his home. Outside of The Clone Wars he has had many recognizable TV movie roles: Morgan Freeman and others on Robot Chicken, Professor Utonium and Him on Powerpuff Girls, Magneto in Wolverine and the X-Men, the voice of JFK in Forrest Gump, and Iron Man and Ultron in Next Avengers. He’s also done some video game work, notably Commissioner Gordon in Batman: Arkham Asylum, the announcer for Fat Princess, Professor X and the Grey Gargoyle in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, and many, many roles in plenty of LucasArts video games. Because of his role as Yoda in the Disney Jedi Training Academy attraction he may be getting involved in the new Star Tours ride.
Tom said his favorite character he has voiced is Yoda. Maybe that’s just catering to his crowd but it seemed genuine. Interestingly enough, he said of his character Him on Powerpuff Girls “Him is not only the creepiest character I’ve done, but is probably one of the creepiest characters on television.” Another weird thing he said was about how he does black voices. Someone asked him to do the Morgan Freeman voice (he’s incredible at dropping in and out of voices at will). After doing the line, which I didn’t recognize, the fan asked him about where the voice comes from, physically. Watching Tom you can actually see that his voices come from different parts of his mouth and throat –to the extent that he sometimes has to completely change his posture to push the voice. He explained that Morgan Freeman’s voice, and really all black voices he does, comes from the back of the mouth. He explained that this is not unique to him and can be seen and heard in conversation with African-Americans. He’s not sure why this is and postulated it could be cultural or it could be due to physical characteristics.
We also spoke about personal lives outside of voice work and Star Wars conventions. Tom has eight kids, five of them are adopted. He explained that he has two “groups” of kids. The older kids are in college or late teens. The younger group is elementary age. Not sure how we got on the topic of OCD but he told a funny story about ironing his money as a kid. Somehow that all started when he was ironing his dad’s shirt and an old, wrinkled dollar bill fell out of the pocket.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28216824@N07/4905624140/in/photostream/
After the shift with OPX I had a drink with my wife at the Hoth Ice Bar. We met back up with Jon and headed to the Wyndham resort for a party thrown by TheForce.Net. The party was pretty dumb, just a loud band and some raffles prizes. We did see “Swank-Mo-Tron” Bryan and caught up on each other’s events and plans for the weekend. Our group decided to leave early since the party sucked. As we were leaving we ran into a lot of the cast from TCW: Tom Kane (Yoda), Matt Lanter (Anakin), Catherine Taber (Padme), Dee Bradley Baker (Clones), James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan) and Dave Filoni (director). They almost decided to skip the party because they saw us leaving but we convinced them to stay for the sake of the other fans – after we monopolized their conversation in the hall for a few minutes, of course.
Florida in August is stupid hot and even more stupid humid. I’ve been to the south in summer before but this was insane. Every time you walk out of a building, which is freezing ass cold because of the full power a/c constantly blasting, you feel like you’re being punched in the stomach by the heat and humidity. It takes a second to get your breath. My wife’s glasses would fog up whenever we were outside.
The three of us all bought 4-day badges which we swapped for crew badges because we were working with Official Pix (Sara and I) and Reed Exhibitions (Jon). These badges proved to not be quite as handy at this event as they were at CIV but they were still useful.
Day 1-
Nothing major happened on the first morning. It was a good opportunity to explore the main exhibition hall and talk to lots of people. We took a lot of pictures. In the afternoon Sara and I had shifts with Official Pix. Sara started as a guest escort for Matt Lanter (The Clone Wars voice of Anakin Skywalker) but ended up working crowd control and escort for James Arnold Taylor (TCW voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi). In the meantime I was guest escort for Tom Kane (TCW voice of Yoda, Yularen and news reel narrator). http://www.flickr.com/photos/28216824@N07/4905035757/in/photostream/
The time I spent with Tom Kane was entertaining and enlightening. Obviously it wasn’t a formal interview since I was supposed to be assisting him but I did my best to get some stories from him and I’ve retained some of the information. He started voice acting at 15 years old. He is an anomaly because he started in voice over work. Most people start as actors or radio DJs and move into voice work. He is very prolific – juggling 300-400 clients a year while working from the studio in his home. Outside of The Clone Wars he has had many recognizable TV movie roles: Morgan Freeman and others on Robot Chicken, Professor Utonium and Him on Powerpuff Girls, Magneto in Wolverine and the X-Men, the voice of JFK in Forrest Gump, and Iron Man and Ultron in Next Avengers. He’s also done some video game work, notably Commissioner Gordon in Batman: Arkham Asylum, the announcer for Fat Princess, Professor X and the Grey Gargoyle in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, and many, many roles in plenty of LucasArts video games. Because of his role as Yoda in the Disney Jedi Training Academy attraction he may be getting involved in the new Star Tours ride.
Tom said his favorite character he has voiced is Yoda. Maybe that’s just catering to his crowd but it seemed genuine. Interestingly enough, he said of his character Him on Powerpuff Girls “Him is not only the creepiest character I’ve done, but is probably one of the creepiest characters on television.” Another weird thing he said was about how he does black voices. Someone asked him to do the Morgan Freeman voice (he’s incredible at dropping in and out of voices at will). After doing the line, which I didn’t recognize, the fan asked him about where the voice comes from, physically. Watching Tom you can actually see that his voices come from different parts of his mouth and throat –to the extent that he sometimes has to completely change his posture to push the voice. He explained that Morgan Freeman’s voice, and really all black voices he does, comes from the back of the mouth. He explained that this is not unique to him and can be seen and heard in conversation with African-Americans. He’s not sure why this is and postulated it could be cultural or it could be due to physical characteristics.
We also spoke about personal lives outside of voice work and Star Wars conventions. Tom has eight kids, five of them are adopted. He explained that he has two “groups” of kids. The older kids are in college or late teens. The younger group is elementary age. Not sure how we got on the topic of OCD but he told a funny story about ironing his money as a kid. Somehow that all started when he was ironing his dad’s shirt and an old, wrinkled dollar bill fell out of the pocket.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28216824@N07/4905624140/in/photostream/
After the shift with OPX I had a drink with my wife at the Hoth Ice Bar. We met back up with Jon and headed to the Wyndham resort for a party thrown by TheForce.Net. The party was pretty dumb, just a loud band and some raffles prizes. We did see “Swank-Mo-Tron” Bryan and caught up on each other’s events and plans for the weekend. Our group decided to leave early since the party sucked. As we were leaving we ran into a lot of the cast from TCW: Tom Kane (Yoda), Matt Lanter (Anakin), Catherine Taber (Padme), Dee Bradley Baker (Clones), James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan) and Dave Filoni (director). They almost decided to skip the party because they saw us leaving but we convinced them to stay for the sake of the other fans – after we monopolized their conversation in the hall for a few minutes, of course.