 How good was last week's episode? Oh Brian May! People have gone nuts for it, I'm not surprised. He was a legend as you would expect. Also just such a lovely guy to just be sat chatting to Brian May giving us all his time. He's just there in his study telling us all of his queen anecdotes. I mean awesome. Hanging out. If you missed it, missed it there's a card up here. We have a pretty exciting show this week. Even though it's episode 13, unlucky for some. Oh yeah, oh yeah. What is the reason we should stay to the end of the episode? This beauty we're giving away for the competition this absolute sterling copy which includes a certain film life after flash as well as part of it. Pretty exciting. Pretty exciting stuff. Make sure you stay to the end of the episode but of course we have a great interview beforehand. So Tim Blaney, you will know his voice? You will definitely know his voice. He's voiced many of your favourite sort of 80s film characters and obviously he was part of Flight of the Navigator as well. Yep, so we met him on the journey of life after the navigator. There's a trailer link up there too. But without further ado, we like to get straight into these interviews now don't we? Tim Blaney. Tim, thank you for joining me and being on camera which is something that you don't normally do. Yes, it's a little awkward for me but thank you very much for asking me to do this interview. It's a pleasure. I'm very excited to chat to you. I have a lot of questions but I guess let's start from the beginning. When you were growing up, did you even know that a voice artist was a thing? Did you want to be in the movie industry? How did you kind of get into it? Well, I knew that a voice, you know, artist was a thing. Grew up on Warner Brothers cartoons and I grew up here in Los Angeles and in our neighborhood, Mel Blank, who did all the voices for the Warner Brothers cartoons, lived there. So it was a rite of passage that we had to go to his house on Halloween and he was cool enough that he would hand out candy and he'd do, you know, Bugs Bunny's voice, handing it out. It started to breach my consciousness as something that I could do as a teenager. I found my way of being able to fit in or have fun was to do voices and accents. Monty Python was on the air on the PBS stations in the States late at night. It was like after 10 o'clock and so we would watch that and the Holy Grail had come out and that was just revelatory because it was edgy, fun, rude and so I started playing with accents and voices. And this might be interesting for you as a Brit. One of the very first words that I practiced in a British accent was water, you know, that's the American way of saying it and then water was the British way of saying it, water. And I'm not quite sure exactly if that's, you know, London or what, what accent it is, but water. It's like, you know, it's like, whoa, ta, water. And you know, so I memorized, you know, and played around with Monty Python skits and things like that. So. What point then did it become, did you realize that actually this could be a career for you? That was my summer job. I was at UCLA studying fine art, got to my junior year and then said, what am I going to do with this? There was an ad up for a puppeteer ad for that. And there was also an ad for the same company to paint scenery for puppet shows. So I went down to this studio in Venice and met Tony Urbano, he was the one looking for someone to help paint scenery and also to puppeteer in some summer productions he had down at Laguna Beach Festival of Art. So I showed him my portfolio and as is his want with every person that he would bring into his shop to apply for a job, even if it was just building puppets or sculpting or costumes for his puppets, he would try them out with a puppet because he found that, you know, the people who really, really want to do puppets aren't always the best puppeteers. So he gave me a marionette and left, he showed me how it worked. And then he had to take a phone call and I played with it in front of the mirror doing what he said and then also playing around with it. And he kind of looked and said, oh, he's kind of doing some good stuff with that. And then he said, OK, you've got a basic ability. He hired me, put me in one of his shows down at Laguna Beach. And then at the end of that run, he had some television commercials for a bank in Arizona that use these Muppet style hand puppets. And I got to do like it was a couple of prospectors. One was named Jasper and that's one I did. And Tony did Milo, he was gruff. There's two prospectors who wanted to go into the bank and invest their gold. Doing television puppetry kind of fit my personality more because then, you know, you get to watch your performance and actually control it and do the voices. And that allowed me look, oh, look, here's a thing where you get to actually play around the voices and you can do the puppet stuff. And it was like kind of being a professional kid. And your first film, correct me if I'm wrong, but your first film that you worked on was Short Circuit Within. We had done television commercials. We did work for Sid and Marty Croft. And then the movie thing came along. I think John Badham was looking for, you know, they wanted the choice he had was to either do his main character robot as a stop motion, which meant that, you know, shooting all the live action with Allie Sheedy and Steve Gutenberg, that the robot wouldn't be there or they would be, you know, looking at a tennis ball for an eye line. And he said, can we do it as a live action, highly technical puppet? Make it a robot puppet. And so he started saying, well, who's going to do that? And I think he found Eric Allard to build the robot. And he said, well, I need him to perform, you know? And so Tony's name was brought up and the interview with John Badham and I was working for Tony at the time. And John said, well, we want to, you know, have you do the voice on the set, Tony? While you're doing it says, oh, I have a guy who can do the voice better than I can. I'll manipulate some things on the robot's head, but I can also just look at the overall performance and help coordinate that. Tony had me practice a couple of voices. And the first one that I came up with, he said, that's the one I tried some others. But the idea behind it was that to me, you know, robot voices at the time were very digital and monotonous. And so I started from their thinking they don't really have breath. So everything then to make it more expressive, you would try to go higher and lower. So then it would come a little bit and then more of that would make it a little more. And then he was new. And so things were occurring to him. Did you have much direction with the voice? And I guess this is the question for anything you work on. Do you get much direction from the director? Or do you really kind of have free reign to find something and then take it to the team? It depends on the project. With that one, Tony was basically the guy was bouncing it off. And he was the one who presented it to to John. And we did it at a table read. And everybody seemed to be pretty happy with it at the time. So I didn't really get much direction from that. With the Puckmaron. I tried some things with with Tony and he picked that the one. I don't know if I can do the voice as well. But and I can't again, I don't know what I'm blanking on it. Or if if Randall actually did give me some direction. But I tried to just make him sound like he was trying to talk in his own language. And it was alien and it was kind of gibberish. And yeah, I can't do it as high pitched as I used to. But yeah, okay. Listen, he's laughing. He was just a happy kind of a happy character for being in his situation. And I think that's what David Freeman, you know, connected to. And they were both of the same, you know, both were lost their homes and they were trying to get back home. This is Buddy. I don't know if you can see him. There he is. Buddy. Yeah. Do you how it works on set? Are you actually there doing the voice live as your puppeting? Or is it done kind of a holding track while you're actually recording and then you do the voice in a recording studio afterwards? What's the process? Oh, you always do the voice on set, especially if you're interacting with another character, a live human or another actor, you've got to. And it's better to have the puppeteer do it because they're occupying and that character in the moment. The actor can then act with the puppet as would another would act with another performer. Oftentimes when they don't have someone who can do that, well, they'll sometimes say, well, hey, we'll just have the script supervisor fill in the voice. It's always better to have the puppeteer do it, even if they end up not using the voice, which was the case with Tony. He did the voice of Max during shooting and then sort of up to the director to say, yeah, that's right in the ballpark. We're going to have it or want it. So when you do replace it, it's not so different that it won't match up with what you filmed. Actually, with Short Circuit, that was just sort of the way they were. And initially, the producers wanted to say, well, we'll get another person to do the voice and this will be a scratch voice. But I think everybody kind of got, you know, that's my evil plan was to get them used to my voice. And then they say, no, that's number five. We can't give it to that. And that's in a way an advantage that puppeteers have. You can audition, have a very, very long audition on set while you're providing a scratch track. Do you get much chance to improvise? Yes. Many times you're just, you know, you're setting up and you know what the shot's going to be. And you have to remember you're remembering your lines, but, you know, lines occur to you. And it's a long line drive to Deep Left Center. Hide is going back for it. And you can throw them out. And if the actor's game you can have, you can play around. We did a lot of that on Short Circuit. Here's the other thing about doing the voice on set. With the robot on Short Circuit, he had a lot of noise with his animatronics. And so the entire movie had to be looped. Even the actors, if they had a scene with the robot, he only had lights. You know, there was no mouth sink to match. So we played around with lines in post and added stuff. And I think John came back. John Batterman said, we did too much. We're going to take some of that back. There was flexibility there because he was didn't have a mouth to necessarily sink exactly to. So Frank, the pug is so iconic and pretty, pretty unique. How did you find that? I mean, did they just say to you just go for gold and do whatever? Or were they quite specific with the script, with his dialogue? Initially, I think they saw him as British. Or New York. I tried it with, you know, trying to do it as a British soul character. But, you know, as a wisecrack in New Yorker, it kind of came out better. That's the worst disguise ever. That guy's definitely an alien. You don't like it. You can kiss my furry little butt. The other thing about Frank is I had to the way I kind of helped find him is to make my face look like a pug. And it does inform his the way that he talks and the tongue placement and things like that. So that's a little little thing is that, you know, with the character, if you're trying to find it, you can kind of play with your face, your mouth, your lips, you know, and it helps. I'm OK, OK. Rosenberg wasn't some two-bit Archeleon. He was the guardian of the old galaxy. That was not done on set. That was one of the ones where I was never on set with the dog, providing the voice. They had the script supervisor do that. And they said Rick Baker was the one that recommended that they the idea initially in the why Rick had a say in it was he thought to shoot this. What we want to do is put an actor in pug makeup with pug teeth and we'll shoot that against green screen. And we will map that on to the the filmed dog and make that's how we'll make him talk. And this is 1996. Actual CG was not as developed. ILM was doing all the CGI. I flew up to ILM. They put the pug makeup on me for the life of me. I was one of my worst career decisions ever as I didn't get a picture of myself with pug makeup makeup on, you know, with just black, this black pug thing with pug teeth. And anyway, they filmed me doing the lines at ILM. They didn't actually use the actual film. They used it as visual reference and they animated the pug's mouth after that. And then they had me do an ADR session with with films and with voices. You know, if it didn't pan out, if it didn't work, they would have, you know, gone casting and found someone to do the voice. But it worked. And who knows, you know, that's just one of the things you have no idea, you know, if it's going to work or not. And it worked. Ego on now go. Walk out the door. Frank, bring your head in this window before I roll it up in there. Got it. Nobody knows at the time when you're making these movies, if they're going to be good or not, just the chemistry between Will and and Tommy Lee Jones, just in Sonnenfeld's touch with everything was just right. I'm blessed to have been there and be able to participate and be able to contribute and be part of it. That was what it was like with with Short Circuit because it was exciting. Every little step was kind of exciting because I had no again, I had no idea I was going to be doing this. I had no inkling. I want to be a puppeteer doing. I had always seen the Muppet Show and said, that looks fun. It's great. But I didn't know inkling that I could do it until I auditioned for that summer, applied for that summer job. And Tony said, no, we need people like you that come in here. Of all the voices you have done, and there's many, many more than the ones that I've just spoken about. What is the one that people ask you to do the most? Number five, number five. And then Frank the Pug, you know, because Frank the Pug is kind of in a way bigger because it was a bigger, more famous movie. Short Circuit, because a lot of adults now, and just like the navigator, grew up with that movie. They both came out the same year. They both were kind of iconic 80s movies. And so number five is alive. Input, need input. Lisa Downs. No disassembly. Do you ever get tired of people asking you to do the voice? Of course not. I mean, it's it's one of those things where it's I don't get it asked that much. I'm, you know, I'm completely anonymous. So, you know, it's not like I go into places and they go, hey, it's the guy who did the voice for the robot. Do that voice. Yeah, I'm completely anonymous. So I don't, you know, if I I've been asked about this or, you know, I know this is out there. They're these conventions you can go to and make appearances and sign autographs. And I've never I've never done that. Maybe I should do that. Then then maybe I can get tired of doing the voice. Well, Joe, Joe, by the navigator, Joe, just did his first convention last year, I think, and loved it. It's I would I would do it if I were you. Thanks. Thanks for the tip, Lisa. So according to your IMDb and I never really believe what's on the Internet. So I will ask Ice King apparently is in post production. Can you talk about that project that apparently is coming out this year or next year for you? Oh, well, that's Dave Barkley, who is a Brit and he is a brilliant puppet fabricator and puppeteer from London. He's worked with the Muppets extensively. He's one of these guys that does does everything, except perhaps voices. I mean, he does not that does the voice characterizations, but he but he worked with Frank Oz as the assistant puppeteer for Yoda. And he had this project that was his father's project that he had written this Ice King. He realized he could it would be easier for him to achieve this. And this is kind of a lifelong thing he wanted to produce. Sort of as his father's legacy. The easiest way to do it would be to animate it. And so he knew all these friends who had voice talent and he said, OK, we'll do the performance capture in my garage. And he did that and he animated it and then brought in his friends to provide the voices. And I think I did. I think I did a googly character who was I think more of a cockney type character. I don't remember the other characters so much. That's the thing about my mind. You see, it goes in one ear and out the other. You know, so just ask me to do something. I'll do it. Is that out this year? I think so. I mean, I looked at it on the IMDb page. I didn't say what I think it is coming out this year. And I was sort of like, oh, he's he's going to release it. He's been working on it for years and he's a wonderful guy. So if there's anyone out there that is thinking I'd love to be a puppeteer, I'd love to be a voiceover artist, what would your advice be for them? You know, nowadays your your camera, you can just set it up and you can you can practice with anything, you know. And guess what? It'll you if you have an inkling of what you want to see, you set up your iPhone and you can just start playing. And if it doesn't look good, you make it look better. It's sort of learned by doing there. Also, you would probably want to look around depending on where you are. There's a the puppeteers of America has guilds all over the country. And some of them might offer on camera classes. They might offer live puppetry classes. There's also tutorials on how to make puppets. So there's all this information out there right now that you can access. You have to sort of like with anything develop your eye and your your your taste in your ear for making it good. You can just see the level of performance there is with the Muppets. And I've worked on a set with them. They will rehearse a scene and then they'll say, OK, that doesn't work. Let's try this or they will hone and hone and hone until it's really good. And that's another thing to keep in mind. You know, if you did a pretty good take, maybe, you know, keep your mind open and say, was there something I could do that might actually be a little better. Performance also is in the moment and it's got to be fun and natural. So that's the to me. That's the tightrope that that needs to be walked is having fun, being joyous and in the moment, but being aware of of all the other elements that since this is not just life being captured, this is actually a performance being filmed or presented. That it has to work for an audience. You can see things a lot easier and playback and go like, oh, I thought that worked. It didn't work. Oh, I didn't realize that worked so well. And another thing that happened that a piece of advice is like, maybe don't get stuck on saying, I have to do this, right? I'm going to do this. If life keeps saying, you know what, there's this over here that that might fit you better. And I kind of it's sort of a rule when I got into improv. There's the basic rule of yes and when your partner says something, you don't think, no, I was thinking of something else. And say, no, I was thinking of this. And no, you say, yes, and you say, I agree with what you're saying. And I'm going to add something to it. So this sort of yes, ending your life is saying, if something is pointing you that direction, just keep going there until maybe life points you somewhere else. Well, amazing. Well, thank you so much for the advice, for talking about your career on camera. I promise the next one we will do as a puppet so you feel more at home. I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with me. And I'm so excited that we met over life after the navigator. And that will be out this year. So I hope to see you in person soon. I can't wait to see it. It's been a pleasure. And I want to thank you and thank Randall Kleiser and Tony Urbano and Rick Baker and and my parents for whatever. OK, thank you so much. So we hope you've hung around, guys, because we're about to give this beauty away. We've had lots of entry. So there's lots of people want to get their hands on this absolute gen. So I guess we had a lot of great entries and I couldn't pick one. So I thought the most fair way to do it would just to be put all the names. But he's keen. Look, but this is buddy, by the way. Put all the names in a bowl and we'll draw one. I'm going to be the lucky winner. I'll put their answer on the screen when I read out the name because I couldn't write down all the answers. So here we go. Graham Holden, Graham Holden, you lucky, lucky man, please email Lisa at sparechangefilms.co.uk and this will be hercling its way to you. Indeed. Congratulations, Graham. Your answer I'll put on the screen now because I didn't write it down on this tiny piece of paper. That is the North American release. Of course, you will know that there is a studio canal release out as well. Flash Gordon Mania at the moment. It certainly is. You can't open the newspaper without seeing it. You can't open any bit of sort of anything without seeing it. Every time I throw the web up, there's something about Flash Gordon. We're in the middle of a flash storm, people. Pretty with with hot hails. Oh, no, exactly. Please comment below what you think of the show. Anyone you want us to interview will try and get favorite 80s TV shows, favorite 80s movies, comment, subscribe, all of those fun things. Have a great week. Is it September next week? I don't even know. I think it's about August the 22nd. So, no, we've got another next week still going to be August. Have a great week, whatever you do. And we will catch you next week with another web show.