Voicing 'Dad' On "Molly Of Denali"
Back in January of 2017, I was asked to send in an audition mp3 for a new animated series by PBS that would feature an Alaskan Indigenous girl as its lead character named Molly. I would be reading for the role of 'Dad' or 'Walter'. Almost 2 years later and several episodes in, here we are.
I remember when I auditioned thinking I didn't get the role. I've done a fair share of voice over gigs, but never anything on this scale before. We were at one of my favourite spaces in town, Koko Studios in Vancouver, BC. In the studio space, you get to see some familiar faces auditioning. The usual suspects. Then in the recording booth, you are totally separate from the production members and casting director.
I did my read to my best ability and went with the ideas I had in mind. Without much interaction we ended the session with a quick nod and moved along. It's always hard to tell what you just did in an audition. I remember thinking I wouldn't get it.
All of the sudden we were recording a pilot episode.
I hadn't even seen the pilot when I got another message almost a year after the first initial audition in January of 2018 informing me the pilot had been picked up and I would be performing as the voice of 'Dad/Walter' in the series to be picked up by PBS! Then in April we would be moving onto a cast development session. I got to meet the amazing team at Atomic Cartoons, WGBH in Boston and the some of the team from Alaska.
Pretty quick, we were recording our first episode. As I'm typing this, we are at 15 episodes.
The show is really lovely. It features Molly and her family + friends with lessons including culture, language, nature, science and biology in an informational text format for teaching. There are cultural consultants on the line listening in from Alaska as we read and we get awesome language packs of sound bytes with elders or the Cultural Producer reciting the words.
I am excited to see the episodes unfold and my adventures as 'Dad' develop!
Here's some press links:
http://atomiccartoons.com/projects/molly-of-denali/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/molly-of-denali-animated-series-1.4670151
Follow Molly on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/mollyofdenali
http://kidscreen.com/2018/06/25/how-molly-of-denali-found-its-diverse-cast-and-crew/
https://www.ktoo.org/2018/05/09/new-pbs-show-molly-of-denali-to-feature-alaska-native-in-title-role/