Dear Jack:
I am an actor and have been a member of SAG for the past five years. I realize that there are other opportunities behind the camera in the acting business. I would like to become more involved in the loop group process, but I don't know anyone in that field. I hear membership in a loop group is a very coveted position and that the groups are hard to infiltrate.
Please help all of us who are trying to become professional loopers with your suggestions.
Dion
via the Internet
Dear Dion:
Becoming a member of a loop group is certainly a great gig for an actor, if you can get into it. For those who don't know anything about this acting opportunity, here's a quick looping primer. Loop groups are people who provide all the background voices for a television show or film. There are three basic types of looping; "Walla," "Free and Clear," and "Synching." "Walla," taken from the phrase "walla walla walla," refers to actors creating general background noise. While listeners can't understand any specific words, they hear people talking, even get the feeling that words are being spoken. This creates a more realistic soundscape, a fuller ambience, and keeps the main actors from sounding as if they are in a vacuum.
The second type, "Free and Clear," is more specific. A small group of loopers is brought into a studio to speak or shout out clear, distinct lines. For example, for a battlefield scene, loopers might be asked to shout out exclamations of fear or pain. Each looper will, one at a time, shout out an exclamation appropriate to the setting, such as "I'm dying," or "Help me, Sergeant!" Then the sound editor or engineer lays those lines into the sound mix to create mood or make the emotional character of the scene more specific.
Finally, "Synching" is when a looper replaces a line or lines given by an actor on the screen. The looper must give a carefully calibrated performance to match the on-screen actor's look and lip movements. "Synching" is used to replace unusable, flawed, or otherwise undesirable sound. Say a film shot in Africa uses an on-location actor for a two-line role. Now imagine that a hissing microphone or the noise of a plane overhead somehow obscures this actor's dialogue. The production is not going to fly back to Africa to rerecord this tiny part, so a looper is called in to create all new voiceover for this character.
As you can imagine, loop group members must be very skilled in improvisation. Often their text isn't scripted, so they must concoct their lines on the spot. They must also be able to instantly create voices that fit any situation and adapt those voices to the on-screen action. They may be voicing an ancient Roman coliseum crowd, a New York Diner's dinner rush, or a palace full of British dukes and duchesses. They might be given a brief explanation ("You are in a fancy restaurant when all of a sudden the star is thrown across the room by the bad guy and lands on your table") and then be expected to realistically voice the situation, all while standing in front of a microphone in a studio. Loopers are sometimes required to have specific knowledge in technical or specialty lingo to realistically fill in voices for doctors and nurses, police and firefighters, and anything else you can think up. They need to be well versed in dialects and voice manipulation and able to create myriad voices in an instant. But beyond these artistic concerns, good loopers need technical expertise. The work is fast and furious, so you can't expect to learn on the job.
Bearing in mind that this technical skill usually comes from significant voiceover experience, my recommendation to anyone interested in joining a loop group is to work as a voice artist as much as possible. This way you will hone your artistic and technical voice skills, and you will meet the very people you need to know to get into a loop group. The single most important thing you need (after skill of course) to get in is to get along with the people you work with. As these groups are pretty insular you aren't likely to be asked to join unless you are a friendly pro with a great attitude. Work on becoming the kind of actor people can't wait to work with again and again.
The groups are like clubs, and once you get into one you are likely to stay. This lack of turnover is what makes breaking into a group so difficult. While there is a lot of this type of voiceover work out there, producers don't want to have to cast each looper individually for each project. That's why they rely on the same, small set of actors (a loop group) time and again. The work can be plentiful--almost like a regular 9-to-5 job--it is union, and the performers get residuals. It's no wonder the actors who land these jobs aren't about to give them up. Your best shot is to keep improving your voice skills--both artistically and technically--and to keep working.