The James Arnold Taylor HSM Interview
by Terra_Cide, HSM Editor
By now, you’ve had an opportunity to read HomeStation’s interview with the amazing James Arnold Taylor. He is the voice of Ratchet, Tidus, Obi-Wan and countless other characters from games, television and movies, and we were thrilled that he consented to be interviewed by HSM. The responses we received leading up to the actual production of the interview have been by far the most prompt we’ve had.
Setting up an interview is a curious journey, especially when it has to do with someone who’s accomplishments are of the magnitude of James Arnold Taylor’s. There’s the research involved – which is vital, even if you know your subject well – so that you can write up questions that are interesting both to the reader to learn, and for your subject to want to answer. There’s the submitting of these questions, as well as any introduction you may have already drafted, so that your interviewee has an idea of the overall theme of your proposed article. And there is the waiting while both your questions and their answers go through the proper vetting that makes them publishable. Lastly, you’ve got to go through the transcription process of putting the pre-recorded answers into text, which out of everything – and especially in the case of this interview – was the greatest challenge of all.
The catch with a printed-word interview involving a voice actor is that part of the magic is in being able to listen to the responses — particularly one segment, where JAT goes off, rapid-fire, into a blizzard of different characters. How do you transcribe that magic?
Well…you can’t, and as a result, the reader can only go by their imagination as to what was happening. Think how hard it would have been to visualize if, in the premiering of issue 11, we didn’t add in the video of him on stage, slipping from one voice to the next.
So we went back to JAT’s publicist, Consetta Parker, and asked — very politely — if we could kindly run his interview answers as an audio broadcast, like it was one of our podcast episodes. And, thanks to her, we now are able to bring you the aural glory of James Arnold Taylor being interviewed by HomeStation Magazine!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
May 29th, 2012 by Terra_Cide | 3 comments
Terra _Cide is the former Community Manager for Lockwood Publishing and Editor Emeritus for HomeStation Magazine.
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I listened to the entire interview, and I have to say, I am really glad you got to publish the podcast for this!
I haven’t had the nerve to use my voice in film yet. I may just try it. See how it goes. Thanks for the interview James. May the force be with you as well.
It was good to hear this in this context. I am glad he was able to do this for us, it was awesome.
If you are in the area, James Arnold Taylor will be performing his one-man show, “Talking to Myself” during the Star Wars Weekends at the Walt Disney World Resort until June 10.