SHARON NOBLE
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ETB/MASKFORCE.com CHALLENGE
Favourite Childhood Toy
"I had a baby doll named Chuckles. She had beautiful blue eyes and when she was tilted, she said "mama." She took a bottle, and afterwards she had to have her diaper changed. I took great care of her, and when I had children, I passed Chuckles along to my girls. Eventually another child broke her into tiny pieces in a fit of anger. I was devastated. She had been in the family so long"
Sharon Noble, 24th March 2015
"I had a baby doll named Chuckles. She had beautiful blue eyes and when she was tilted, she said "mama." She took a bottle, and afterwards she had to have her diaper changed. I took great care of her, and when I had children, I passed Chuckles along to my girls. Eventually another child broke her into tiny pieces in a fit of anger. I was devastated. She had been in the family so long"
Sharon Noble, 24th March 2015
We were fortunate enough to interview Sharon at our previous site EpicToyBox (ETB) on the 7th of February 2014
ETB: Hi Sharon, thank you so much for taking some time to enlighten us about your experiences on M.A.S.K!
SN: Hello, Rob, What a pleasant surprise to get your email regarding M.A.S.K. From time to time I get an email from an adult who was a fan as a child, and I'm always surprised to see that the letters are from all over the world. I guess we played in more countries than we thought.
Do you know that the boxed set of the first 65 episodes went on sale in 2012? And the series is still running in remote areas of the world.
ETB: Yes and we love it!
ETB: Why don’t we start off by telling us how you got involved in M.A.S.K?
SN: My husband, Brendan McKane (Miles Mayhem, Alex Sector) and I had just arrived in Los Angeles. We had been in town five days when we met a fellow on the beach in Santa Monica, and we started chatting. It came up that he's an actor/writer, and we were actors so he told us about these auditions for a cartoon series. We set up an appointment, went in, and auditioned. In the audition, the director asked me how many voices I could do, and I said, "I don't know; let's try some different voices and see what we get." They hadn't planned to use only one woman, but when they discovered I could do various voices, I saw a smile on the director's face. We recorded twice a week for four hours for a year, then they wrote 10 new episodes and we finished those in a couple of months.
The actor who played Sly Rax and others (Mark Halloran) is an impressionist, and when the director heard his impression of Jack Nicholson, she thought it was perfect for Sly Rax. I think when Graeme McKenna walked in, they knew they had the voice of T-Bob. Doug Stone knocked them out when he went in because he can do many varieties of voices, and indeed he did.
ETB: Wow that’s fascinating! We have got to ask you, how did you came about choosing the voice for Gloria Barker?
SN: The Gloria voice came from the teenager I used on my demo tape. I thought of Gloria as about 25 years old, enthusiastic, energetic, honest, loyal, and eager to fight injustice and evil. So it all came together in that voice.
ETB: That sure does sound like Gloria! What about Vanessa Warfield, the femme fatale?
SN: The Vanessa voice was a combination of Lauren Bacall's depth and the gruffness of Miles Mayhem.
ETB: Haha, quite fitting! So who was your favourite character in M.A.S.K?
SN: Vanessa was my favorite -- not because she was bad but because she didn't back down from anything. She stood up to her boss as well as everyone else. And I think she had a thing for Matt Trakker. We used to talk about it in the recording sessions. And, of course, the male actors always came up with ideas of how to get them together.
ETB: We noticed you also did many other voices for M.A.S.K, including the "computer".
SN: The Computer voice was something I dug out of my memory banks. I seemed to have heard something like it many years ago but couldn't quite place it. However, if worked for the computer, and the client was happy with it. But every time I used the computer voice, I had to have the sound engineer play a few words for me so I could get the exact pitch of the voice. In as much as the computer voice was all on one note until the very last syllable, it was important that that note be the same every time. Details, details, details.
The robot voice (T-Bob) was Graeme McKenna, a young man with a little higher voice than the other actors. The robot's read name is Thingamabob, shortened to T-Bob. Graeme also did several other voices, as did we all.
ETB: Incredible, any other voices from M.A.S.K that you made your own?
SN: I voiced all the women, all the children (except Scott), and all of the animals. Yes, when the cat meowed, that was me; when the panda made grunting sounds, that was me; when the cuckoo clock chirped, that was me, etc.
ETB: What did you find most challenging about your work on M.A.S.K?
SN: The most difficult part of the work was that each episode took place in a different country or a different part of the United States, so we were presented with the challenge to do widely different accents for each episode. Not all of us knew all of the accents, but fortunately, in each episode we would have one of the five of us (the boy didn't record with us; he was directed privately) would know how to do the accent and would teach the rest of us. My favorite non-recurring roles for me were the Japanese tour guide and the Thai boy who talks about the volcano mountain.
ETB: Wow, did they give you any props of the toys, or characters that you portrayed to help out?
SN: Actually we never saw the toys until they were on the market. We received scripts and storyboards each week. Sometimes we had to delay our recording session while we waited for storyboards to come from Japan. The marketing aspect of the series was a completely different part of the production, and the actors are always the last to know anything other than their own contribution. Brendan and I discovered the toys in a shop one day and were delighted to see our characters represented. We were in a shop one day, and we happened to mention to the manager that we did many of the voices. He was so excited he called his children and asked us to talk to them on the telephone. Then he asked us to sign our toys. We were touched by his enthusiasm for our work.
ETB: Hahaha, I think I would have done the same!!! So how did you prepare for all these many voices?
SN: Previous commercial voice work prepared me for this cartoon work. I've actually voiced cartoon squirrels, snakes, talking food, etc., as well as dubbing foreign films into English. I also narrate audio books for AudioLark under the pseudonym Melinda Howard. When I was a little girl, I thought it was fun to call up my friends using a different voice, and see if they believed me or if they knew it was me. It worked the first time, but if I did it again, they were onto me.
I also sing --- not well, but well enough to do musicals for the not-so-discerning. And I think the singing keeps the voice supple and allows the actor to move out of the normal voice range and experiment with new sounds.
ETB: What a talent! I would love to know what keeps you busy these days?
SN: I write romance novels. I also teach a romance writing workshop at the West Hollywood Book Fair each autumn as well as at local libraries during the rest of the year. I also teach English as a Second Language at the Beverly Hills Lingual Institute, and I still do voiceover work --- most recently for a GPS system and the outgoing message of a corporate telephone system.
ETB: Thank you again for taking the time to entertain us! You have shared some amazing stories which will be enjoyed by a great audience!
SN: I'm glad you enjoyed the behind-the-scenes look at the creation of M.A.S.K. I've done a lot of voice work, but this one was the most intensive and the most fun. All of the actors met for the first time (except Brendan and me, of course) when we went into the studio the first time, and we got along so well that we're all still friends. We have coffee or lunch frequently, and we get together at Thanksgiving.
ETB: Hi Sharon, thank you so much for taking some time to enlighten us about your experiences on M.A.S.K!
SN: Hello, Rob, What a pleasant surprise to get your email regarding M.A.S.K. From time to time I get an email from an adult who was a fan as a child, and I'm always surprised to see that the letters are from all over the world. I guess we played in more countries than we thought.
Do you know that the boxed set of the first 65 episodes went on sale in 2012? And the series is still running in remote areas of the world.
ETB: Yes and we love it!
ETB: Why don’t we start off by telling us how you got involved in M.A.S.K?
SN: My husband, Brendan McKane (Miles Mayhem, Alex Sector) and I had just arrived in Los Angeles. We had been in town five days when we met a fellow on the beach in Santa Monica, and we started chatting. It came up that he's an actor/writer, and we were actors so he told us about these auditions for a cartoon series. We set up an appointment, went in, and auditioned. In the audition, the director asked me how many voices I could do, and I said, "I don't know; let's try some different voices and see what we get." They hadn't planned to use only one woman, but when they discovered I could do various voices, I saw a smile on the director's face. We recorded twice a week for four hours for a year, then they wrote 10 new episodes and we finished those in a couple of months.
The actor who played Sly Rax and others (Mark Halloran) is an impressionist, and when the director heard his impression of Jack Nicholson, she thought it was perfect for Sly Rax. I think when Graeme McKenna walked in, they knew they had the voice of T-Bob. Doug Stone knocked them out when he went in because he can do many varieties of voices, and indeed he did.
ETB: Wow that’s fascinating! We have got to ask you, how did you came about choosing the voice for Gloria Barker?
SN: The Gloria voice came from the teenager I used on my demo tape. I thought of Gloria as about 25 years old, enthusiastic, energetic, honest, loyal, and eager to fight injustice and evil. So it all came together in that voice.
ETB: That sure does sound like Gloria! What about Vanessa Warfield, the femme fatale?
SN: The Vanessa voice was a combination of Lauren Bacall's depth and the gruffness of Miles Mayhem.
ETB: Haha, quite fitting! So who was your favourite character in M.A.S.K?
SN: Vanessa was my favorite -- not because she was bad but because she didn't back down from anything. She stood up to her boss as well as everyone else. And I think she had a thing for Matt Trakker. We used to talk about it in the recording sessions. And, of course, the male actors always came up with ideas of how to get them together.
ETB: We noticed you also did many other voices for M.A.S.K, including the "computer".
SN: The Computer voice was something I dug out of my memory banks. I seemed to have heard something like it many years ago but couldn't quite place it. However, if worked for the computer, and the client was happy with it. But every time I used the computer voice, I had to have the sound engineer play a few words for me so I could get the exact pitch of the voice. In as much as the computer voice was all on one note until the very last syllable, it was important that that note be the same every time. Details, details, details.
The robot voice (T-Bob) was Graeme McKenna, a young man with a little higher voice than the other actors. The robot's read name is Thingamabob, shortened to T-Bob. Graeme also did several other voices, as did we all.
ETB: Incredible, any other voices from M.A.S.K that you made your own?
SN: I voiced all the women, all the children (except Scott), and all of the animals. Yes, when the cat meowed, that was me; when the panda made grunting sounds, that was me; when the cuckoo clock chirped, that was me, etc.
ETB: What did you find most challenging about your work on M.A.S.K?
SN: The most difficult part of the work was that each episode took place in a different country or a different part of the United States, so we were presented with the challenge to do widely different accents for each episode. Not all of us knew all of the accents, but fortunately, in each episode we would have one of the five of us (the boy didn't record with us; he was directed privately) would know how to do the accent and would teach the rest of us. My favorite non-recurring roles for me were the Japanese tour guide and the Thai boy who talks about the volcano mountain.
ETB: Wow, did they give you any props of the toys, or characters that you portrayed to help out?
SN: Actually we never saw the toys until they were on the market. We received scripts and storyboards each week. Sometimes we had to delay our recording session while we waited for storyboards to come from Japan. The marketing aspect of the series was a completely different part of the production, and the actors are always the last to know anything other than their own contribution. Brendan and I discovered the toys in a shop one day and were delighted to see our characters represented. We were in a shop one day, and we happened to mention to the manager that we did many of the voices. He was so excited he called his children and asked us to talk to them on the telephone. Then he asked us to sign our toys. We were touched by his enthusiasm for our work.
ETB: Hahaha, I think I would have done the same!!! So how did you prepare for all these many voices?
SN: Previous commercial voice work prepared me for this cartoon work. I've actually voiced cartoon squirrels, snakes, talking food, etc., as well as dubbing foreign films into English. I also narrate audio books for AudioLark under the pseudonym Melinda Howard. When I was a little girl, I thought it was fun to call up my friends using a different voice, and see if they believed me or if they knew it was me. It worked the first time, but if I did it again, they were onto me.
I also sing --- not well, but well enough to do musicals for the not-so-discerning. And I think the singing keeps the voice supple and allows the actor to move out of the normal voice range and experiment with new sounds.
ETB: What a talent! I would love to know what keeps you busy these days?
SN: I write romance novels. I also teach a romance writing workshop at the West Hollywood Book Fair each autumn as well as at local libraries during the rest of the year. I also teach English as a Second Language at the Beverly Hills Lingual Institute, and I still do voiceover work --- most recently for a GPS system and the outgoing message of a corporate telephone system.
ETB: Thank you again for taking the time to entertain us! You have shared some amazing stories which will be enjoyed by a great audience!
SN: I'm glad you enjoyed the behind-the-scenes look at the creation of M.A.S.K. I've done a lot of voice work, but this one was the most intensive and the most fun. All of the actors met for the first time (except Brendan and me, of course) when we went into the studio the first time, and we got along so well that we're all still friends. We have coffee or lunch frequently, and we get together at Thanksgiving.
|
|
ETB/MASKFORCE.com CHALLENGE
Favourite Childhood Toy
"I had a baby doll named Chuckles. She had beautiful blue eyes and when she was tilted, she said "mama." She took a bottle, and afterwards she had to have her diaper changed. I took great care of her, and when I had children, I passed Chuckles along to my girls. Eventually another child broke her into tiny pieces in a fit of anger. I was devastated. She had been in the family so long"
Sharon Noble, 24th March 2015
"I had a baby doll named Chuckles. She had beautiful blue eyes and when she was tilted, she said "mama." She took a bottle, and afterwards she had to have her diaper changed. I took great care of her, and when I had children, I passed Chuckles along to my girls. Eventually another child broke her into tiny pieces in a fit of anger. I was devastated. She had been in the family so long"
Sharon Noble, 24th March 2015
We were fortunate enough to interview Sharon at our previous site EpicToyBox (ETB) on the 7th of February 2014
ETB: Hi Sharon, thank you so much for taking some time to enlighten us about your experiences on M.A.S.K!
SN: Hello, Rob, What a pleasant surprise to get your email regarding M.A.S.K. From time to time I get an email from an adult who was a fan as a child, and I'm always surprised to see that the letters are from all over the world. I guess we played in more countries than we thought.
Do you know that the boxed set of the first 65 episodes went on sale in 2012? And the series is still running in remote areas of the world.
ETB: Yes and we love it!
ETB: Why don’t we start off by telling us how you got involved in M.A.S.K?
SN: My husband, Brendan McKane (Miles Mayhem, Alex Sector) and I had just arrived in Los Angeles. We had been in town five days when we met a fellow on the beach in Santa Monica, and we started chatting. It came up that he's an actor/writer, and we were actors so he told us about these auditions for a cartoon series. We set up an appointment, went in, and auditioned. In the audition, the director asked me how many voices I could do, and I said, "I don't know; let's try some different voices and see what we get." They hadn't planned to use only one woman, but when they discovered I could do various voices, I saw a smile on the director's face. We recorded twice a week for four hours for a year, then they wrote 10 new episodes and we finished those in a couple of months.
The actor who played Sly Rax and others (Mark Halloran) is an impressionist, and when the director heard his impression of Jack Nicholson, she thought it was perfect for Sly Rax. I think when Graeme McKenna walked in, they knew they had the voice of T-Bob. Doug Stone knocked them out when he went in because he can do many varieties of voices, and indeed he did.
ETB: Wow that’s fascinating! We have got to ask you, how did you came about choosing the voice for Gloria Barker?
SN: The Gloria voice came from the teenager I used on my demo tape. I thought of Gloria as about 25 years old, enthusiastic, energetic, honest, loyal, and eager to fight injustice and evil. So it all came together in that voice.
ETB: That sure does sound like Gloria! What about Vanessa Warfield, the femme fatale?
SN: The Vanessa voice was a combination of Lauren Bacall's depth and the gruffness of Miles Mayhem.
ETB: Haha, quite fitting! So who was your favourite character in M.A.S.K?
SN: Vanessa was my favorite -- not because she was bad but because she didn't back down from anything. She stood up to her boss as well as everyone else. And I think she had a thing for Matt Trakker. We used to talk about it in the recording sessions. And, of course, the male actors always came up with ideas of how to get them together.
ETB: We noticed you also did many other voices for M.A.S.K, including the "computer".
SN: The Computer voice was something I dug out of my memory banks. I seemed to have heard something like it many years ago but couldn't quite place it. However, if worked for the computer, and the client was happy with it. But every time I used the computer voice, I had to have the sound engineer play a few words for me so I could get the exact pitch of the voice. In as much as the computer voice was all on one note until the very last syllable, it was important that that note be the same every time. Details, details, details.
The robot voice (T-Bob) was Graeme McKenna, a young man with a little higher voice than the other actors. The robot's read name is Thingamabob, shortened to T-Bob. Graeme also did several other voices, as did we all.
ETB: Incredible, any other voices from M.A.S.K that you made your own?
SN: I voiced all the women, all the children (except Scott), and all of the animals. Yes, when the cat meowed, that was me; when the panda made grunting sounds, that was me; when the cuckoo clock chirped, that was me, etc.
ETB: What did you find most challenging about your work on M.A.S.K?
SN: The most difficult part of the work was that each episode took place in a different country or a different part of the United States, so we were presented with the challenge to do widely different accents for each episode. Not all of us knew all of the accents, but fortunately, in each episode we would have one of the five of us (the boy didn't record with us; he was directed privately) would know how to do the accent and would teach the rest of us. My favorite non-recurring roles for me were the Japanese tour guide and the Thai boy who talks about the volcano mountain.
ETB: Wow, did they give you any props of the toys, or characters that you portrayed to help out?
SN: Actually we never saw the toys until they were on the market. We received scripts and storyboards each week. Sometimes we had to delay our recording session while we waited for storyboards to come from Japan. The marketing aspect of the series was a completely different part of the production, and the actors are always the last to know anything other than their own contribution. Brendan and I discovered the toys in a shop one day and were delighted to see our characters represented. We were in a shop one day, and we happened to mention to the manager that we did many of the voices. He was so excited he called his children and asked us to talk to them on the telephone. Then he asked us to sign our toys. We were touched by his enthusiasm for our work.
ETB: Hahaha, I think I would have done the same!!! So how did you prepare for all these many voices?
SN: Previous commercial voice work prepared me for this cartoon work. I've actually voiced cartoon squirrels, snakes, talking food, etc., as well as dubbing foreign films into English. I also narrate audio books for AudioLark under the pseudonym Melinda Howard. When I was a little girl, I thought it was fun to call up my friends using a different voice, and see if they believed me or if they knew it was me. It worked the first time, but if I did it again, they were onto me.
I also sing --- not well, but well enough to do musicals for the not-so-discerning. And I think the singing keeps the voice supple and allows the actor to move out of the normal voice range and experiment with new sounds.
ETB: What a talent! I would love to know what keeps you busy these days?
SN: I write romance novels. I also teach a romance writing workshop at the West Hollywood Book Fair each autumn as well as at local libraries during the rest of the year. I also teach English as a Second Language at the Beverly Hills Lingual Institute, and I still do voiceover work --- most recently for a GPS system and the outgoing message of a corporate telephone system.
ETB: Thank you again for taking the time to entertain us! You have shared some amazing stories which will be enjoyed by a great audience!
SN: I'm glad you enjoyed the behind-the-scenes look at the creation of M.A.S.K. I've done a lot of voice work, but this one was the most intensive and the most fun. All of the actors met for the first time (except Brendan and me, of course) when we went into the studio the first time, and we got along so well that we're all still friends. We have coffee or lunch frequently, and we get together at Thanksgiving.
ETB: Hi Sharon, thank you so much for taking some time to enlighten us about your experiences on M.A.S.K!
SN: Hello, Rob, What a pleasant surprise to get your email regarding M.A.S.K. From time to time I get an email from an adult who was a fan as a child, and I'm always surprised to see that the letters are from all over the world. I guess we played in more countries than we thought.
Do you know that the boxed set of the first 65 episodes went on sale in 2012? And the series is still running in remote areas of the world.
ETB: Yes and we love it!
ETB: Why don’t we start off by telling us how you got involved in M.A.S.K?
SN: My husband, Brendan McKane (Miles Mayhem, Alex Sector) and I had just arrived in Los Angeles. We had been in town five days when we met a fellow on the beach in Santa Monica, and we started chatting. It came up that he's an actor/writer, and we were actors so he told us about these auditions for a cartoon series. We set up an appointment, went in, and auditioned. In the audition, the director asked me how many voices I could do, and I said, "I don't know; let's try some different voices and see what we get." They hadn't planned to use only one woman, but when they discovered I could do various voices, I saw a smile on the director's face. We recorded twice a week for four hours for a year, then they wrote 10 new episodes and we finished those in a couple of months.
The actor who played Sly Rax and others (Mark Halloran) is an impressionist, and when the director heard his impression of Jack Nicholson, she thought it was perfect for Sly Rax. I think when Graeme McKenna walked in, they knew they had the voice of T-Bob. Doug Stone knocked them out when he went in because he can do many varieties of voices, and indeed he did.
ETB: Wow that’s fascinating! We have got to ask you, how did you came about choosing the voice for Gloria Barker?
SN: The Gloria voice came from the teenager I used on my demo tape. I thought of Gloria as about 25 years old, enthusiastic, energetic, honest, loyal, and eager to fight injustice and evil. So it all came together in that voice.
ETB: That sure does sound like Gloria! What about Vanessa Warfield, the femme fatale?
SN: The Vanessa voice was a combination of Lauren Bacall's depth and the gruffness of Miles Mayhem.
ETB: Haha, quite fitting! So who was your favourite character in M.A.S.K?
SN: Vanessa was my favorite -- not because she was bad but because she didn't back down from anything. She stood up to her boss as well as everyone else. And I think she had a thing for Matt Trakker. We used to talk about it in the recording sessions. And, of course, the male actors always came up with ideas of how to get them together.
ETB: We noticed you also did many other voices for M.A.S.K, including the "computer".
SN: The Computer voice was something I dug out of my memory banks. I seemed to have heard something like it many years ago but couldn't quite place it. However, if worked for the computer, and the client was happy with it. But every time I used the computer voice, I had to have the sound engineer play a few words for me so I could get the exact pitch of the voice. In as much as the computer voice was all on one note until the very last syllable, it was important that that note be the same every time. Details, details, details.
The robot voice (T-Bob) was Graeme McKenna, a young man with a little higher voice than the other actors. The robot's read name is Thingamabob, shortened to T-Bob. Graeme also did several other voices, as did we all.
ETB: Incredible, any other voices from M.A.S.K that you made your own?
SN: I voiced all the women, all the children (except Scott), and all of the animals. Yes, when the cat meowed, that was me; when the panda made grunting sounds, that was me; when the cuckoo clock chirped, that was me, etc.
ETB: What did you find most challenging about your work on M.A.S.K?
SN: The most difficult part of the work was that each episode took place in a different country or a different part of the United States, so we were presented with the challenge to do widely different accents for each episode. Not all of us knew all of the accents, but fortunately, in each episode we would have one of the five of us (the boy didn't record with us; he was directed privately) would know how to do the accent and would teach the rest of us. My favorite non-recurring roles for me were the Japanese tour guide and the Thai boy who talks about the volcano mountain.
ETB: Wow, did they give you any props of the toys, or characters that you portrayed to help out?
SN: Actually we never saw the toys until they were on the market. We received scripts and storyboards each week. Sometimes we had to delay our recording session while we waited for storyboards to come from Japan. The marketing aspect of the series was a completely different part of the production, and the actors are always the last to know anything other than their own contribution. Brendan and I discovered the toys in a shop one day and were delighted to see our characters represented. We were in a shop one day, and we happened to mention to the manager that we did many of the voices. He was so excited he called his children and asked us to talk to them on the telephone. Then he asked us to sign our toys. We were touched by his enthusiasm for our work.
ETB: Hahaha, I think I would have done the same!!! So how did you prepare for all these many voices?
SN: Previous commercial voice work prepared me for this cartoon work. I've actually voiced cartoon squirrels, snakes, talking food, etc., as well as dubbing foreign films into English. I also narrate audio books for AudioLark under the pseudonym Melinda Howard. When I was a little girl, I thought it was fun to call up my friends using a different voice, and see if they believed me or if they knew it was me. It worked the first time, but if I did it again, they were onto me.
I also sing --- not well, but well enough to do musicals for the not-so-discerning. And I think the singing keeps the voice supple and allows the actor to move out of the normal voice range and experiment with new sounds.
ETB: What a talent! I would love to know what keeps you busy these days?
SN: I write romance novels. I also teach a romance writing workshop at the West Hollywood Book Fair each autumn as well as at local libraries during the rest of the year. I also teach English as a Second Language at the Beverly Hills Lingual Institute, and I still do voiceover work --- most recently for a GPS system and the outgoing message of a corporate telephone system.
ETB: Thank you again for taking the time to entertain us! You have shared some amazing stories which will be enjoyed by a great audience!
SN: I'm glad you enjoyed the behind-the-scenes look at the creation of M.A.S.K. I've done a lot of voice work, but this one was the most intensive and the most fun. All of the actors met for the first time (except Brendan and me, of course) when we went into the studio the first time, and we got along so well that we're all still friends. We have coffee or lunch frequently, and we get together at Thanksgiving.
