New Talking Heads

AswaySuller

AswaySuller

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Is anyone Savy on how these work (like the one in Disneyland and what was trialed an MNSSHP) ?

My only guess is that there is a bank of recorded words/phonetic sounds from Mickey and a CM is watching via camera like (Turtle talk) and talks into a mic which converts this to Mickeys voice...

I'm sure that's not right though....

anyone know?
 
Rob562

Rob562

Well-Known Member
The patent that Disney filed for a year or two ago would imply that it's a self-contained piece of equipment, where the "friend" of the character did both the voice and the actions, and the technology took care of everything else.

-Rob
 
AswaySuller

AswaySuller

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Wow that's pretty cool.
I didn't realize voice emulators/modulators were that good!

Is there no danger of a child/person getting close to the friend of mickey and hearing the real voice?
 
Timekeeper

Timekeeper

Well-Known Member
TubaGeek said:
The latter. It's a voice-modulator.
Click to expand...

It is my understanding that the "voice" is a pre-recorded bank of the most common phrases that an animated character would need in order to "love 'em and shove 'em," and there is no such live "voice-modulator."

First, if you go onto youtube and look up meet and greets with these characters, they often "speak" exactly the same phrases, in exactly the same way, with different guests. Also, sometimes the character's responses don't really "make sense" as a response to what the guests say to the character. These are obviously pre-recorded phrases.

Second, a "voice-modulator" effect only works when the "modulated" sound is either distanced from or significantly louder than the originating sound. So, a person standing inches from a character would likely hear both the "friend's" voice and the "modulated" voice simultaneously. It's like standing in the front row at a concert. You can hear the drum kit's acoustic sound as well as its amplified sound coming through the speakers. The character's amplified voice would have to be (almost annoyingly) loud in order for it to drown out the speaking voice. Modulators (especially ones intended to mimic a recognizable character voice) don't work well with whispering, although they are getting pretty good with very soft speaking, as guests can see with the talking trash cans, etc.

I have yet to see "live" speaking responses in a character meet and greet.
 
Timekeeper

Timekeeper

Well-Known Member
Rob562 said:
I remember the very first YouTube videos included Mickey calling a girl by her name, and it wasn't that common of a name...

-Rob
Click to expand...

At Universal's E.T. Adventure, E.T also says goodbye to you "by name," common or otherwise, and has been doing so for decades without the need to have any speaking performers. :eek:

If you have a link to a video that uses "live" speech to voice a new gen animated character, please share it. I would love to see it.

Otherwise, I have only seen videos that utilize pre-recorded phrase banks. Of course, you have to watch a few of the videos taken by different guests in order to see the obvious repetition in use of the phrases. As for names, it wouldn't be very difficult to sit down and record "Hi _____" for the majority of names. We're not talking about coming up with 300 different names engraved in key-chains or printed on mugs. Someone could easily go through the name dictionary (if such a thing even exists) and record all of the names in a day or two. I suppose a baby name list would suffice. :)
 
TubaGeek

TubaGeek

God bless the "Ignore" button.
FlaMel said:
So...Don't leave us hanging...How's it done? :shrug:
Click to expand...
Sorry; confidentiality agreements were signed. :/ One of the downsides of being an Entertainment CM is that I can no longer participate in the online rumor-mill. Even if it's something I don't entirely know, like the details behind Turtle Talk...
 
AswaySuller

AswaySuller

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
SobchakSecurity said:
I erroneously clicked on this thread thinking David Byrne was back together with Jerry Harrison, Tina Weymouth, and Chris Frantz.

I guess that this must not be the place?
Click to expand...

Ha ha love it....

There was a video where a girl was called What sounded like Manny that's what made me believe it was something other than a bank of responses....

Are you suggesting they ask for your name before the guest goes in like they do on ET?

That would make sense it's just the video obviously didn't show that portion :)
 
wilkeliza

wilkeliza

Well-Known Member
There was a thread awhile back about this same subject. The link is below

http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=831400

The Mickey that was tested at WDW seems to be much more interactive than the DL Mickey. It was my guess (and the ended consensus) that the Talking Mickey at WDW worked the same way as Turtle Talk with Crush. There is a voice actor staged in a different room who can see and hear the room with the character through a live camera feed. The Mickey suit most likely has a speaker system in it that just projects whatever the voice actor is saying and much like Turtle Talk the mouth and blinking is probably controlled by the voice actor as well. This way the talking Mickey is able to be spontaneous. However this model is not very cost effective because it requires two people (one high priced voice actor and one costumed entertainment) to do a roll that is normally just done by one person.
 
Goofy6294

Goofy6294

Active Member
TubaGeek said:
Sorry; confidentiality agreements were signed. :/ One of the downsides of being an Entertainment CM is that I can no longer participate in the online rumor-mill. Even if it's something I don't entirely know, like the details behind Turtle Talk...
Click to expand...

Awww....What a tease!
 
Micaelorum

Micaelorum

Member
A friend of mine worked with Disney Live! in my city. Moving Heads for stage performers are not the same as the Moving Heads used for the meet&greets. Performers on stage have sensors on the right hand fingers and they can control both mouth and eyelid. Talking Mickey could be activated by the tongue device or it could be wireless...
 

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