jON3.0 wrote:I am beyond thrilled to be the voices of Shockwave AND Soundwave in the Bumblebee movie. It’s been a childhood dream of mine to voice a Transformer(s) in an animated series and/or movie since I was 5 years old. You may already know that I voice Optimus Prime for various Hasbro things if Peter Cullen is busy, doesn’t want to do it, or for budget reasons. It was a great honor being Optimus for Combiner Wars. Shockwave has always been my favorite character and Soundwave is just barely second and to voice such an iconic moment in the film is insane!
My agent submitted my character demo (which features Prime from CW) to Paramount and they hired me to fill in as Optimus Prime for the Bumblebee movie which I was STOKED for! I knew up front that once everything was finalized, they would bring Cullen in. Working with Travis Knight was really cool. He told me if he could talk like Optimus the way I could, he would use that voice all the time. Before you record for a job like this, they always show the scene first. I’m watching the unfinished animation of the opening scene of the movie on this awesome mini-theater in sound stage at Paramount which is totally surreal and I’m seeing the Cybertronian seekers and Shockwave, Soundwave, Ironhide, Arcee and the other classic characters I’ve loved since 1984. Even as unfinished animation, I was totally blown away. I literally fanboyed on Travis Knight about how amazing it was and how it’s what I’ve always wanted to see in the Transformers movies (he’s a true Transformers fan by the way).
I recorded 4 sessions at Paramount, most of them to voice Prime. In the waiting room for different sessions, David Sobolov, Steve Blum, Grey Griffin and I talked shop while I’m trying to keep my cool. Here I am, sitting at the GROWNUP table. Before the fourth session, I received an audition for all the characters in Bumblebee and I had my heart set on booking it. We were asked to pick 4 or 5 but I did them all. I ended up auditioning 3 different times but never found out why. Never heard back from the auditions so I assumed I didn’t book anything, but at least I gave them my best shot.
When I booked the last session, I was only booked to fill in for Optimus again, but I was told I would record scratch (temp voiceover) for other characters, so I figured I still had one more shot. That was the same day Steve Blum was there. Someone came out to ask us which characters we’d booked before and of course Steve is like “Yes. Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Yes...” so I’m thinking I don’t have a chance since I’ve only ever actually BOOKED Optimus. I was only given 2 or 3 characters to record. When I got into the session, I was determined to at least try to do the others because some of them were my favorites. After I asked Mr. Knight if he wouldn’t mind if I tried the other characters, he was kind enough to allow me to record them. After I recorded a few, he said “Dude! You’re blowing my mind here! You sound just like them!” Greatest compliment ever. They had a montage of clips from the G1 cartoon queued up before we recorded each one to make sure they were as accurate to the cartoon as possible which is so cool to see up on a big screen with great sound. We had a fan chat about how Soundwave’s vocoder effect was originally done (he had me record two versions of the voice in two different pitches to better recreate that effect). I also told him about Corey Burton’s David Warner impression was how he came up with the original Shockwave voice. By the end of the job, I had recorded Ratchet, Ironhide, Wheeljack, Soundwave and Shockwave, with no idea whether or not anything would end up in the final movie, but I was confident that I had gave it my all.
A couple of months ago, my two youngest kids and I got to see an early version of the film and all the voices I had done, INCLUDING Optimus Prime, were in that version of the movie which blew my kids’ minds. It was definitely one of the most memorable moments of my entire life. We still didn’t know if that meant any of the voices I did were in the final film or not, but I took it as a good sign.
My agent finally gave me the great news at the end of October. I had joked with Travis Knight that if there were any other voices they needed at all, whatever they wanted, I had to get in the movie somehow and he chuckled, “Don’t worry, you will.” At the time, I took it as “one day it will happen.” It really did and I couldn’t be happier.
My goal has never been to voice Optimus Prime one day, even though it was Peter Cullen’s Optimus Prime voice that inspired me to become a voice actor. My goal was always to work with Peter Cullen on a Transformers project and I finally crossed that off my list, even though I never thought it could possibly happen. It was an incredible experience and the movie is really great. It’s got the G1 look & action I’ve always wanted to see with the charm, humor & heart of Iron Giant. My name is up there on the big screen between 2 of my favorite voice actor heroes, Steve Blum & Grey Griffin. I am eternally grateful to my agent, Paramount, the other actors & Travis Knight for their kindness and the opportunity to make a lifelong dream become reality.
Jon Bailey can be found here:
YouTube
His website: epicvoiceguy
