That’s right, kids, after an 18 month journey, My and Rachael Leone’s baby is walking! Well, walking like a happy zombie.
But first, how we made a baby (sorry, we both remained clothed for this process):
About five years ago I stumbled upon a video made by a “Resident Evil” fan that featured a girl kicking Albert Wesker’s ass (a character I voice). She filmed, edited and created the special effects herself. It was very well executed and entertaining so i looked at her other videos and realized she was a pretty damn good multimedia artist. So I shared her channel on my Facebook page.
Flash forward a year and a very talented fan on twitter sent me some drawings of characters I had voiced and I retweeted them. I looked at her feed and saw some great artwork so I followed her back. Thus began a cyber friendship. Six months later I realized this twitter person (@UmbrellaSpecter) was the same artist I discovered on YouTube! Small cyberworld.
One day I tweeted her to see if she would wanna work on a simple short animated story. She was game so I wrote up a script that night, sent it to her, she liked it and away she went to animate it.
As the character concepts materialized I realized I wanted to get some other voice actors involved. It seemed like this little short was going to be way better than a YouTube tickle. We decided to go the film festival route and to find an accomplished actress to voice Ginger. I swallowed my shame and asked Lacey Chabert (“Mean Girls,” Party of Five”) if she would consider it (we are cast mates on “Transformers: Rescue Bots”). She read the script and said yes!
Next was the voice of Snapper. I knew I could do it, as well as voice the narrator and the smaller one liners without it being obvious, but now I wanted to up the game for all the roles. That’s when I had an idea to pack the film full of voice actors who had at least one “Resident Evil” voice over credit. The result was a star-studded voice cast!
For Snapper, the über talented Liam O’Brien said yes! Not only does he have VA credits with “Resident Evil,” he also directed me in my biggest Wesker game – “Resident Evil 5!” This was perfect and poetic casting.
Then everybody else graciously sent me their recordings! Steve Blum, Roger Craig Smith, Laura Bailey, Orion Acaba, Christopher Emerson, Kyle Hebert, Matthew Mercer, Karen Strassman, Courtenay Taylor and Imari Williams (another Rescue Bot!)
The final touch was adding a brilliant score from my longtime collaborators, Lily Popova and Abraham Peraza!
Now come the festival showings! As of now, here are a few places you can see “Ginger & Snapper!”
February 27th (time machine needed): Shärt International Comedy Film Festival
March 19th: HorrorHound Film Festival
March 31st: Memphis Comedy Festival
April 1st: Media Film Festival
April 24th: Hang Onto Your Shorts Film Festival
April 21st – 24th: *West Chester International Short Film Festival
*WINNER BEST ANIMATED SHORT!
More to come… Until then, check out more of Rachael Leone’s work here.
