Think of a movie or a TV drama that you've seen recently. There
were likely some scenes located in places where people gather.
At a restaurant, in an office, or even a hospital perhaps. Besides
the dialogue of the main characters in the scene and the supporting
music, you may also hear the background conversations of the other
people in the scene. You might even be able to pick out the odd
word or phrase.
The process of recording the background voices is called walla.
Besides background mumblings, walla also covers various human
noises such as combat grunts, dying gasps, lovemaking sounds,
and occasional bits of added dialogue. All this miscellany of
sound is recorded in a studio. The walla performers, usually a
balanced crew of two men and two women, divide up the required
voices amongst them. Standing around a microphone they pretend
to be airport crowds, kids in a playground, ninja assassins, passing
pedestrians - whatever is required. Their words must be synchronized
to the footage that's already been shot.
My first introduction to walla came in the fall of 1994 when I
was asked to do some work for "Highlander," a syndicated
TV series. The episode being worked on was partly set in Northern
China and they needed somebody who could speak Mandarin. While
I'm not completely fluent, I can come up with enough phrases to
get by. I had never heard of walla. Embarrassingly, I had to ask
what it was. It sounded like fun. Naturally, I agreed to do it.
I arrived at the post-production studio shortly before 9:00 AM
and met the rest of the walla crew, experienced veterans all.
I guess I was the 'ringer' they had brought in for the day. The
scene they had brought me in for consisted of an outdoor wrestling
match between two fierce warriors. Our job was to dub in voices
for the men that had gathered to bet on the fight. I quickly gave
a lesson to the other three guys there that day on simple Mandarin
phrases. Now, there's a few walla performers in town who can say
'Hello, I eat rice' in Mandarin. We yelled Mandarin phrases to
each other as we watched the footage of the fight on the monitor.
At one point, we started to chant out the name 'Zhang You Wen.'
This was some nonsense name that had appeared in my 1st year Chinese
course textbook at university. It worked and 'Zhang You Wen' became
the name of the champion wrestler.
In addition to the wrestling scene, I also got to be a bar patron
(back in the U.S. somewhere) and I provided the grunts and groans
for an evil immortal who had a long drawn out fight with Duncan
McLeod (the main character on "Highlander.") They were
fighting near a dam and the characters ended up in the water.
So, I had to pretend to gurgle water. Eventually, McLeod had to
decapitate the evil immortal to kill him. I didn't need to make
much noise there. I was pretty exhausted. These guys must get
pretty tired if they have to do a martial arts film.
Since that first time, I've performed walla on a variety of shows.
Among other things, I've been a pissed off 10-year old, a pissed
off teenager, a pissed off convict, and a pissed off cowboy. Is
somebody trying to tell me something? As well, I've been shot,
stabbed, punched in the gut, and kicked in the groin. Finally,
I've been to Vietnam, the Old West, the England of Richard I,
and the most dangerous place of all - an inner city high school.
How hard is it do walla? Well, it's easy if you're a certain kind
of person. You need to have a wide variety of voices and word
choices at your disposal. And, you need the insight to use an
appropriate voice speaking appropriate dialogue. Watching the
old pros, I was quite amazed at their timing and range. Most of
walla is improvised. Although it's in the background, the odd
phrase can occasionally be heard. Expressions such as "later,
man" or "B.S." would probably not be appropriate
for a Western. Basically, the challenge in walla is to assist
in selling the illusion. A walla crew may ask itself, "Did
the three of us really sound like disgruntled English pirates
plotting a mutiny in the cargo hold of a ratted out old ship?"
So, the next time you watch a movie, pay attention to grunts,
groans, and background voices. Did they sound authentic to you?
Was the timing accurate? Can you hear certain words clearly? If
it's something I did, I hope I did it right.
