Craig Baker

Ottawa Valley, British(many places), French (Euro or Canadian). Scottish, Irish, Australian, New Zealand, Mexican/Hispanic

I have always been good at performance with my voice. I'm a natural mimic with a good ear for inflectons accents and comedy timing. Monty Python sketch performing was an early passion. At university I began studying sound for motion pictures and came to recognize the power of sound and voice performance. Over the years my natural talents and language training have been used to advantage in some film froductions. A colleague recognizing my potential hired me for voice over instructional videos. Many of the actors I have worked with over the years have been immpressed with my ability to do impressions as well as my language talents. I enjoy entertaining and enthralling with my voice so I am listed here to see what I may achieve professionally with more representation. Bachelor of Arts degree in Film Production from York U in Toronto 1987 with a specialization in audio engineering. 23 years of audio engineering for motion pictures including post audio editing and ADR sessions and dubbing using my voice for different characters as needed. Voice-over narrations for technical/instructional training videos were my first professional gigs As a youth my passion for learning to perform had me memorizing and performing Monty Python and other British comedy sketches thus I can do a wide variety of accents in English I lived in the South of France in the late 70's where I began my French training which included recitaton of French plays. I also picked up the "Midi" accent and some variations on French accents as spoken by asian refugees I schooled with. In Canada I attended French immersion high school and learned variations on Canadian French and took Spanish instructon for 4 years. My work in motion pictures has exposed me to numerous speaking and performance styles as well as accents and they have fed my passion for voice ipressions and speech performance. I have mics of varyting types including large diaphragm condensers suitable for most voice work , a Sennheiser shotgun and some dynamic mics as well in a variety of patterns. I have worked EXTENSIVELY in the area audio engineering and field recording audio for movies and television and documentaries so my knowledge of mic choice, position and clean recording techniques is vast as is my understanding of treating envronments to improve acoustic characteristic for recording. My home studio equipment includes an excellent multi-channel Mackie analog mixer to cleanly feed my mics (mostly studio condensers) to a well equipped computer for studio recordings. I use a more mobile setup for field recording that involves 24bit preamp for my mobile computer. Post audio production is handled on computer in digital domain in software (various) with a 24bit resolution and 48khz frequency spec. for all tracks unless expressly requested otherwise. I'm an excellent mimic and can be called upon to develop impressions and impersonations of a certain range of male voices. I can do a very wide variety of character voices appropriate for cartoons and many other possiblilities as well.