Mumbai: Actor-singer-show host Aditya Narayan, who has lent his voice to the titular character in the Hindi version of animated children film ‘Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile’, faced quite a few challenges while he was working on the gig. He had to tweak his natural voice in terms of frequency for the character.
The singer told IANS: “The primary challenge was to make Lyle my own, to make the Indian soundtrack sound like the original and not a dubbed version. Shawn Mendes, who has lent his voice to Lyle in the original soundtrack, has a thinner singing voice. So, his voice suits Lyle because the film shows Lyle’s journey from the time he is an infant to his teens.”
Apart from tweaking his tonal quality, he also had to wrap his head around fitting in the Hindi lyrics to the original melody which was composed keeping English lyrics in mind.
He further said: “So, I had to really work on sounding younger and make my voice thinner for the character of Lyle. Also, fitting in the Hindi lyrics over the original melody was quite a challenge. It took me sometime to get into the groove of things. But, once I figured out the method, it was a smooth sail.”
Lending his voice to an animated character also benefited the actor in him. “When a singer lends their voice to a character, they use every possible tool to make the lines and vocals sound as authentic as it could be for the actor who will emote that song for the camera.”
He added: “There are times when I move around the mic while singing and dubbing to bring in certain elements to the song or a dubbed line and that greatly helps me in return, something which I could use in my gigs as an actor”.
‘Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile’, directed by Will Speck and Josh Gordon, is currently playing in theatres.
–IANS