Latest / Found in Interpretation Podcast / Ep. 41 - Voice, Presence, Impact: An Actor’s Toolkit for Elite Interpreters

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Ep. 41 - Voice, Presence, Impact: An Actor’s Toolkit for Elite Interpreters · Found in Interpretation Podcast

0:00
Hello and welcome again to another episode of Found an
0:03
interpretation podcast. I'm one of your cohost Alley
0:07
Brutal and I'm here Brian. Brian, how you doing?
0:09
I'm doing fantastic. And we're also here with
0:13
Francis. Francis, how are you?
0:15
I'm doing really well. Thank you.
0:19
I'm really excited to be here, actually.
0:23
Let's kick it. All right, we are here with a
0:37
phone. I'm gonna try to pronounce your
0:40
name correctly in English. I say France or Francis.
0:43
Francis in. English.
0:45
Alright, so we're here with Francis Kushner.
0:49
She's a professional conference interpreter, English and French
0:53
and Spanish. She was a professional actress
0:57
in mostly theatre, film, voice and television.
1:01
She's a member of at Trump Equity and former Stasiak with
1:06
the USDA. That is the union, union that
1:09
sister here in Quebec. And she worked professionally
1:12
for several years as a professional actress before
1:16
transitioning to interpretation. And this is what our theme of
1:20
the day is. It's the transition and the link
1:24
between professional actors and interpretation.
1:29
So is there a link among those two?
1:32
I think there is, you know, and before this discussion today, I
1:37
thought I know what I wrote down.
1:41
I jotted down a few notes and I thought, I wonder what ChatGPT
1:44
thinks? Because what do we do when we
1:47
want to research something these days?
1:49
We don't look at encyclopedias anymore.
1:52
In fact, I was thinking ChatGPT is like today's book of
1:56
encyclopedia. So I looked it up and I asked
1:59
ChatGPT, what's, you know, what's the difference?
2:02
What's the link? And it said that interpreters
2:05
are voice actors for real people.
2:08
And that resonated with me because truly we are, we are
2:15
voice actors for real people. And there's lots of things in
2:21
common and I'll touch on some of them a little later throughout
2:26
the podcast. But umm, I can start by telling
2:30
you about how I transitioned. Yeah.
2:33
Well, actually, before you talk about the transition, can we
2:36
take a step back and can you tell us how you started your
2:41
career as an actor? OK, it's a long story, but I'm
2:46
going to give you the coolest notes.
2:47
Version It's a podcast. Degree in social work, I have a
2:53
bachelor of social work and after I graduated, I was working
2:58
as a social worker in foster care.
3:01
And I went after almost a year into it.
3:06
I thought I this is not my thing.
3:09
I didn't know what I wanted to do in life, you know, So I had
3:12
to find myself. So I decided to go to Israel and
3:15
do that. And I was going to go to a key
3:17
boots. But I found this program and it
3:20
was to volunteer. So I studied, I studied Hebrew
3:26
and then I went to a hospital where I was volunteering doing
3:33
art therapy with patients. OK.
3:36
And so I was in the world of art therapy and I loved it.
3:41
I thought this really interesting.
3:44
But then I ended up having to go volunteer at different places
3:50
and they gave me a choice. For a while, I was at a museum
3:53
researching antiquated musical instruments.
3:57
It was interesting, but it wasn't really dynamic.
4:00
So then I have a background in dance and I found a theatre
4:06
company that needed a choreographer in Israel.
4:09
In Israel? Yeah, in, in Haifa of all
4:13
places. And I thought, OK, you know,
4:17
I'll do some choreography. I've done a little bit of dance
4:20
choreography, not really professional, but on a
4:23
professional level. However, they asked me and then
4:27
they said, you know, we actually have a role.
4:29
We would like you to audition us.
4:32
I'm not an actress. And they they.
4:35
Anyway, Long story short, they believed in me.
4:39
I didn't know what to do, so I went back to university, started
4:43
studying theatre at the University of Alberta, and then
4:45
I went. I don't think I want to be at a
4:50
university studying theatre. That just doesn't sit right
4:52
with. You didn't even know you could
4:53
study theatre at university. I'm sorry, I thought that there
4:56
was like Conservatoire. Says there are different
5:00
conservatories. There's the National Theatre
5:02
School that you're referring to, and there's other theatre
5:06
schools and you can take all kinds of workshops and that sort
5:10
of thing. But there are theatre schools
5:13
and I was at a university environment studying theatre,
5:16
and I went, it wasn't in the Master of Fine Arts program, but
5:21
I was taking theatre nonetheless.
5:22
And I decided that's not for me. I drove my Honda Accord across
5:27
the country in the middle of winter, 20 below weather, and I
5:32
arrived in Toronto and I started taking acting courses all over
5:36
the place. I did so much.
5:39
And then I heard about this wonderful theatre school in
5:42
Paris, in France, and that is the Ecological Internacional
5:47
Jacque. And I thought, oh, it's movement
5:50
based. And I had been studying a lot of
5:52
text, a lot of text, improvisation, speech,
5:56
dictation, voice. And I thought, wow, that sounds
6:00
really cool. It's international.
6:02
I love doing things on an international level.
6:04
I spoke French, but it wasn't that great.
6:08
And I thought, I'm going to apply.
6:10
And I applied and I got in and I did the two year program at Echo
6:16
Jacob, which still exists to this day.
6:20
And that changed my life. That changed my life on so many
6:25
levels. And you know, I learned so much
6:32
and so many things that actually apply to my work as a conference
6:36
interpreter. Now that theatre school, a lot
6:40
of people are still professional actors.
6:42
And we had a reunion, we had a, a class reunion in Paris last
6:46
September. And, you know, 1 member of our
6:51
Canadian Senate was my classmate.
6:56
So people after acting after theatre school can become
7:01
professional actors, which is what I did.
7:05
But you can also become a senator or you can, you know,
7:09
become a teacher. You can become.
7:12
You mean in the actual Canadian Parliament there's a senator?
7:17
There is who was my classmate. May I know whom?
7:20
Yeah, Renee called me loner arable.
7:25
Renee Cormier for me. He's Renee, you know.
7:29
And, um, yeah, we sweat a lot together at that theatre school.
7:33
There were a few other Canadians, and I came back and I
7:37
started working professionally as an actress.
7:40
I wanted to work in Montreal. It didn't quite work out at the
7:45
time in Montreal. Uh, as an actor, if you had an
7:51
accent that was not either Quebecois or Quebecois, you're
7:56
out. It just didn't work.
7:58
I would have had to stay there and really adapt.
8:00
My French is more international, although now the, the French of
8:04
course that I use for my work is all Canadian French, but I have
8:08
an international French accent. I don't have a Quebecois accent
8:12
per se. And that was an issue at the
8:14
time. So I went back to Toronto or
8:16
came back to Toronto, you know, kind of upset because I really
8:21
wanted to work in French, but unfortunately I had to start
8:28
working in English. However, the first play that I
8:31
did was in French. I mean, of all things, it was a
8:34
for the school board and it was in.
8:35
French, but aren't there more opportunities for actors in the
8:39
English speaking world? Maybe more competition as well.
8:42
But I know that Toronto, I don't know how it is nowadays, but
8:45
Toronto is or was a booming location for actors in Vancouver
8:51
as well. Absolutely.
8:53
And in Quebec, you would be stuck in the Quebec market,
8:56
which is a lot smaller with two TV channels.
8:58
I know, but I was so inspired by the European way of doing
9:05
theatre I thought, you know, maybe I could combine some of
9:10
the movement theatre with the more text based theatre and do
9:15
like a mix, like a melange of different theatre styles and
9:20
create something in in Montreal, which is where I want it to be
9:24
anyway. Ended up in Toronto as my base
9:27
and I worked from coast to coast, so from um, Nova Scotia
9:34
all the way to Vancouver. Different theatre companies,
9:37
mostly in Ontario and also in Alberta.
9:40
I worked a fair bit as well and I loved it.
9:44
I mean. I loved originally from Alberta.
9:48
Edmonton. I'm from Edmonton.
9:50
I know I shouldn't be going bilingual in this in this
9:54
podcast. Couple little phrases might come
9:57
out. Yes, I am one of these rare
10:01
persons from Edmonton that speaks 7 languages.
10:04
I mean I don't think a lot of people do.
10:07
I'm studying. My 7th is not very good, but
10:10
what's the Edmonton OK in order of fluency?
10:15
However, whichever you want to learn the order, you've learned.
10:18
Them English, French, Spanish, kind of similar, I would say,
10:23
followed by Italian, Portuguese, Hebrews pretty bad.
10:27
And I'm studying Korean and I can, I'm at a low level, but
10:31
I've got I'm getting there. This is quite impressive.
10:35
Is that so that you can listen to Squid Game and its original
10:39
audio or? Exactly without without
10:42
subtitles. So anyway, I'm from Edmonton
10:47
originally and I did work both in Edmonton and Calgary as a
10:51
professional actress. Where else have I worked as a
10:53
professional actress? I've worked in Havana, that's
10:58
the Havana International Theatre Festival.
11:02
I did a coproduction, Canadian, but I'm, I'm Canadian.
11:06
And some of the other creative stuff, they were Canadian, but
11:11
it was done with a Cuban actor as well.
11:14
It was a duo. We had a great time in, you
11:18
know, acting together, professional actor and as.
11:22
So I've worked, yeah, I, I worked kind of all over the
11:25
place and in a lot of mostly theatre.
11:28
That was my passion. But film is special and I'm glad
11:32
I learned the ropes in film. But film is tough.
11:35
Film is really tough. Like it's really hard to get
11:39
into that market and film and television.
11:43
I also did us a voice overs and I discovered towards the, I
11:50
would say the latter part of my acting career, voice work.
11:54
I was part of a loop group, which is do you know what a loop
11:57
group is? OK, what group is, you know how
12:01
you'll watch a film and you'll see background actors.
12:03
I did background acting as well. They don't want to pay them a
12:06
lot, so they pay them as extras and then they get professional
12:10
voice actors. So if you're in an office,
12:13
there's the ambience in the background.
12:14
There's oh, can you put this through the photocopier?
12:17
Oh, yeah, just pass me that. So I would be part of that loop
12:20
group doing those background voices.
12:22
So it's kind of a, it was a special specialization.
12:26
Let's say there's a. Specialization in background.
12:29
You know, and regular, regular actors as voice actors.
12:33
OK. So that the background actors
12:36
can be the background actors, voice actors, voice actors.
12:39
But these loop groups do like background voice, voice overs.
12:44
And I did industrial films. I did.
12:49
I ended up doing a lot of voice work because I was told that I
12:53
have a good voice in both French, in English.
12:56
So I did quite a bit of voice work and that's what I miss the
13:02
most. Is that what led the transition
13:04
to interpretation? No, I thought you might ask
13:08
that. I am so predictable.
13:12
Really. Not really.
13:13
I had as an actor you have to do a lot of things.
13:16
OK, so a lot of guys, some women too, they go into the
13:21
construction field doing, you know, handyman.
13:24
Just stuff you can do. You can do it one day, 2 days,
13:27
waiting for your next gig. Waiting for your next gig is
13:30
stuff to fill in the time. Secretarial work, office work.
13:34
I had a part time gig every summer, well for four years
13:38
anyway at the Toronto International Film Festival,
13:43
that chef. First there was a programmer's
13:45
assistant thanks to speaking Portuguese because there was a
13:48
Portuguese delegation that was coming and Brazil was being
13:53
spotlighted at that time. And then I was a publicist for
13:57
three more years. So I was there for 4 summers or
14:01
4 four month contracts for four years in a row.
14:05
And I also, it was as a publicist as well.
14:10
It was the languages that I speak, right?
14:13
The ones that I was speaking at the time.
14:15
So I could do the entries, I could, I could translate for the
14:18
actors. So I did it.
14:20
And then there was a Cuban film. Don't ask me which film.
14:23
I don't remember which one it was.
14:25
So there was a Cuban film. And the programmer at the time
14:29
said, Oh, no, no, no, you don't want to do the question answer
14:31
period for this, for this particular film director.
14:36
I said, well, hold on. No, no, no, no, no.
14:38
He's he's his Spanish is Cuban. Spanish is very difficult
14:42
accent. I was like, OK, it doesn't
14:44
doesn't really worry me. But sure he goes.
14:46
We've got a guy, we've got a guy.
14:48
And this guy Harry Tanner. Wonderful.
14:50
Consecutive. To do consecutive, you know, the
14:52
questions with the the questions with the audience or the before
14:55
introduction if the filmmaker wants to speak about the film.
14:59
So anyway, this, this wonderful man, he did it and I understood
15:04
why they wanted someone else. Oh, my goodness.
15:07
Would have been very tricky. And he said to me, you know,
15:11
have you ever considered being an interpreter?
15:13
I'm like, no, I said I, I thought maybe when I came back
15:17
from France about being a translator, but I decided like a
15:21
written translator, but as an interpreter.
15:23
No, He said, listen, I work at, I'm a subcontract at the
15:28
Immigration Refugee Board of Canada.
15:30
Why don't you go there? You write a test.
15:32
He said your Spanish is good, your French is good.
15:35
Like why don't you go? So I went, I did the test in
15:38
Spanish and I worked there for several years Spanish and then
15:42
later on French. OK, so one day, um, way back
15:48
when, a colleague calls me up and she goes, hey Francis, are
15:51
you free tomorrow? I said, yeah, what's up?
15:53
She said, well we have this big AIDS conference in Toronto and
15:58
there's this pre conference and I don't know what happened, but
16:01
we're short 1. Interpreter is Spanish.
16:04
I said so like. This one happened to me in 2006.
16:09
Was it because I don't have International AIDS conference as
16:14
an interpreter? Oh, well, you know what?
16:16
It could have been. It could have been, but they had
16:20
the pre conference. Yeah.
16:22
Yeah, the pre conference for their journalists.
16:24
OK. And this one, she's like, we're
16:28
stuck. And I said, well, well, it's
16:30
simultaneous. She goes, yeah, I go, huh?
16:35
Well, she said, wait a second. In the hearings at the IRB, when
16:40
the lawyers are doing their closing submissions, do you do
16:43
it consecutive? I said, no, Are you kidding?
16:46
That takes so long. I do the whispered
16:47
interpretation at the back of the hearing room simultaneously.
16:51
She goes, well, you know, I at that time I had interpreter
16:59
training, but I never had any professional training as a
17:03
simultaneous interpreter. I just picked it up while doing
17:06
it at the Refugee board. When you said you had
17:08
interpreter training, did you go to the masters or some?
17:12
School planners and I've, I've, I've thought about, I thought
17:16
about Glendon, but I, I kind of missed the boat because I had
17:20
kids raising kids and working. It was just, it was too crazy.
17:24
It was too crazy. And I was balancing before my
17:27
kids or right after my, my younger, my eldest was born
17:32
balancing her career as an actress and also as an
17:37
interpreter. It was really complicated, OK,
17:42
to to do proper training. So I did the MCI S6 week
17:47
interpretation interpreter training program where there,
17:50
you know, you learn interpreting, community
17:54
interpreting. OK, so it's community
17:55
interpreting training. I did the test I did, I did that
17:59
whole certificate program when it was in person.
18:02
I think now they do it online. It was pretty intense because I
18:06
thought I, I have to get, I have to know what I'm doing.
18:09
And I took, gosh, every professional workshop that was
18:12
available at the time, I did it. I did it through ATIO.
18:15
I did it through, I did whatever was available, OK.
18:18
And then so when this wonderful colleague, Emma Dantas, who's
18:24
Portuguese interpreter, she said, well, it's just like doing
18:27
the closing arguments. It's just like the lawyers
18:30
submissions, but you're in a booth.
18:33
I said to myself in a booth. So you had no like before that
18:40
you were not curious about it, you never heard about it?
18:42
You have alright. So, no, I knew nothing.
18:47
OK, so I was completely open. I thought, well, why not?
18:52
You know, you have to take a chance sometimes, right?
18:54
So I did. I thought, oh, she said that
18:57
there's an interpreter there who's going to help you out.
18:59
She's a very experienced interpreter.
19:02
I thought, OK, fine, I get in there.
19:04
It's a booth. So I'm like, wow.
19:08
And it sound true. Kind of like this.
19:11
Is this is familiar? This is really cool.
19:14
This is like doing what I'm doing as an actress, OK?
19:19
I'm like a voice actor, OK, I got it.
19:21
Met my colleague. She showed me the console.
19:24
The technician came in, did a sound check sound, everything
19:26
was good. And then I actually had some
19:31
written, written, written speeches.
19:34
I was like, Oh my God, this is too good to be true, or so I
19:38
thought. And so I thought, what I'm going
19:40
to do is I'm going to take this speech.
19:42
I'm just going to mark it up. Like what you do as an actor,
19:45
OK, so this is a natural break in intention.
19:48
OK, cause I'm thinking more of the personage the, the, the
19:52
character, right? And the development of the
19:54
character. It's my actor mind.
19:57
And I was like, OK, this would be natural point to pause if the
20:01
speaker is pausing. OK, so I marked it up, marked up
20:04
the text and. Then here we go and and the my
20:10
colleague warned me. She said, look, you might have
20:13
this for this speaker, but we don't have anything for the next
20:16
one. And she said not follow the
20:18
script and they might not fault maybe one or two lines, but be
20:21
prepared for anything. I thought, OK, I've done a lot
20:23
of improv training. I I'm gonna go for it.
20:27
So I sit down, I'm in front of the mic.
20:29
I, the, the speaker starts, I start doing my thing.
20:33
She's like, it was in Spanish. Like, you see, you see, I'm
20:37
like, OK, got it. OK, I can do this.
20:39
I'm like and that that was good for about four sentences.
20:45
And then, of course, the speaker went all over the place and it
20:53
was, you know, he was speaking in English.
20:56
I was going into Spanish, as I recall.
20:58
And it was all over. And I went with it.
21:02
The night before I had had, I remember the the brains to say,
21:08
OK, what do I know about journalism and AIDS?
21:12
And I looked up some words I didn't know.
21:14
Is that what you do? You know, I didn't have ChatGPT
21:17
to ask, but I did it and I really enjoyed it.
21:22
And I thought, wow, this is something that I would
21:26
absolutely love to do. And that's how that little
21:32
spark, or shall I say that little seed was planted.
21:37
And then after that, I thought, wow, I would really like to do
21:42
some training. I, if I'm ever going to do this
21:44
again, I have to know what I'm doing.
21:46
Like it's, it's got to be more rigorous than that.
21:50
And so at you at the time was offering a series of workshops
21:54
and the instructor was James Nolan, who used to be with the
21:58
UN. And I thought, great, you know,
22:01
I'm going to do it. So this was Spanish to English.
22:05
That's what was being offered and that's what I did and it was
22:09
great. But what an eye opener.
22:11
And I realized how much I don't know and I realized how much I
22:14
need to learn and how much I need to practice.
22:17
But it, it gave me confidence and it gave me kind of a method
22:22
to my madness, so to speak, you know, And that was that workshop
22:28
really changed my life. I really thought this is
22:32
something that I can do, that I want to do.
22:35
And I continue to little by little, get more and more work
22:38
in Spanish. But I remember one thing in that
22:41
workshop, we were interpreting some politician speeches.
22:47
And at the time there was Hugo Chavez, the former president of
22:52
Venezuela. And I don't know if you've ever
22:55
heard his speeches. They're very.
22:58
Very. Very fiery notepad.
23:02
So one of my, one of my colleagues in the room said, um,
23:07
Mr. Nolan, we're wondering, do we emulate this level of passion
23:13
or do we do we kind of keep things a little more neutral?
23:18
So he goes, hmm. He looks at all of us.
23:21
He goes around the room and he goes you maybe you, no, you, no,
23:27
you. No.
23:28
And I'm waiting for him to say no to me.
23:29
You. He points to me and I'm like,
23:32
yes, you maybe, you know. And then everyone was looking at
23:36
me like. So hold on just to pause here.
23:39
So he was basically saying who should emulate him.
23:46
How come? OK, I'm not, I don't want to
23:48
jump the gun here, but how come it's not one answer for
23:52
everyone? Why does he have?
23:55
Why did he think that one interpreter should do it one way
23:59
or another? It's more than capability.
24:01
It's an instruction on how to do how to act professionally.
24:05
Yes, it was. And you know, we were all
24:07
curious about that, he said. After all, eyes were on me and I
24:12
was kind of like melting in my seat.
24:15
He said, because I can hear the end.
24:18
I read, I think we had to give some sort of information about
24:22
our background because you have a background as an actress.
24:27
And I can hear in your voice through some of this other
24:30
speeches that you've done you you have arranged with your
24:33
voice. And I think whereas some others
24:36
might just burn out while they're doing it, like they may
24:39
start fiery, they may just fizzle out, but you can do it.
24:43
Let's hear. And then I felt really put on
24:45
the spot. But I thought, OK, I have to
24:49
build the character, you know, because if I start at 100, I'll
24:52
have nowhere to go. And with someone like Hugo
24:57
Chavez, if you've ever heard his speeches, he's pretty intense.
25:02
Or was pretty intense, yeah. At the time, that's
25:07
interpretation techniques and. Actually, no, but I've seen it.
25:10
Yes, I have. Several pages, in fact,
25:13
photocopied from that. James Nolan.
25:15
Exactly. I knew the name rang a bell.
25:17
This is like a blast from the past for me.
25:20
Listen, he taught the program at Glendon, I think maybe before
25:24
your time, but he definitely was one of the teachers there.
25:27
And I know he had some health issues, but yeah, definitely.
25:32
And he was really very direct and very, very honest and
25:39
upfront it there was no kind of kid glove type, um, big back.
25:47
It wasn't all mushy and good, you know, It was very direct,
25:50
very tough, kind of like at my theatre school.
25:54
So he did you. The instruction was basically
26:00
for you to understand the character in order to emulate
26:07
Hugo Chavez while you're interpreting him.
26:12
To embody, embody, so to speak, while, you know, while working.
26:18
And yeah, that those were his instructions.
26:20
So I did it and I was able to pull it off for some miraculous
26:25
reason, I think, given my theatre background.
26:30
And I thought, OK, well, that's maybe I'll have to move to
26:34
Venezuela to. Work, do you think?
26:37
Do you think that the embodiment of the speaker helps perform
26:44
better? That's a really good question.
26:48
I think to some degree I don't think you can fully embody, but
26:54
I think you can step into step into their head space and their
27:01
voice, even if I'm sure you've you've both interpreted
27:05
professionally in situations where maybe you don't really
27:09
believe the speaker, the product, the something we.
27:13
Happens all the. Time to be like actors, we.
27:15
Have Switzerland. Exactly.
27:19
So I do believe that it is something that you know, that we
27:24
can really, that we can really do.
27:27
I, I really do believe that it should be done.
27:30
I have listened to some speaker or some interpreters who tend to
27:35
render a very flat type of delivery and that is fine for
27:39
certain kinds of conferences and certain kinds of speakers, but
27:43
I'm not that person. I can do it because in my head,
27:48
I get out of my head and I embody that.
27:51
If they say, look, we just want a very natural delivery.
27:54
And it depends on the subject matter, you know.
27:57
It depends on the speaker. I mean, if I do a quarterly
28:03
update of a bank, they don't. They're not.
28:07
Nobody's going to do the fiery speech, but they want to make
28:11
sure that the numbers are right and that you inspire confidence.
28:15
That's one thing I did a meeting for unions where somebody like
28:21
it was the head of a one of the big unions and they were making
28:25
a fiery speech against a famous politician that South of the
28:29
border. And then I automatically,
28:33
because I am I was aspiring to become an actor when I was much,
28:37
much, much younger and I, I don't know, for some reason I
28:41
took on that character and I also did the fiery speech.
28:44
I think that we naturally adapt according to the feeling that we
28:50
get from whoever we have in front of us.
28:55
Tough. Yeah, I I agree.
28:57
What do you think, Brian? This is kind of why I let Alan
29:01
take the reins on this one because I knew like from his
29:04
background or his past that he wanted deep down if the
29:07
interpretation was never on in in the radar would have been
29:11
acting so. If it takes our job, you know
29:14
where I'm heading. Yeah, I know, I know.
29:16
I'll see you at the the I'll be eating popcorn while you're
29:19
acting. Can you eat a popcorn in a in a
29:22
in a theatre like like like a play?
29:25
I'm not sure people do people eat popcorns I play.
29:27
I don't think so. I.
29:29
Really have no idea. Probably not really.
29:33
But this must be really hard though, because I remember back
29:36
in the day when there was the AIDS conference, I think that it
29:40
was in 2006, and I think our paths may have.
29:42
Crossed. Because I was doing most of the
29:45
French interpretation, there is lots and lots of teams there, so
29:49
it's possible that our our paths cross back then and we didn't
29:53
even know it. Yeah, I know.
29:55
But now, like, after all those years of being in booths and
29:59
stuff, now we're a lot of times stuck behind the screen.
30:02
They find that like, Zoom has hindered the whole embodiment of
30:08
a person giving the presentation.
30:10
Or how do you feel about that? That's a really good question.
30:14
And it was during the pandemic where I had done a little French
30:19
interpreting before the pandemic, but it was really at
30:23
the start, right at the start of the pandemic, where it was like
30:27
all hands on deck, learning the platforms and having the
30:30
confidence to go for it. And that's when I started
30:33
working more and more in French. And I was like, I, I even did
30:39
some remote interpreting, but not from home at the
30:45
interpreting agencies office or extra office or kind of like a
30:50
makeshift booth where they're the technical where I can
30:53
concentrate on being just the interpreter, you know, not the
30:57
technician as well. So I think that.
31:01
Maybe at? The beginning, it may have
31:03
hindered a little bit that ability to embody, but it
31:06
didn't, it didn't hold me back. It really didn't hold me back.
31:10
I now feel that I can embody. If you know, or step into the
31:16
speaker's voice or their headspace and just give the
31:20
delivery that they're looking for, you know, whether it's a, a
31:25
financial report, then of course, the, the emphasis has to
31:28
be on accuracy. You know, well, we always have
31:31
to be accurate and I guess that's one of the differences
31:35
between acting and interpreting. So there there's really that
31:41
focus on, on giving on, on the accuracy, be it numbers, be it
31:49
dates, those kinds of things. We don't have a, a script that
31:54
we're reading off of usually or sometimes we have at least the
31:58
numbers and sometimes we have nothing, right?
32:01
So we really it's, it's, it's really interesting.
32:06
However, there are things in common, like for example, what
32:12
is the point if the if the listener can't even hear the
32:15
numbers because we're mumbling? Do you know?
32:19
What I'm saying? At the Ecola International
32:22
Jacques Lecoq, when we started the we did we worked with the
32:28
the neutral mask, the mask nut and the whole reason for that
32:32
was to. It is a mask that was.
32:36
Created by an Italian mask maker called Satori who invented these
32:43
or made these kinds of masks in order to be able to do more
32:49
theatrical kinds of mask work. It is an, it is, it's a
32:54
physical. It's not a, it's.
32:55
Not no. It's it's a leather.
32:56
Beautiful. My God these beautiful leather
32:59
masks. Have you seen the movie Vanilla
33:00
Sky? No, I haven't.
33:03
Tom Cruise wears. Some kind of a plastic mask
33:06
because he gets disfigured in the movie and I thought it was
33:10
maybe some less like this. It's one that doesn't.
33:12
Have an expression, You know what I'm saying?
33:15
So perhaps similar idea. And the whole idea of that is to
33:19
get rid of the little. The little things we do as
33:23
actors, we go well, we have our little, the things we count as
33:28
actors. That's just what we bring into
33:30
it. As human beings, we do the same
33:33
thing in interpreting. I'm sure you've recorded
33:38
yourselves and listened to your recordings where people, Oh my
33:40
God, and you hear the especially when you stumbled, you know, we
33:48
all have them. And when you listen to yourself,
33:51
you have to eliminate it at the beginning in, at this particular
33:55
theatre school, the first few months, we're getting rid of all
33:58
of that in order to build a base, you know, in order to
34:02
build, build, build, build, and in order to bring the right
34:05
stuff to this stage. And I think that in a way, as as
34:11
actor, as actors, as interpreters, we need to be able
34:15
to do that too, you know, would you?
34:19
Would you have some tips to tell interpreters about a have a
34:27
better voice, something you observe on the market and you're
34:30
like, well, maybe interpreter should be aiming more in this or
34:32
that direction. You have any tips on that?
34:35
Absolutely. Absolutely.
34:37
Clear diction is extremely important in the projection, the
34:44
modulation of our voices. That is something that is so
34:48
important along with we've been talking more about the emotional
34:52
nuances and the embodiment of the of the speaker.
34:56
But I would say that this kind of training is so important.
35:02
We absolutely need it. I mean, who does a vocal warm up
35:09
before going on Mike? Most people don't.
35:12
I was once on Hot Sauce Interpreter.
35:15
Someone said, does anyone know? I did, I did like a 10 minute
35:18
demo of how I would do a voice, a voice warm, a vocal warm up.
35:23
Do I do it always? No, I don't always have the
35:25
opportunity to do it, but it if you publish something on
35:29
YouTube, get it on hot sauce, just kind of, I don't know if it
35:34
still exists, but it was just some exercises just to warm up
35:38
the voice. It's our instrument.
35:42
You know, it's like playing the cello person's just not gonna
35:45
come in and, you know, just play the cello without warming up the
35:51
the, the strings or adjusting or fine tuning.
35:54
And I think that we could do that.
35:55
I also think that you know, if you've listened to yourself.
36:02
If interpreters. That gets back to my earlier
36:04
point. What's the point in mumbling a
36:06
bunch of numbers if this listener cannot hear?
36:09
Listeners need to be able to digest.
36:12
They have to be able to digest what the speaker is saying.
36:16
And if you listen to yourself, then you realize if you're,
36:20
you're, you're going too fast or you want to get in everything,
36:25
slow down, take a pause. And those kinds of little things
36:30
are super important. It's the message, not it's we're
36:34
not parrots. It doesn't have to be every,
36:37
every single word. And in order to be able to do
36:41
that, I think that I think interpreters should have as part
36:45
of the curriculum actually at at even at the masters level, they
36:49
should have some speech training.
36:51
I don't know, have you heard other interpreters where you
36:55
just there or it's just? It's irritating to the ear.
37:01
I have yes, I I've. I've and to come back to your
37:04
point about the the mumbling and just the very monotone voice
37:09
throughout like AI does that like so.
37:13
Like. I would encourage anyone who
37:15
does that as an interpreter and you should record yourself
37:18
before. Just make sure if you're one of
37:19
them or not. Stop saying that because your
37:22
job is going to be replaced by AI.
37:23
And this is like we talked about I pretty much every episode on
37:27
founding interpretation. And I would say like, if you're
37:30
going to, you know, kill this profession, keep doing that.
37:34
Exactly. Exactly.
37:36
So what can interpreters do? Um, you know, part of our
37:40
professional development people take how to use ChatGPT or how
37:46
you know, how to create a proper glossary.
37:49
We do that kind of professional development, some hands on
37:53
interpreting, learn the salami technique, etcetera, etcetera.
37:59
When I was doing my masters at Glendon and unfortunately, um,
38:03
it cut, I mean, the, the in person cut, cut short because of
38:09
COVID. Back in 2020, we were supposed
38:12
to have an instructor, his name is Hans and he was famous for
38:18
doing these warm-ups, voice warm ups and things like that.
38:23
I was told by other interpreters, but before that we
38:27
were told that it was important to have sort of our booth
38:33
character to in order to find our own voice.
38:37
So what I did in my case, I was listening to a lot of French
38:45
politicians and presidents and, and those big like, I wanted to
38:51
make sure that my voice and my presence behind the microphone
38:55
would reflect this heaviness that you can find.
39:01
And I remember that when I first started interpreting, I made it
39:06
because I was unsure. I always felt that I was, my
39:09
breath was cut short right here and the air was not going
39:13
through all the way to my lungs. But then I had to learn and but
39:18
I, I sort of had, I had some tips.
39:21
It wasn't really structured, but on my own.
39:25
I went to get some resources on how to speak from more like from
39:31
this part of your body exactly rather than here then up here
39:35
exactly. And when you're.
39:36
Nervous. You get to mumble, You don't
39:39
breathe. Well, yeah, when you're
39:41
interpreting. You may be.
39:42
Aware of those techniques. But sometimes when you have a
39:45
very fast speaker, you're not sure about the topic, you don't
39:47
understand. That's why you that's when you
39:50
fall into those old habits. So the trick?
39:53
Is with. Experience is to control
39:55
yourself and still although it's stressful to find that voice
40:00
inside of you in order to. Project Confidence?
40:05
Exactly. It's that, and it's a certain
40:09
sense of calm you. Know and I.
40:13
Think if you can bring that calm to the booth.
40:19
It's, it's great even when all hell breaks loose, even when
40:25
you've lost power, you're working with your booth mate and
40:29
you're trying to figure out if they can take the microphone.
40:32
And even if you know it, it really is a sense of learning,
40:37
having you having good diction, good ability to navigate during
40:45
navigate to troubled waters because things happen.
40:50
Things happen when you're interpreting.
40:52
So my suggestion would be to take community or get involved
40:56
in community theatre. Take an improv class.
40:59
Improv is great. You know, physical, like actual
41:03
physical improv with words, second city type stuff.
41:06
And I'm sure they have they, I know that they have these kinds
41:09
of courses in Toronto. I know also that they have,
41:13
there's, I, I know that you get the link Ladder Centre, for
41:17
example, they have voice classes.
41:19
So you're going in there, you're doing actual voice exercises,
41:22
learning how to, as you say, ground that voice breathing
41:26
properly, be it voice classes, diction, speech, public
41:31
speaking, all that stuff is so important.
41:35
You know, there. There's one other thing though,
41:39
that I, I do want to mention because it's, it really does go
41:43
hand in hand with being an actor.
41:46
I, it's a little story that I'm going to tell you.
41:48
It's short one. I was doing a play.
41:51
So I did everything from Shakespeare to, you know, modern
41:55
theatre to more avant-garde theatre.
41:58
I did everything, the whole, the whole gambit.
42:01
But at one point I was doing a period piece.
42:03
It was a adaptation of Shakespeare.
42:08
No, wasn't adaptation of Shakespeare.
42:09
It was based on a motza piece about Mozart.
42:13
Anyway, I messed up on stage and I skipped 4th 2 pages of
42:19
dialogue and I I was like and the my my colleague actor, my
42:26
fellow actor kind of. Looked at me with.
42:30
Panic in her eyes and she's like, OK, let's see.
42:34
And she just continued giving me the line.
42:37
We went, we continued. And then when there was the
42:40
appropriate space, I jumped back guardian the 2 pages of dialogue
42:47
that we missed and then jumped forward.
42:50
And I mean, I was sweating and I was wearing one of those period
42:53
piece things and I could barely breathe as it is.
42:56
Talk about needing the training to have a grounded voice.
42:59
That actor was amazing. She went with me.
43:02
She trusted me after the director said, I don't know how
43:05
you did it, but you pulled it off beautifully.
43:07
So what I want to stress here is it is that ability to work with
43:11
your booth mate and being able to deal with when all hell makes
43:14
loose, being able to deal with it, to go with it.
43:18
And that's why the the sense of teamwork, hmm.
43:21
The teamwork that I had from that actress at that time was
43:25
was just was just outstanding, which is so hard to get when
43:28
you're work. Remotely.
43:29
Unfortunately, it's hard to get. Is as all teams.
43:35
Teams is. Yeah, I know it's really hard.
43:38
This podcast is not sponsored. By Microsoft Teams for.
43:43
Sure, that's for sure. But with your back channel, you
43:47
know, through WhatsApp or however you communicate with
43:50
your fellow interpreter, we can make it happen.
43:54
It's what we have. It's the majority of my work is
43:58
online rather than in person. And you know, we embrace what we
44:02
have and we go with it and we do the teamwork in as much as
44:06
possible given the circumstances that we have.
44:09
But but I think we can do it, you know, So I would encourage
44:14
people who maybe have some issues with their voice or in
44:19
moments of panic with the voice. You know, think about.
44:24
Doing some proper voice training or people who have difficulty
44:28
with diction. Why not take a speech or diction
44:32
class? Some people are afraid of public
44:36
speaking. Take a I think what is it?
44:38
Toastmasters or public speaking courses.
44:42
I think anything that you can do to feel confident about your
44:46
voice so that when the curtains are about to open and the
44:51
lights, the lights go dark in the theatre room, just like
44:55
before the countdown, when you go, when you're about, when
44:58
you're the first one on Mike. It's that particular.
45:03
Moment where you ground, you find the calm.
45:06
And I think that if you can do that as an actor, you can
45:11
certainly do it as an interpreter.
45:12
And if you're an interpreter with that ability to adapt from
45:17
the acting profession and make it yours, I think you can do it.
45:23
And. One of the other things that I
45:25
would take away is the projection part that you
45:27
mentioned earlier. They're both in both directions
45:31
because we do a lot of whispered interpretation too with with two
45:34
portable transmitter. And if you're like you have to
45:38
control your voice, but the other way too, like you can't
45:40
have everybody in the room listening to you when you're
45:43
doing whispered interpretation defeats the point, right.
45:47
So it yeah. So the projection would work
45:50
both ways and also the other in the other direction where like
45:55
you're doing a very technical legal workshop, for example, and
45:59
you're too loud. You think so and people like you
46:03
have a booth, but we all know that these soundproof booths
46:06
aren't exactly soundproof. So when everybody in the room
46:09
can hear you because you're projecting your voice too much
46:11
said the same thing. So I agree, like you need to
46:14
work on projection for when you're too loud or not loud
46:17
enough to paint on each circumstance.
46:19
That's that's really important, especially when you're in
46:22
person. And the other thing that I think
46:25
I would give us a tip as well is if there's something like a
46:31
speech that you're looking that you know is on the agenda,
46:33
there's gonna be a speaker that is very passionate, like the
46:36
your example of Hugo Chavez. I would maybe instead of doing
46:41
30 minute shifts, maybe do 15 or 20 because you know that for
46:46
self preservation you're not going to be able to keep the
46:48
same pace as that person. So like maybe you do shorter
46:52
shifts and then that way you get more breathers.
46:55
That would be another tip that I would give because I, I wouldn't
46:58
want to not give 100% because I think I'm not going to be able
47:03
to make it to the end of the speech.
47:05
You know what I mean? Well, sometimes for me it's the
47:08
opposite. That happens.
47:09
I remember, um, maybe six months ago, one of my favorite, um,
47:16
sort of podcaster commenter on, on what's going on in the world.
47:20
His name is Peter Zane and he wrote several books and I, I
47:24
really like what he, what he has to say.
47:27
He has a very interesting take, but and I had he was one of the
47:30
keynote speakers at one of the conferences that I was
47:33
interpreting at and the hard time.
47:36
The hard thing for me was to give to pass the microphone to
47:39
my booth mate because I was like, I just enjoy so much this
47:45
speaker and what he had to say that I didn't want it to end.
47:50
So for me it was the opposite. Were you in my COG?
47:57
Yeah, we got some of those in the.
47:58
Booth too, the ones that don't wanna like go at the mic,
48:00
they're like no, that's still wanna go but my.
48:03
Cog let me shine this. Time.
48:08
I want the star. But it's my turn.
48:11
And then there's other colleagues that have like a, a
48:14
stopwatch right in front of you. It's like, I know, 30 minutes
48:17
and 001 seconds, like we're only 10 seconds.
48:21
Yes, time, just wait. I know.
48:24
I know. But you know, with both
48:28
professions, I mean, really, they're both, the stakes are
48:32
high. You know, the stakes are high
48:34
when you're on stage and the stakes are high when you're on
48:37
the mic or if you, you know, you, you have to be.
48:41
Of course we need to be vulnerable and we need to be
48:44
able to take the good with the bad, you know, and we need to be
48:48
able to adapt. And I think it's that ability to
48:51
adapt that has allowed me as an actress to transition to
48:57
interpretation, take a chance, get some training and and, you
49:02
know, adapt. And I think now, especially with
49:06
artificial intelligence may be taking over our profession,
49:10
maybe not or maybe not yet. Let's say that, you know, how
49:15
can we best adapt, adapt to the circumstances and, you know,
49:20
find ourselves within our interpretation world being the
49:24
best that we can. Absolutely.
49:27
Fusion between. Both worlds, the world of acting
49:31
and the world of interpreting. And now why not?
49:35
So I love this this. Was an awesome podcast.
49:40
Well, then, and I'm just thinking like for those who have
49:43
liked shared and subscribed, you will also benefit from Hebrews,
49:48
um, podcast when she was talking about making our profession go
49:54
from invisible to visible. This is a perfect example why?
49:57
Or like Sarah Wheeler, who talks about the emotional intelligence
50:00
required to do interpretation, or Jonathan Downey, who talks
50:04
about how you should, again, they make the profession go from
50:09
invisible to visible because you are the third player in this
50:12
conversation. You're not just a conduit.
50:16
So yeah, I think that we're this this podcast, I think helped
50:20
bridge a lot of the different conversations we've had in the
50:23
past. Well, I think that seeing this
50:25
through. The lens of actors, I think that
50:28
it really shows that we're not just parrots and a conduit.
50:31
I think that we're also part of the story.
50:35
And one more element that I would add on this is that not
50:39
everyone who speaks in front of us is an eloquent speaker.
50:43
But if you do have training, then you can take a non eloquent
50:49
speaker and actually make that person sound better than the
50:55
original. Yeah.
50:57
Yeah, I I've heard that. I heard that in my training as
51:01
well, that yeah, because some speakers, we know, we, we've all
51:05
interpreted for them, they're very difficult either to
51:09
understand or to make heads or tails of what their argument is
51:13
or seems like they're going round and round and, you know,
51:17
yeah, we make them sound better. And union negotiation.
51:24
Where it's after this and after that.
51:27
Yeah, no, unions are are really something.
51:29
There's no real French equivalent for that.
51:35
Alright. Francis, thank you so much for
51:39
coming on to this podcast. I think, as Brian said, we
51:42
brought a lot of the previous week's topic into this one, and
51:49
the connection between actors and interpreters is really
51:53
there. And it makes me think about what
51:57
interpreters did before they started this.
51:59
And I'm sure that we're not the only ones who had those two
52:04
similar interests. Yeah, my.
52:06
Feeling is next week. Alan's gonna be applying to
52:10
Jacques Lecoq. We won't be seeing him anymore.
52:16
But on that note. On that note, Brian.
52:19
Francis, everyone, don't forget to like, share, subscribe.
52:23
There's lots of tips there and well, we'll see each other for
52:27
another episode next time around interpretation podcast.
52:31
So thanks again, thank you. Thanks.