It's not often that macaws have a velvety voice. But Blu does. That's because this little winged creature with blue plumage, borrows singer Shaan's voice in the Hindi version of the movie “Rio”. “Blu is an urban guy and a gizmo freak. He has a weak timbre. So, I had to alter my voice a bit,” says Shaan. It took him a day-and-a-half to complete the dubbing.
After having sung for actors all these years, how different was it to do a voice-over for a cartoon character? “When you sing you have to maintain the tempo of modulation, and keep time and tune. Here, I had to pace my dialogue, and I found it a little difficult to keep the wit. I had to get into character and be Blu.” He also believes that in Hindi one needs a little more space for humour as compared to English, where subtle humour works. “Since this is an adventure film there are a lot of sound effects such as ooh, ahh, ouch, when Blu falls, bumps or hits against something. Getting those sounds right was difficult,” grins the singer.
A fan of animation movies, Shaan feels Indian animation films lack fun and humour. “We really need to get the script right. For instance, “WALL-E”, a movie about a junk machine that had loads of fun and emotion.”
About “Rio”, Shaan says apart from the movie, the music is terrific too. It is a combination of Samba, Latino and Bossa nova. “This is something I can gift my children.” His children get excited looking at the posters. “They point towards Blu and gleefully tell their friends ‘That's our father'!” laughs Shaan.
