Zanaida Robles - Part 6

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 154: Zanaida Robles - Part 6

In this week’s episode, we talk to Zanaida Robles about her work as an LA studio singer for film, TV, and video games, and the opportunities she has living in Studio City, performing gigs at LA museums, Disneyland, Universal Studios, and the Hollywood Bowl. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Zanaida Robles, check her out here: https://zanaidarobles.com/. This episode was originally recorded in January 2024.

This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors, like you. Want to support For Good Measure and E4TT? Make a tax-deductible donation or sign up for our newsletter, and subscribe to the podcast!

Intro music: “Trifolium” by Gabriela Ortiz, performed by E4TT (Ilana Blumberg, violin; Abigail Monroe, cello; Margaret Halbig, piano),  as part of “Below the Surface: Music by Women Composers,” January 29, 2022
Outro music: “Lake Turkana” by Marcus Norris, performed by E4TT (Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Alchemy,” October 15, 2021

Transcription courtesy of Otter.ai.
Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1903729/episodes/15732927

Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Co-producer and Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes
Interns: Renata Volchinskaya, Sam Mason, Addy Geenen, Yoyo Hung-Yu Lin

Chapters

• 0:22 In this week's episode, we continue our conversation with Zanaida Robles, who we spoke to in January 2024.
• 0:30 You've been a studio vocalist for film, TV, video games, and you've earned some impressive credits and worked on some very famous properties. Okay, I looked at that list and was quite impressed. Can you tell our listeners what that's been like so that...
• 5:47 Now, it's true that I have read your credits and what you've been a session singer for, but our listeners might not have, so feel free to drop the names of what you actually have worked on.
• 8:09 If you have any more stories, if you want to share...

Transcript

Nanette McGuinness  00:00

[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists sponsored by a grant from the California Arts Council. I'm Nanette McGuinness, Artistic Executive Director of Ensemble for These Times. In this week's episode, we continue our conversation with Zanaida Robles, who we spoke to in January 2024 [INTRO MUSIC ENDS]. You've been a studio vocalist for film, TV, video games, and you've earned some impressive credits and worked on some very famous properties. Okay, I looked at that list and was quite impressed. Can you tell our listeners what that's been like so that they can experience it vicariously? And do you think that studying and working in LA was an important factor in getting your foot in the door there in the first place? But yeah, let us be flies on the wall here. I think people would be very interested.

Zanaida Robles  01:00

It's so cool. I'm not going to lie, it's so cool. It's one of the coolest thing, coolest aspects of my career that I've appreciated. And yes, living and working in LA, I think is critical, has been critical to that, because this is where films are made. There, I mean, there are other places where films, films are made, but honestly, this is where all the most iconic studios and scoring stages are. There are just, you know, there are a number of you saw, you saw the credits, but just to walk in there, first of all, first of all, just, okay, you I've already exposed the fact that I'm a music nerd, right? So it's so cool to have a gig where you walk in there, you're going to get paid to sight read, like, and, and it's, you know, there's this, there's this excitement. It's like, I'm going to read this down so good, like, I'm gonna, it's going to be so, like, you only get, essentially, you get, like, two tries. You get, you get to read through it once you if you make a mistake, you correct the mistake, and then the second time you go, it's gotta perfect. And I'm very fortunate. I can, I can pretty much do that. Some things are more difficult, obviously you have to, there's some things you have to practice and everything like that, but all these readers, these these singers, are just aces. They're aces. You're working with the best of the best, and that's always amazing. So you're, like, in awe of everybody around, right? And then many, most of the, most of the sessions I've been on, it's been, it's been just the singer, so the orchestra hasn't really been, the orchestra's not there. They record the orchestra separately, and then the singers sing to a track, and then we sing, you know, in the big studio. But that's really cool, because you're you in many cases, the composer is there, and you get the insight from the composer, you know, like the time when we when, when I was working on Minions, and the composer came in and talked about the Minions language and and what the different words mean. Like, like, the like, the word banana in Minion language is like happiness, you know, little tidbits that you would never think of, and it makes you sing it differently. And, you know, it just, it's so fun. It's just really fun, and it's also very taxing. And it can be anywhere from, you know, the sort shortest session I was ever on was maybe like a 30 minute session where I just like, we'd have to sing one cue, and it was super easy. And you're out. Other sessions, like you could, it's like eight hours of...and being a singer is very physical. Singers are athletes, you know. So you have to stay in shape, and you have to be ready and prepared to go the long haul, in a way, you know. So it's like, you know, like a football game. You don't know if you're, you know, your team has a huge opponent with a lot of, you know, different things they're going to throw at you. You have to be ready to go. You have to be ready to improvise. You have to be ready to be flexible. And you have to be strong and fit. And you have to be, you have to be like fresh all the way to the end for the most part. I mean, if you have a good conductor with you, they'll, they'll help you and pace, pace it well, you know. Anyways, my, one of my favorite, one of the most memorable sessions I ever had was was doing the the Star Wars session, where it was on the second of the new the new trilogy films, the the Rise of Skywalker, I think, what it was. And John Williams conducted those cues.

Nanette McGuinness  04:23

Wow.

Zanaida Robles  04:24

And it was, it was, it was a rare occasion where they were capturing the orchestra and the choir at the same time. So, I mean, rare for me, I don't know, maybe this is how John Williams always works. This was the first time I've ever, I had ever done a John Williams' score, and it's and Star Wars, I mean, come on.

Nanette McGuinness  04:42

Right.

Zanaida Robles  04:44

It's like, you go from, it was like, you know, doing session work is awesome anyway, in iconic Sony Studios, you know, on that, you know, that Streisand Sound Stage, or whatever, whatever that sound stage is, the most iconic, you know, historic places where amazing things have happened, but to do that score in there and to sing the like, the iconic, you know, theme to Star Wars with John Williams conduct and the full orchestra... I will never, ever forget that, because it was like, I think we did it all. Everything was like, in one take, maybe two... because it was, it was like a performance. If you, John William's up there, you're going to prep, because it's the movie, and it's John Williams, and your heart's already in, and everybody knows the story, you know. So I've, I feel like there's never been more heart in a session than, that I've experienced at least, than there was in that one, and I'll never forget that.

Nanette McGuinness  05:45

That is amazing. Now, it's true that I have read your credits and what you've been a session singer for, but our listeners might not have, so feel free to drop the names of what you actually have worked on.

Zanaida Robles  05:59

I mean, there've been, there been a lot of some, some they maybe never heard of, but...ut... Mulan, Frozen 2, I wish I got the call for Frozen 1, that was before I really got the, oh man, those, those callings are making, they're making money. yeah

Nanette McGuinness  06:15

Yeah I bet.

Zanaida Robles  06:17

Residuals, right? I mean, that's, that's great. But Frozen, the several of the several of the Minions movies, Small Foot... lots of animated films have vocal scores. So a lot of animated movies, I'm still getting residuals from, from Tinkerbell, Pirate Fairy...

Nanette McGuinness  06:35

Nice, nice.

Zanaida Robles  06:37

Creed, Star Wars, Venom... I sing on a video game, I sing on Call of Duty Black Ops.

Nanette McGuinness  06:49

Wow, wow.

Zanaida Robles  06:50

The game score, and I've also done some some work, it hasn't been like in film scoring, but I've done some like concert work, like sometimes video games or or films will do, like, concert versions of their stuff. So I sing on, I sing on, for example, a version of Game of Thrones live, Game of Thrones live. I did a game, that was like a really cool gig, like, like, with sets and everything and and, but it was a concert, I mean, so if you can imagine, like, what does Game of Thrones in concert sound like? It's, it's, it was a cool show. It was very cool.

Nanette McGuinness  07:21

No, no, I've seen some of those kinds of concerts or attended them, or sometimes, you know, they'll take the score from a film and play it while the film is showing. That can be a lot of fun.

Zanaida Robles  07:31

Yeah, very, very cool.

Nanette McGuinness  07:33

That's really great.

Zanaida Robles  07:34

I sang, I sang on, oh, I sang on Glee once or twice, and I actually had an on on stage, an on set credit, like I got to, there was a scene in one in where I was actually pretending, but I can really play, I was playing piano and Whoopi Goldberg's in it actually I was, I was playing with Whoopi Goldberg.

Nanette McGuinness  07:59

Seriously! Wow, so I am interviewing someone, or talking to someone who has been on a set with Whoopi Goldberg. That is impressive. Yeah, wow. If you have any more stories, if you want to share, if...

Zanaida Robles  08:11

Now the rest are just like, you know, nerdy story, like, not, not related to film, but I've just been, maybe it's worth, you know, just reemphasizing how important it has been to live here in Southern California, you know, I, I, I'm really proud of my town. I love Southern California. I love LA as a as a place where the arts thrive. It's, it's just a world class city. And for good reason. The gigs that you know, you've that I've had just in different beside, besides the film gigs, just the other gigs going, you know, singing in amazing places, singing in our different museums, singing at different having a gig at an amusement park. You know, I've sung at Disneyland and performances, um, Universal Studios is down the street from where I where I'm at my school right now, um, in Studio City, I'm in Studio City, teaching high school, and Universal Studios is down the street, and I've done gigs at Universal Studios, you know, it's just, it's just amazing. The Hollywood Bowl is up the hill, and some of my favorite gigs have been the Hollywood Bowl summer gigs, like those, oh my god, I never laughed so hard as when I did the Eric Idle, Not the Messiah gig. You know the guys that do, um, Monty Python, um, and all that that, like we did a, we did like a Monty Python Live with Eric Idle, and it was the show was called, Not the Messiah. And it was hilarious. I mean, I got I laughed out loud on stage. They gave us we had during the show, we had to play harmonicas, and we got to take the harmonicas home like as souvenirs. I have a souvenir harmonica from when I played at the Hollywood Bowl. It just the, you can't, where else are you going to do that? There's nowhere. There's nowhere else.

Nanette McGuinness  09:55

[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guest, Zanaida Robles, for joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast by clicking on the subscribe button and support us by sharing it with your friends, posting about it on social media, and leaving us a rating and a review. To learn more about E4TT, our concert season online and in the Bay Area, or to make a tax-deductible donation, please visit us at E4TT.org. This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council, and generous donors like you. For Good Measure is produced by Nanette McGuinness and Ensemble for These Times, and design by Brennan Stokes, with special thanks to co-producer and audio engineer Stephanie M. Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts, and tune in next week "for good measure" [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS].