Tales from the Early Years – Zen in a Box
Alistair Lock - Zen vocals...
Usually I’m recording other people, but this time I’m in front of the microphone. I’m in a very small room, with padding on the wall. What does that say?
Not only am I here to provide the voice for a character, but a rather (to me anyway) iconic one; the voice of Zen the Liberator’s computer.
And it ain’t easy. Zen is turning out to be quite a complex character, more than the sum of his algorithms. There’s more to it than saying “confirmed” every now and then, but it’s a usual phrase when asked if I’d like a coffee.
Alistair practising a 'Zen look'...
The thing is, in this story that we’re recording at the moment, Escape Velocity, Zen gets quite emotional. He becomes really quite angry at times, yet he still has to sound like he’s delivering his lines in his usual neutral tone. It’s difficult, during recording, not to get drawn into the emotion of a scene, and start becoming obviously aggressive, or even hurt, during the course of a scene. The “trick” will be in certain nuances of timing and inflection to suggest what’s going on behind the words; audio body language if you like. He isn’t Zen yet, he’s ‘Ship Mind’ and the ship he’s responsible for is DSV2: Deep Space Vessel Two.
Although it’s fun working with Zoe Tapper and Jason Merrels who are “off the telly”, it’s also rather isolating, as I have to stay in my box. Zen has to stay quarantined.
In early discussions with Andrew (Mark Sewell, the director and producer), he was keen for me to perform Zen along the lines of Peter Tuddenham, who voiced Zen in the classic TV series, though I obviously want to put my own ’stamp’ on the character, who in the new series will, how shall I put it, go far beyond his original programming.
Like any decent programmer, I’ve left a programming “back door” for Zen, my own studio at home. Any lines that I or Andrew feels are too “human” or emotional can be re-recorded at my leisure during the post production process. This takes some of the pressure off me as an actor, and also helps Zoe Tapper, with whom I share the majority of my scenes. In the studio I can give her something emotional to play off, but in the final piece she will rage against the machine, which will be quite implacable.
Alistair Lock
Tags: Alistair Lock, Blake's 7, Zen
