The actors would have to do these breathing passes.Jeff Addiss: So basically they would go in and we would do each of their lines individually to make sure that we matched and had what we needed. Will Matthews: You know, the hardest thing was the breathing. Of course, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance's recording sessions also boasted a sub-challenge that ended up being the hardest aspect of all in some respects: breathing.
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Likely not what the show's writers predicted for their futures when they watched Dark Crystal as kids. When The Dark Crystal came out 37 years ago, international dubbing techniques likely weren't on par with Netflix's approach today, so it's mind-blowing that producing a single project like Age of Resistance necessarily requires such a mighty effort from so many. Dozens of translation teams across dozens of countries around the world were themselves dealing with dozens of local talents' puppet-acting skills. Skeksis is Skeksis, no matter where you go. Some of it would translate, like Chamberlain, and then some of it, you don't. Yeah, we got a lot of translation emails. There were teams all over the world matching these mouth-flaps, and emailing us questions like, 'How do you translate Skeksis into German?' And we're like, 'Uh, don't?'.
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Will Matthews: All of that is done for recording it in English, and then you've got to do it all again for every other language. That aspect mightn't be so rough on a smaller-scale show, but the Netflix prequel boasts over 30 main and recurring characters, voiced by the likes of Taran Egerton, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nathalie Emmanuel, Helena Bonham Carter, Jason Isaacs, Alicia Vikander, Simon Pegg, Mark Hamill, Caitriona Balfe, Keegan Michael-Key, Eddie Izzard, Lena Headey, Awkwafina, Andy Samberg, Natalie Dormer and many more. But The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance's A-list cast members mostly worked independently from the puppeteers' filming process. It's one thing when puppeteers provide the voices themselves, with Jim Henson, Frank Oz and their inner circles able to cover all the performance angles. Then they can come to life, because they can find all the places within these lip-flaps to add their own flourishes, to add their own touches of personality. We spent a lot of time walking people through the process and getting them comfortable. So it's funny, the voice actors would come in, and we would warn them that this is how it was going to be, but you could tell that hadn't quite wrapped their heads around it yet until they watched it: 'You shot it all?!' And we were like, 'Yes.' So it's extraordinarily technical, and what happens is, at first it can be overwhelming, but these are amazing performers, and they find their rhythm and they find their way of doing it. Which means that even in rewrites or anything that we did, it had to match the lip-flaps on the screen.
![the dark crystal age of resistance cast the dark crystal age of resistance cast](https://n-cdn.serienjunkies.de/hq/97590.jpg)
They have to match to what the puppeteers did on the day, which means they have to match the lip-flaps. Because unlike an animated film, they don't record before we shoot. The entire conversation was beyond fascinating, but I was blown away when the topic turned to how challenging a puppet-based Netflix show can be when it comes to getting the voice casts recorded. Addiss and Matthews, along with fellow fan, writer and co-executive producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach, spoke with CinemaBlend ahead of the show's August 30 premiere on Netflix. Except, perhaps, for getting fans Jeff Addiss and Will Matthews involved as co-creators of the new series. Understandably, nothing about bringing The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance to life was easy.