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Hey, Answerman! - A Little Help From My Friends


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Cecilthedarkknight_234



Joined: 02 Apr 2011
Posts: 3819
Location: Louisville, KY
PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 12:34 am Reply with quote
hmm that answers my own question i had about buying new dvd's at a bargain price. I am not ashamed to admit it but most of my dvd collection has come from rightstuf in the past 4 years despite genon/adv having troubles.

In all honesty I didn't know at the time I just wanted to support and buy dvd's for shows that I liked. I think the most I have ever spent for a show is 60 dollars for higurashi box-set back in 2009. I did however manage to pick up the eva platinum set from wal-mart back in 06 for 40 dollars...

Moving that aside interesting view on voice acting..
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bj_waters



Joined: 18 Apr 2006
Posts: 234
PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 12:50 am Reply with quote
What do you mean "a lame question?" That's an awesome question! I hereby insist that should be the question for the next Answerfans!

My answer? The first one I thought was, of all things, Balgus' sword from (if I recall correctly) the second episode of Escaflowne, when he takes on a Guymalef(?) by himself. It was an epic long, skinny thing that looked like it could really cut mechs in half. Allen Walker ends up with a pretty cool sword in D. Gray Man a good chunk in. Guts' slab of metal from Berserk deserves a mention (which overshadows Sanosuke's) as well as Tenchi Muyo's Light Hawk Wings. While I imagine that we'll get quite a few swords of Bleach, at least let me say that I've always thought Ichigo's first sword was the best he ever had.

But if we're going to talk about the BEST SWORD EVAR in the context of Tite Kubo, then the honor really should go to the chain-saw sword monstrosity wielded by Gamma Akutabi. As ridiculous as it is awesome, it fits Gamma to a "T," and I challenge the internet to present a better anime/manga sword than his!
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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
Posts: 8202
Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 1:40 am Reply with quote
Is it possible to be freelance in a Union? Just seems an irony in terms especially when one would think nothing of scabbing a Union job during a striking dispute with a company, or contractor and therefore heavily frowned upon by Union members and executives. Wink
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dewlwieldthedarpachief



Joined: 04 Jan 2007
Posts: 751
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 2:51 am Reply with quote
bj_waters wrote:
What do you mean "a lame question?" That's an awesome question! I hereby insist that should be the question for the next Answerfans!


I dunno, I think it's pretty lame, forcing people to choose between Golgo 13 and Akio Ohtori.
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4410
PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 3:12 am Reply with quote
Mohawk52 wrote:
Is it possible to be freelance in a Union? Just seems an irony in terms especially when one would think nothing of scabbing a Union job during a striking dispute with a company, or contractor and therefore heavily frowned upon by Union members and executives. Wink


One of the ways that actors can freelance while being part of a union is the use of aliases. That is why you'll occasionally see a different name in the credits even when you recognize the voice.
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief


Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 1684
Location: Los Angeles, CA
PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 3:22 am Reply with quote
Mohawk52 wrote:
Is it possible to be freelance in a Union? Just seems an irony in terms especially when one would think nothing of scabbing a Union job during a striking dispute with a company, or contractor and therefore heavily frowned upon by Union members and executives. Wink

Virtually all creative show-biz jobs are both unionized and freelance. Writers Guild, Screen Actors Guild, Director's Guild, AFTRA, American Cinematographer's Guild... all unions for freelancers.

These unions basically enforce minimum pay requirements, hourly restrictions, safety regulations, etc., and then take a chunk to pay for benefits like health insurance. Union productions are generally more expensive (in addition to treating the cast and crew a little better, there's overhead involved), and can't easily hire people outside of the union, so it's a bit of a headache.

Union talent is prohibited from taking a non-union job, and can risk fines and expulsion if they do. Hence, voice actors use pseudonyms to get around that and take the work where they can. It's not a great system, but nobody has yet come up with anything better.
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rojse



Joined: 08 Sep 2010
Posts: 234
PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 7:26 am Reply with quote
The best anime sword has to be Guts' "Dragon Slayer". Unlike most anime swords, it doesn't have special magic powers, unique abilities, or any rubbish like that, but the anime goes to great lengths to show the amount of practice and effort that Guts puts into wielding such a huge sword and how devastating it is in Guts' hands.
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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
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Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 7:43 am Reply with quote
jsevakis wrote:
Mohawk52 wrote:
Is it possible to be freelance in a Union? Just seems an irony in terms especially when one would think nothing of scabbing a Union job during a striking dispute with a company, or contractor and therefore heavily frowned upon by Union members and executives. Wink

Virtually all creative show-biz jobs are both unionized and freelance. Writers Guild, Screen Actors Guild, Director's Guild, AFTRA, American Cinematographer's Guild... all unions for freelancers.

These unions basically enforce minimum pay requirements, hourly restrictions, safety regulations, etc., and then take a chunk to pay for benefits like health insurance. Union productions are generally more expensive (in addition to treating the cast and crew a little better, there's overhead involved), and can't easily hire people outside of the union, so it's a bit of a headache.

Union talent is prohibited from taking a non-union job, and can risk fines and expulsion if they do. Hence, voice actors use pseudonyms to get around that and take the work where they can. It's not a great system, but nobody has yet come up with anything better.
It use to be like that here, until "Iron Pants Thatcher" came busting heads and taking names then basically legislated many Union rights away after Wopping, (ah! Wopping. What fun we had.) and the Miners strikes. Now it's either contract on permanent employment, or short term with virtually no labour rights apart from what the EU dictated to the Thatcher and later goverments after wards to try to eliminate the rampant explotation that many suffered thereafter. I still have my ACTT and later BECTU cards, but they're just pieces of nostalgia now, nothing more. Crying or Very sad
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vashthekaizoku



Joined: 30 May 2009
Posts: 261
Location: The House of Rat
PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 9:52 am Reply with quote
Now I know you had more than two Answerfans responses, so unless mine didn't get delivered, or was incoherent due to the cough medicine I was on, I have to believe that it didn't pass your standard for a letter.
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HeeroTX



Joined: 15 Jul 2002
Posts: 2046
Location: Austin, TX
PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 12:12 pm Reply with quote
I think the main problem with the AnswerFans question is the opaque-ness of anime licensing. Too many people don't REALLY know what goes on there, and then you have questions of professionalism, what companies would allow, etc. When you have FUNimation sitting in a panel at a convention and saying "I can't tell you about any titles we're trying to license (and I KNOW there are reasons for that), then it makes it seem like trying to crowdsource that kind of thing seem incredibly unrealistic. In many ways, I think it is an ideal method for entertainment projects, since the people who want it can pre-buy and you KNOW the artists/producers will be paid for their work, but are people (industry especially) willing to "pull back the veil" enough to make that sort of thing happen for this sort of thing?
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Sunday Silence



Joined: 22 Jun 2010
Posts: 2047
PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 2:28 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Voice actors are freelance talent. No steady paycheck or guaranteed hours.


So is this why we often see the same old VA's at some cons? Cause the panels they run are at least a paycheck?
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Gilles Poitras



Joined: 05 Apr 2008
Posts: 476
Location: Oakland California
PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 3:11 pm Reply with quote
Sunday Silence wrote:

So is this why we often see the same old VA's at some cons? Cause the panels they run are at least a paycheck?


I don't know any voice actors who are paid to be at cons. The most they get is transportation, a room and food. Plus lots of fun, never underestimate fun, also interaction with fans.
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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
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Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 3:41 pm Reply with quote
Gilles Poitras wrote:
Sunday Silence wrote:

So is this why we often see the same old VA's at some cons? Cause the panels they run are at least a paycheck?


I don't know any voice actors who are paid to be at cons. The most they get is transportation, a room and food. Plus lots of fun, never underestimate fun, also interaction with fans.
That's called "renumeration in kind" If you can get someone to pay for your transport, room, and board, just to appear at their party and you have nothing else on your diary, yeah why not? Laughing Especially when it's mostly tax exempt. Wink
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Yoda117



Joined: 11 Sep 2005
Posts: 406
PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 3:41 pm Reply with quote
Cecilthedarkknight_234 wrote:

Moving that aside interesting view on voice acting..


Yep, but that's also Kyle's take on it (not meant to down the guy, but he's speaking based on his particular focus within VO and the market where he does most of his work). He didn't include the statement that most anime dubbing is non-union, hence the lower scale. ADR (i.e., dubbing) rates are at scale for a union booking.

It can be insanely difficult to do.

As far as union actors taking non-union work, it happens. There is a proviso which permits this, but it's onerous for the talent (more so than for the client).

Union bookings also permit a voice actor to only perform a limited number of characters before you have to pay them more (i.e., basically paying them a second salary).

$200/hour for a video game booking in LA? That's less than a commercial booking on the East Coast (in a major media market such as NYC or Philadelphia). I didn't know that.

Nationals easily get in the four - five figure range. They're also insanely competitive. Promo work (such as what Don La Fontaine was famous for) could earn even more... but was even more competitive (15 - 20 actors do about 95% of the entire market, IIRC).

Imaging is a strange beast, but it's a steady paycheck if you can do it. Pricing depends on the media market (and number of tags the clients wants you to do). Joe Cipriano and Beau Weaver are the best examples of this I can think of.

Audiobooks have been a quickly growing field within VO. Not surprising given the changes in technology, but the field is still new and the rates haven't fully settled into a schema that's reflective of the effort (at least IMO).

eLearning and Web is another field that is still growing. It's pretty self-explanatory, and much like Audiobooks, location is not as much of a limiting factor any more.

IVR is still alive and well. Pay isn't that high, but it's a steady income for those actors who establish themselves. Liz de Nesnera is the best example I can think of there. Some of the technology used on the recording side for this type of VO is pretty creative actually.

and then there's Industrial (I'm lumping traditional corporate narration, legal, medical/pharma, etc. into this category). It's the least glamorous, but it's the bread and butter for most voice actors. I wish Kyle had spent a little more time on this, because it's such a huge part of the VO market. Rates vary depending on the work being done, but $1,000+/hour isn't unheard of (in fact, it's common in some industries that require a strong technical or medical background in addition to VO skills; additional factors can also cause the price of a session to go significantly higher). That said, it's usually in the $150 - $300/hr range (at least in the mid-Atlantic region).

Quote:
Given the advances in technology, many voice over pros are able to do recording from home and garner clients either through networking or pay-to-play sites like Voice123 or Voices.com


Ugh. This is very true, but it's also become a major problem within the VO community. The P2P sites have a tendency to attract low-ball clients, and low-ball talent. That said, a lot of fun/cool projects can be found there as well. What isn't mentioned is that because VO talent are doing this at home, the quality of the work varies as much as the pay. Some great talent put out some bad stuff because their recording enironment isn't up to snuff. Now you don't have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to have a decent home studio, but the impression these sites give people is that with a $100 USB mic they can easily make tens of thousands of dollars. That simply isn't true for 95%+ of most of the people who try.

The cool thing though, is that with the advances in technology, VO talent no longer have to be geographically present for a majority of this work. Phone patches, ISDN, SourceConnect, and even Skype can be used to do a session from a talent's home studio (or a separate studio) when the talent can't be there in person.

Sadly, ADR still requires you to be at the studio (at least I don't know of anything which easily permits you to run an ADR session from one location and record at another), but give it a few years and I think that won't be a problem either.
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HeeroTX



Joined: 15 Jul 2002
Posts: 2046
Location: Austin, TX
PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 5:01 pm Reply with quote
Gilles Poitras wrote:
Sunday Silence wrote:

So is this why we often see the same old VA's at some cons? Cause the panels they run are at least a paycheck?


I don't know any voice actors who are paid to be at cons. The most they get is transportation, a room and food. Plus lots of fun, never underestimate fun, also interaction with fans.

An unfortunate reality is many (most?) anime voice actors now charge "appearance fees" to appear at anime conventions, often noted as "because they could be working".
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