Forum - View topicUsing VA recordings post mortem?
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MaxSouth
Posts: 1363 |
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It is nature of life that people die, including voice actors and actresses.
Sometimes they die prematurely, such as, for example, voice actor Hirotaka Suzoku -- back in 2006 (unfortunately, too many Japanese are smokers). He had amazing voice and he had many roles, including in several prominent shows like Wandering Samurai and Ranma ½. Both series had continuation already after he has passed away, so producers used other actors to reprise the roles he has played. However, this actor's library/vocabulary of sounds, id est words pronounced and recorded during his career, is so extensive, that with contemporary technology it would be perfectly possible to re-use some of it to create audio track for nearly any text and expression that was needed for the reprisal of those roles -- including within the base of recordings for each of those roles separately. The fact the voice has been replaced was unnecessary. The issue was treated this way not only due to tradition, but also partly due to professional ethics in the industry, and as measure for protection of interests of younger voice actors, are are still alive. In general, I agree with those principles. However, in cases such as I described, there could be reasonable compromise to the best interest of viewers, families of the deceased actors, and even of the rest of voice actors who continue to work. Maybe there has to be a rule that if certain voice actor had a prominent voice acting job in series of extensive but finite span, then he/she contract should allow production committee to -- for significant but limited time -- use actor's/actress' library/vocabulary of recordings later in case if he/she dies -- with the (proportionally) same proceedings going to beneficiary that actor/actress would assign in the contract, as if the actor/actress would be still alive. With such conditions, we can expect the following: 1) for production using voices of dead actors and actresses will not be cheaper than in case of using professionals that are still alive, so it will not create pressure to draw cynicism from the companies to seek older/ill actors in the hopes that they could use their voices cheap after their die; 2) for series that are basically eternal, like Lupin III, production companies will be still free not to use such option. And there can be limitation for how many years they can use voice of actor/actress that has passed away. Such measure would protect profession from creating franchises that would run for half century and possibly longer that would eventually only voiced by actors and actresses that are long dead; 3) it will be still a choice of production company whether to use actor's/actress' voice in a continuation of franchise is he/she has passed away. If the voice has not become prominent enough for certain role, no one is obligated to anything. But there will be such possibility at least; 4) actors and actresses will be protected to be able to decide whether they will allow to use their voices after they die, or not; 6) whether actor's/actress's voice recordings library/vocabulary can be shared between the interested production companies, is another matter. For the purpose of this rulings, it should. For example, if certain words, needed for Ranma ½, were recorded for Wandering Samurai or vise versa, they should be available; 7) actors and actresses who now feel awkward taking roles of their recently passed away colleagues, will not have to do it any more. And they will know that if they are willing, the characters they play will have the same treatment in case of their passing, and that their prominent acting projects will keep their wholeness and coherence to fans' pleasure and to their own last professional will. Of course, such matter is quite sensitive and very complicated, especially in #2 point, but if Japan has something like "Voice actors union", it can be solved to mutual interest of all parties. Probably due to complexity of the issue it was never really discussed, but I wish it would. Also, it should be noted that this all could be possible only if voice actors union in Japan is as strong as actor's union in USA (Screen Actors Guild), where it wields significant power to limit how Hollywood studios can possibly abuse actors and actresses. Does Japan have something like that? Or actors and actresses are only/mainly protected by their agencies? Cleaned up the thread title. --willag |
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Cptn_Taylor
Posts: 925 |
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So it all boils down to you would like for the deceased's voice to be used because you happen to like that voice and to hell with the rest eh ? You're quite a selfish person.
What's next, using the image of a dead actor and make him the main character in a film because audiences liked him while he was alive ? Death is part of life. We all understand this basic reality. If a voice actor dies suddendly tough luck. You replace him. And if audiences don't like it too bad. Man I swear, people are so ******* entitled to material things these days nothing will stand in the way of their personal satisfaction. Let the dead be dead. Using a snippet of audio might be ok like we use photographs of famous and non famous dead people. But to use his entire "voice recording" career after the fact ? Hell no. |
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13230 |
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Using archived voices actually does happen. For awhile Hirotaka Suzoku continued to provide the voice of Bright Noa in the Super Robot Wars games, and they used a clip of You Inoue for the brief line Sayla had in the Zeta Gundam movies.
The problem with doing this for new content is obvious. Even if you strung together various words they've spoken you're still unable to give them specific directions to match a scene. Even if they did say a word exactly the way the director wanted them to at some point, searching for that one line would be too time consuming. It's just better to recast the part, as what happened with Ken Narita took over the role of Bright for Gundam Unicorn. |
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MaxSouth
Posts: 1363 |
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Cptn_Taylor:
1) it is old subject of musing of mine. I gave the example of certain voice actor because it is a case that people can be aware of; 2) music artists' voices and images get used and re-used often -- see remixes, covers, and even 3D recreations of authors like 2Pac and Michael Jackson. So before you swear, think. Also, what I am offering is fully ethical since I only talk about voluntary agreements between parties beforehand, not about cases such as those when artists had no idea that their image will be used to hold virtual performances. Vaisaga: Thanks for the information. As to matching, this is an issue, but technology now can index, sort and search database of sounds by very many criteria and combinations of characteristics. It is not just a table with two columns where the first colгmn is a word and the second is link to a file where this word pronounced. Besides, there is amazing technology that modifies the accent/pitch/attack within the pronounced word very naturally. Of course, since no one really had done such processing to Hirotaka Suzoku's voice, trying to use his records just as they are would be incredibly hard. Besides, to make it as natural as possible, you have to use latest technology. This is why I would not offer any of this, say, ten years ago (even though most of technologies I discuss were already available even back then). |
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Vaisaga
Posts: 13230 |
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I dunno, I think the best we got right now is Vocaloid tech, and you can tell how fake that is (though that is part of the charm for Miku and co, it wouldn't work well for a role in a show). It's simply just easier to re-cast the role.
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