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Answerman - Setting Fire To Your Dreams Since 2013


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GTO Neko



Joined: 11 Oct 2007
Posts: 94
PostPosted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 4:55 pm Reply with quote
Echo_City wrote:

From what Sentai says, you should move down to TX and stalk Craigslist for their "now hiring" ads. You could have been Christian Lopez or the "new girl" that Sentai just hired, per their facebook page Very Happy


That's exactly what I've been seeing from time to time. It's really amazing how much you can get some work like that.

But yeah, time and time again, it's one of those things that a lot of people still don't understand that to be a VA, it's a part time job that's not so glamorous with a lot of pay. At times, it's just like trying to get noticed for a movie where like it or not, you gotta start from the bottom up to work your way to getting more and more noticed.

At least a lot of them have fun with it all and, while being serious for the role, they'll at least make sure to not let it get too serious like it's a competition (unless they're playing in some sort of sports, that's a whole different story X3 ). So really, all in all, it's more of a side job, unless you want to work your way up for behind the scenes.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 23665
PostPosted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 4:55 pm Reply with quote
Don't have any electronics horror stories but my current Blu-ray player (I'm at work right now and can't actually remember what make it is) has an occasional, annoying quirk. I can turn on both my TV and BD player using the BD player's remote control. However, every now and then, for reasons that escape me, I can't use any of the other functions on that remote (i.e. top menu, chapter skip, ff-ing, etc). When that happens, I can still turn off the machine using the remote but that's not good enough to correct matters. I have to MANUALLY turn off the machine using the button on the machine. If I do that, when I turn the machine back on using the remote, then all the remote functions will work. Bizarre. As far as I can remember, this only happens on DVD playback not on BDs, but I'm not 100% sure of that.
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getchman
Space Cowboy



Joined: 07 Apr 2012
Posts: 9117
Location: Bedford, NH
PostPosted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 4:58 pm Reply with quote
SpacemanHardy wrote:
Off topic, but Mark Gosdin, your avatar scared me a little bit just there. I thought at first Shiratori had come back. Shocked


I think the exact same thing every time he posts
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wandering-dreamer



Joined: 21 Jan 2008
Posts: 1733
PostPosted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 5:18 pm Reply with quote
I don't have any real technology horror stories myself shockingly, although I have plenty of stories about computers and cameras throwing temper tantrums from college though (I was in the photography department and a lot of times people hook cameras straight up to computers to shoot which worked fine our fall semester but by spring the computer started freaking out after being used from 8 am to 2 am seven days a week, the studio's hassleblad was having similar nervous fits as well). Worst I have is how the power cord for mac laptops die annoying quickly, my first one died right before exams one year in college (thankfully a friend had a spare until I got a new one for Christmas) and my second one threatened to go a few months ago until I taped it up using what I had learned from the first time. And I've had to replace the battery once and really should a second time, the laptop is about four and a half years old and even though I'm a heavy user I think it's pretty crazy. Planning on just buying a new laptop soon but, since I'm probably getting a Macbook air and those don't have DVD players, I'm probably going to have to buy one of those cheap ones y'all are telling so many horror stories about.
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Chagen46



Joined: 27 Jun 2010
Posts: 4377
PostPosted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 5:30 pm Reply with quote
PurpleWarrior13 wrote:

Also, dubbing is far more technical than original animation. With original animation, there is no picture to match to. With dubbing, you have to be careful to match the lip flaps. This is extremely hard to do if it's group dubbing. Doing it with one person at a time makes it easier for the director to focus on one actor/character at a time, not just in performance, but also in timing/lip-flaps. Also, like you said, because it's so low-paying, it's expected that it will be done in actors' free-time from other jobs. With that said, there are a few exceptions to all of this:


Actually from what I've heard Japanese animation finishes the pictures first, and thus Japanese actors also dub their lines.
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TrailOfDead



Joined: 09 Aug 2012
Posts: 198
PostPosted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 5:47 pm Reply with quote
Chagen46 wrote:
Actually from what I've heard Japanese animation finishes the pictures first, and thus Japanese actors also dub their lines.


owing to the craziness of production schedules, I think they may read to anything from storyboards to final animation depending on the title. but it's a rarity for them to prelay dialogue. for the most part they just don't care very much about matching flaps.
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Chagen46



Joined: 27 Jun 2010
Posts: 4377
PostPosted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 5:57 pm Reply with quote
That's mainly because the style of most anime has very "broad" lip-flaps, and you can sync them up a lot easier. Character's basically open their mouth a little and that's it.

Whereas in western animation they usually try to actually portray the correct shape and size of the mouth this making timing way tighter.
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joelgundam00



Joined: 27 Feb 2008
Posts: 153
Location: Western NY
PostPosted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 6:15 pm Reply with quote
Worse electronic company that I've experienced? That has to be Samsung. They are great in making monitors and TVs, but anything with moving parts in them are complete garbage. I had a Samsung DVD player and hard drive from them and both of them died shortly after the warranty expired. Yet, my 10 year old Samsung PC monitor still works great.
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4563
PostPosted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 6:16 pm Reply with quote
I still have my beloved old clunky Toshiba CRT TV with built-in DVD player, and the latter has to be one of the worst players ever created, at least at this stage in its life. It seems to have very little in the way of buffering capability (or whatever the equivalent is for DVD playback), because it'll frequently start stuttering and making all sorts of lovely disc-reading noises, and I usually have to pause for a little bit and let it figure out what the hell it's doing. Just getting discs to be read in the first place is a challenge in and of itself, especially among some of my older Bandai sets that were notorious for being a bit finicky; there are one or two of my G-Gundam discs that it just craps the bed on entirely. Annoyingly, the DVD+RW drive in my ancient Dell desktop is in the same boat: it's finicky with most of the same DVDs, and even more damningly, it just gave up on being able to read CDs entirely, which made me have to scavenge a second CD-RW drive from an even older machine. Amusingly, the best DVD player I have in the room is this Toshiba DVD/VHS combo; it has no troubles at all with discs that give the other two fits.
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kgw



Joined: 22 Jul 2004
Posts: 1048
Location: Spain, EU
PostPosted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 6:35 pm Reply with quote
About dubbing, while it's true that in many times this or that voice actor/actress is not available to do their lines and they should be recorded later, it's also true that most dialogues are recorded as well, dialogues. Besides, as it happens in cinema, scripts are not recorded "lineally". Maybe you should start with scene #13 because scenes #1 to 12 are a big battle and you need to add sound effects. Or it's just two characters' talking and the others actors cannot stay the whole day waiting for their turn.
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Beltane70



Joined: 07 May 2007
Posts: 3868
PostPosted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 7:10 pm Reply with quote
I've been pretty lucky with my electronics, but I did have an LG DVD player that died after only about six months. Since it was almost ten years ago, I don't remember what model it was.
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4410
PostPosted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 7:11 pm Reply with quote
ActionJacksin wrote:
Don't know if I should be surprised or sad to see there are still kids who have delusions of grandeur on being a dub voice actor or some other low paying non-Japanese anime industry position they think they can make a living on.


There will always be somebody who doesn't know, whether through delusions or simple ignorance. I guess I don't see it as sad or surprising, so much as an ever-present fact. Although it's hard not to eye-roll a bit during a voice actor panel when someone inevitably asks how they can become a voice actor, especially since the answer is almost always the same, so I'm glad we've got someone like Justin laying out the cold truth of it. If after knowing all that, someone is still dead-set on it, that is fine, but it would be nice if those panels were more honest.

But, like Justin said, nobody wants to be known as the person that goes to conventions and crushes people's dreams. The only time I've actually gotten an honest discussion about things like the low pay was when I was talking to a voice actor in a one-on-one conversation where it was clear that I wasn't looking to get into the industry, and that I already knew most of what that person was going to say on the topic.
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vanfanel



Joined: 26 Dec 2008
Posts: 1239
PostPosted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 7:41 pm Reply with quote
Here's the thing about dream jobs: there are far more talented people out there than there are slots in which to present their work.

If someone famous is telling you that all you need is spunk, a little talent, and dedication...then YOU TOO can be like me...well, it's good to remember that the person doing the encouraging is coming from the perspective of being one of the very few to have already succeeded. Of course they think it's possible, and if they've been unusually lucky, they might not even think it's all that hard to get in the door.

Natural talent is important. Hard work spent developing that talent is even more important. And luck is absolutely vital, because you probably won't get the gig you want because you're the best. You'll get it because somebody needed someone to do whatever it is you do, and you happened to be there at the right time and place. Same as landing any other job, but with far fewer openings and far more competition. You can't create luck, but if you want to get anywhere, you have to create as many opportunities for luck to operate as possible. Sometimes that can mean long, long, long wait times.

And even if you do get a gig doing what you love, if it's in arts or entertainment, the odds are high that you won't be able to make a living at it. John Scalzi has a great article on his site that cuts to the chase: "When can I quit the day job?" His answer is very simple: you can quit the day job when the dream job is paying 30% more than the day job is, and the day job is interfering with your ability to earn even more. Why 30%? Because without the day job, you're going to have provide your own health and retirement benefits, and will also be subject to self-employment taxes (which -- oh joy -- will have to be filed and paid quarterly instead of yearly).

That article is pre-AFA, btw, so the percentage may be lower now if your expected income is low enough to qualify for making your neighbors pay for your health insurance; if you don't qualify for subsidies, though, you may end up paying even more (because of all the other people being subsidized: TAANSTAFL!).
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configspace



Joined: 16 Aug 2008
Posts: 3717
PostPosted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 7:55 pm Reply with quote
Chagen46 wrote:
PurpleWarrior13 wrote:

Also, dubbing is far more technical than original animation. With original animation, there is no picture to match to. With dubbing, you have to be careful to match the lip flaps. This is extremely hard to do if it's group dubbing. Doing it with one person at a time makes it easier for the director to focus on one actor/character at a time, not just in performance, but also in timing/lip-flaps. Also, like you said, because it's so low-paying, it's expected that it will be done in actors' free-time from other jobs. With that said, there are a few exceptions to all of this:


Actually from what I've heard Japanese animation finishes the pictures first, and thus Japanese actors also dub their lines.

Yes, but the major difference is that those lines are the original language so there is no issue in trying to rephrase or rewrite lines to match lip flaps and scene timing that the ADR in foreign language dubs face.

I mentioned this example before of why the original language matters as far as difficulty in voice acting goes:

"demo.. watashi wa ..." *pause & turn*

results in very different timing and both scene animation and lip flap animation than the same line in English:

"but I ..." *pause & turn*

But you're right as far as the technical work as far as voice acting rigorously constrained by timing voice actors on both sides of the Pacific have to do.

Most US animation produces the final animation and lip flaps after the voice recording so voice actors are not constrained in the same way, making it possible to also ad-lib. There was an example I cannot find now, showing how a particular scene with Homer from the Simpsons was ad-libbed.

Because American animation doesn't have the same performance obstacles, I think it often feels more natural, like the VA's are having fun and can really role-play, whereas the acting tends to come across more in dubs, as if acting on a theater stage. It's not that it make good or more in-character-natural voice acting impossible, but rather harder. Here's an old thread discussing this, with quotes from industry pros explicitly acknowledge this.

Lastly I have to quibble with applying the term "dub" to the Japanese track or any original voice acting in any language done post-layout. It is not. Dub means to replace or record over. Yet there is nothing to replace or record over for the original Japanese track. The animation is still tailor made for the Japanese or original language lines. See above example for why this distinction matters very much. There is an "empty" slot or voice audio track for those lines. It simply happens to be made before or most likely during, the lines are recorded. The video (animation) is still produced according to the expected audio to be synced to (voice). So despite being produced separately, the video and audio, both of which are created for each other, are simply merged together in the final stages.
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Joe Carpenter



Joined: 29 Oct 2011
Posts: 503
PostPosted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 8:05 pm Reply with quote
ooh, who are the voice actors who are "not that great of people"? dish us some dirt Justin! Twisted Evil
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