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Aired: October 21st, 2010
It was one of my favorite VA info panels ever. I think it’s because the panelists asked each other the questions (more like they asked Chihara-san questions and vice versa,) rather than the audience picking questions. One thing that makes the former better is because we don’t have the usual ‘how did you become a VA’-type questions, but more indept questions focused on the work itself. After having been to so many of these panels, deeper questions are more interesting to me…especially hearing the thoughts and comparisons between them.
Veronica Taylor introduced everyone and they gave a rundown of what they did. US VAs, from left to right in the above pic: Jamie McGonnigal (Ranmaru, Kizuna,) Tom Wayland (Arceus, Pokemon,) Veronica Taylor (Ash, Pokemon,) Cristina Vee (Mio, K-on!,) Stephanie Sheh (Mikuru, Haruhi,) Michael Sinterniklaas (Xellos, Slayers,) Rachel Lillis (Misty, Pokemon.) Then they introduced…Chihara-san.
Chihara: Hello, everyone! My name is Minori Chihara…yay! I’m impressed that everyone has so many roles that it’s great! What should I do? I’m so happy to meet you, such great voice actors and actresses from the US. I’m very excited to be on this panel. Please take care of me.
Veronica: Minori, when you are doing an anime, what is your day like?
Chihara: When I do voice acting, the day will start recording at 10am, or 4pm recording days. Before I go out the door, I will eat my meal and make sure I get enough energy. And stretch.
Veronica: How long does the day last?
Chihara: It varies, sometimes its a 30 min. show, but only 2 hour recording. Sometimes 4 or 5 hours for a 30 min. show.
Veronica: When you go into a show, are you alone or with a group of actors?
Chihara: Usually, we record with every cast or the people that is suppose to be there. How about you guys?
Rachel: When I was working on Pokemon, I got up at 6 in the morning, I had a waitressing job at a cafe across the street. I would go record Pokemon from 9 until 4, and since we would do 2 episodes at once. And then I had an investment banking job from 5 until 1am. And that was my schedule. Goldman Sachs. That was a typical day for me.
Chihara: Wow!
Michael: I think that’s the main difference. I actually been fortunate enough to get to Tokyo and sit in on a couple of sessions for cast recording. When I’m working on an anime, we typically these days don’t get booked for more than 4 hours at a stretch. So the day for that show will be up to 4 hours. But my day will be more than that since I do more than one show a day. So sometimes it’s many many hours doing lots and lots of screaming so all I can do to prepare for that is try to get lots of sleep. But if I can’t get lots of sleep, sometimes greasy foods lubricates the instrument before recording. We record alone so it’s easier than oppose to a group.
Chihara: I understand about the greasy food. When I have greasy or oily foods, I feel like I can get great pipes.
Michael: Do you prefer greasy food or honey?
Chihara: I think honey seems to work better. But I use it when I feel under the weather.
One of the girls: Any foods you can’t have?
Chihara: Something that is stressed to your throat: spicy food or soda.
Tom: Taking care of the instrument is definitely important, but so is the length of the day. I rarely will use any one actor for more than 4 hours. Is there a point when you feel that your energy starts to wane or you lose your focus?
Chihara: Maybe it depends on the character. It’s true that concentration may have a 4 hour limit. You’re right that doing it for a long time will stress the throat.
Stephanie: Since we all record by ourselves, and we record in different studios, sometimes we have multiple jobs and we have very long days working at various jobs, moving around to different studios. Did you ever record more than one show in a day?
Chihara: For me, I only have only two shows a day. What is the maximum shows you have in day?
Tom: The heyday in the 4Kids studios, I had 10-12 shows at different studios at a time. But the most I have ever dubbed in a day is 4 shows and that is like an hour here and half an hour there. Alot of you guys did more than I did back then. But I remember as a director, we were always fighting for space since there were so many shows being recorded at once. Did any of you have any days like that?
Chihara: 10-12 shows being done, not voice acting?
Tom: 10-12 shows were being recorded in a given week by this company, and me personally, I have done 4 separate shows in a day at the most.
Michael: I know I have done that. I’m not sure, but I think my longest day was 12 hours, but I don’t remember how many shows it was. But I remember I had a 9am call for ‘Ninja Turtles’ and at the end of the day, my last session ended at 9 or 10. But unfortunately, lots and lots of yelling. ‘Ninja Turtles’ yelling, Shamen King yelling….
Jamie: I had to do some recording down in Texas and since I don’t live there, I only have 2-3 days when I was visiting. We have to do 19-20 episodes in 3 days of recordings, so naturally they were 12-14 hour days. It was a series called Beck, so rock singing and naturally, it was taxing on the vocal chords…12-14 hours in a day for 3 days…. But we got it done, so I guess it depends on who you are and what you’re doing. And how quick something needs to be put together.
Rachel: And this being NY, it’s relatively easy to go from studio to studio because some of them are just a few blocks apart. I’m kinda been used to walking from place to place. But I’m been in LA or Texas and I just walked from my hotel to the studio, I look like an idiot. People just look at you say, “What?” People have stopped their cars and say, “Are you okay? You’re walking….” *audience laughs* But in NY, if you have multiple things to do, it’s a good city to go from place to place.
Michael: And I bought a vespa so it makes things eaiser.
Chihara: My transportation is usually train. I live in Tokyo and my studio is in Tokyo too. So even if I go by train, it’s not that long.
Veronica: As an actor, do you work under contract with the company that you know you’re doing a certain amount of shows? Or are constantly auditioning for different things? How does that work? How do you get work?
Chihara: It depends on the title, but mostly auditions. Sometimes a person asks me for a certain voice, but mostly we do auditions.
Stephanie: In LA right now, there is a trend towards self submission. Which is that the actors record at home. Since technology has gotten so good that almost all the actors have some sort of home recording setup. Whether its on their iphone, or in a closest, their in-home studio. I know in NY, there isn’t that much self submission. I was wondering about Japan about auditions.
Chihara: Ehhhh?!? Cool! Do you think in Japan will that happen?
Michael: *clarifies the confusion* ONLY auditions.
Chihara: Yes, I do that too. I record myself at home for auditions.
Rachel: There are people that do audio books from their homes and they joke that they recorded the entire book from their bathtub. *audience laughs* They line their entire bathtub with soundproof material and they sit there.
Tom: You don’t have to wear pants!
Rachel: Yeah, we’ve come a long way. *laughs* In NY, alot of people don’t have closets, their apartments are too small.
Chihara: Yes, it’s very hard to make a recording studio at home.
Cristina: What kind of recording equipment do you use when recording at home?
Chihara: IC recorder.
Tom: Did you always intend to get into this business? Did you intend to become a voice actor? Because many of us and many of the people in this business end up voice anime, not really someone’s intention or someone’s dream. They were stage actors, musicians or whatever-they sort of fell into this. I was wondering if this was what you always intended to do.
Chihara: Exactly as you said, it was not my intention or dream to become a voice actress. I wanted to be a singer so I was taking classes to be a singer. This school just started voice acting course. The person in the school suggested me that it’ll be cool to learn expressions and gain acting training. And then, here I am.
Stephanie: Is it really hard to get into seiyuu schools? Because I always heard about seiyuu schools in Japan and I know that in the States that if you’re from some sort of theater school or music school, sometimes you have alot of auditions and you don’t have to prove yourself that you deserve to be in that school.
Chihara: Yes, there was an examination to get into the class. And even the school has levels, high and lower levels. So yes, you do have to prove that ‘I deserve to be here’ during the examination.
Veronica: Does that mean you can’t audition unless you’ve been in this school.
Stephanie: I think she means examination to get into the school. But for some auditions, they may say you must have training. Like I don’t have training.
Chihara: Maybe it’s difficult to get into an audition if you don’t have management, specialized voice actor and voice actress production company/management. If you don’t have that, it’s very difficult to even find an audition. There are alot of voice actor/actress management in Japan.
Tom: Outside of voice acting anime, is there any other work that you do? Like commericals, audio books or foreign language dubbing? Like tape an episode of the ‘Simpsons’ and dub it into Japanese?
Chihara: I don’t have so much experience. I have done one Taiwanese movie dubbing. Also, I have done narration jobs for tv shows.
Veronica: So on those, do you work in groups, or one actor at a time?
Chihara: For tv show narrations, I’m by myself. But for the Taiwanese movie, it’s exactly the same as the animation, we have the entire cast in the studio for recording.
Veronica: So when you’re recording together on an episode, do you go straight through. So if someone makes a mistake on a line, what happens then? Are you going to picture? What happens?
Chihara: There is both. We stop there or go through and edit later. It depends on the director. If the director saids, ‘Let’s stop here’ or go through it and we can patch the mistaked part. So there are two different ways which are decided by the director. How about you guys?
Tom: For us, when we are dubbing an anime, we are working to picture. We do it one at a time.
Chihara: So you don’t do group sessions.
Tom: When I’m working to picture, I never did group sessions. I know it’s been done before. But when we’re working to picture, I do it one at a time. I know that prelay recording is when audio is recorded first and then they anime to the voices.
Michael: What I noticed when I was watching the sessions in Japan, they record together, they will go for a much longer take. When I watched sessions, they will record a whole tv episode in two takes. 3 passes of two takes. All the first half of the episode up to the eyecatch, 3 times and then the second half of the episode after the eyecatch maybe 3 times. In the United States, we would have shorter scenes when we record. Usually, it would be a scene in whichever act we’re doing. American shows are usually broken up into 3 acts with 2 commercial breaks. In Japan it is 2 acts with 1 commercial break.
Veronica: In ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’, many of us was in the booth and nothing was drawn yet.
Chihara: When you did the ‘Ninja Turtles’ with the group recording, there is no picture whatsoever?
Michael: No picture.
Chihara: *surprised* At all?
Michael: Nothing. In the beginning of the first season, they use to give us storyboard, which is like a comic book. So we review that before…but while we’re recording, there is nothing.
Veronica: So we see a still picture of our character, like they are surprised and get an idea of the episode.
Chihara: And you only have the script? How about how fast or slow you speak? Does it depend on you?
Michael: Yes. It depends on us and the director. Usually the director will say ‘A little faster’. And on ‘Ninja Turtles’, we only have lines and no descriptions.
Chihara: That’s difficult!
Michael: And when we do the scene, sometimes he saids ‘Your character falls’ and you go ‘Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…’ And then the director will say, ‘No, it’s only falling off the curb.’
Chihara: *laughs* That’s interesting!
Michael: I don’t know if it’s harder or easier. Because I do both. Sometimes I think one is easier or one is harder. In prelay for an American show, you have the freedom to invent your own thing. But when you dub anime, it’s easy to see what you have to do. Also when you do a show in America, you can’t see it immediately. When we dub anime, at the end of the day, we can watch what we’ve done. But here, after you record, we have to wait 9 months. That’s hard.
Chihara: I’m so surprised! Sounds kinda fun!
Michael: It’s alot of fun when everyone works together.
Tom: There’s alot more improv. You can occasionally invent little things that may not be in the script but may end up in the final product. If they’re funny.
Jamie: There is also the thing about being able to create a character from scratch that we don’t necessarily have when we’re dubbing something. Like in ‘Viva Pinata’, we see what the character looks like, then created the voice and the director guided us along. But there is something a little bit of ownership that you feel…sometimes you’re a little protective of that character. I’ve seen some of these characters-like I’ve seen ‘Viva Pinata’ dubbed in Spanish and it’s soooo odd. It’s something that I started and we start realizing that’s how most of the stuff I’ve done in Japanese are like.
Veronica: Have you seen another character that you’ve done, spoken in English?
Chihara: Not yet.
Someone quips: That’s good!
Rachel: How do you prepare for a session? Do you do vocal exercises? Do you sing on the train?
Chihara: I stretch my whole body. I also stretch my neck muscles which is very important to relax the neck muscles.
Stephanie: During your recording sessions, do you use headphones?
Chihara: If I have to record by myself, I listen to myself on headphones and then listen to everybody else’s voices. Except that, I don’t use them. If it’s something like you mentioned before, dubbing a foreign film, I’ll use headphones.
Veronica: I think it is helpful if you’re doing a character voice that is different from your own. You can monitor it more, hearing it. Not listening to the original voice of the character, but while I’m doing it, I can hear more what the character sounds like.
Chihara: I see.
Michael: Something that I noticed when I was in Tokyo, I noticed that the microphone is different in Japanese sessions.
Chihara: What is the difference?
Michael: Usually we record away from the microphone. Even when we do a group recording, we each have our own mic. Whereas in Tokyo, I saw people much, much further away, even in group sessions. I’m wondering what your training is: do you worry about making ‘pht’ sounds into the mic or do you think about your volume?
Chihara: Actually, I don’t have specific technique to sharing a microphone. Mostly, we work with the sound tech person. We work with them through rehearsal so we know I go quieter or louder so it changes the level. It’s more like teamwork. I try when I have to scream or do a loud voice, I get a bit more space, go farther away. That kind of thing I learned. So you guys have individual mics? One microphone per person?
Michael: Yes, when we do a group recording for ‘Ninja Turtles’, each turtle had their own microphone.
Chihara: How many microphones do you have?
Michael: 4 or 5. For each turtle, we have one microphone, and then April or Casey will share. Or sometimes I will share my microphone with the guest villan.
Chihaara: In Japan it’s sharing microphones. So when I have the script, I have to know my timing and figure out which microphone I have to go to. Sometimes I miss it and couldn’t get into the microphone in time.
Michael: We also music stands so we don’t have to hold the script.
Chihara: So you put the script on the music stand?
Veronica: Yeah. And when we’re sharing, we can see it right in front of you and can turn it one page at a time.
Chihara: Ehhhh???? Cool!
Jamie: And they have two screens, one that you’re watching the animation on it and next to it is the script where they highlight for you each line as you do it.
Chihara: Wow!
Rachel: What character do you want to play that you haven’t played yet? You usally play a certain character…is there some type of fantasy character that you haven’t played yet?
Jamie: I like playing the character either like crazy teen or awesome villan. *audience laughs*
Tom: I would like to play a hero in a show because I’ve played alot of villans and I’ve been alot of sidekicks. Alot of the time the villans and the sidekicks get the better dialogue, because the best supporting actor is usually a fun role, But, I like to be the hero and I think it would be nice to play a character named, Henry. *audience laughs*
Rachel: I would like to play a ridiculously insane character who makes no sense. It’s all about nonsequitors and you probably couldn’t notice them twice in NY but just someone who is completely weird. Weird, but in a really good way. That’s just random and I don’t know what that could really mean.
And with that, the panel ended. Photos were obviouslly allowed throughout the panel, but we had an awesome group photo where all the VAs and seiyuu walked down the short catwalk of the stage and posed buddy styled. They faced the right side of the room first, then the middle and then my side. *click went the cameras*
Watch this Episode Now
« Next: NYCC 2010: Yoshiki and Stan Lee Announcement Panel | Previous: NYAF 2010: Bandai Industry Panel »
Great Panel!! Another one that was excellent was The Diversity Panel from Voice2010 – Here’s an artcile about it. http://blogs.voices.com/voxdaily/2010/06/voice_2010_diversity_panel.html
by Whitney on 2011-01-14 at 3:13 pm