Anime conventions
keep attracting new fans, and the voice acting business keeps drawing new
performers. One of those newcomers appeared on a panel discussion on Anime
USA's opening day. The established performers who were on hand were the
popular Scott McNeil (on the right in the plaid and cowboy hat), the voice
of a bunch of characters including Duo Maxwell and Piccolo, and the professional
Keith Burgess (in black in the center), producer and sometimes actor for
Manga Video. The newcomer was on the left...
...Kelli
Shayne Butler, an aspiring opera singer who happened upon voice acting
when she attended a Jeff Thompson audition with a friend. "I've done theater
since I was ten years old," she said. "Now I'm an opera student - how can
you get more melodramatic?" Butler was a subtitle fan before she started
performing in dubs, mostly small roles in Boogiepop Phantom and Kare Kano.
"You take something like Kare Kano and there are tons of female voices,
and only four men - including the dog. "When guys do get a role they're
really good." Butler would love to perform the role of Eva Friedel in the
Katsuhiro Otomo "Memories," because she could handle both the acting and
the singing part of that role.
When McNeil
was asked his dream role, he had a surprising answer. Not his Gundam Wing
or Dragon Ball characters, not Wolverine from X-Men or any of the parts
from the Mainframe computer generated shows - his favorite was Hermie the
elf in "Rudolph on the Island of Misfit Toys," a stop-motion animated Christmas
show that was the sequel to the 1960's stop motion "Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer." "That was a gas," McNeil said, "I get to be in stuff I grew
up on. McNeil said he likes to refer to dubbing "...as acing with
someone else's lips." He feels the technical side of dubbing, making the
English-language voices fit the on-screen lip flaps, can be better than
the Japanese original. McNeil is working on the dub of the acclaimed "Master
Keaton," and said he was surprised to learn that the original voices didn't
match the animated mouth movements. But after hearing Japanese and German
dubs of animated shows where he's provided the voices, McNeil admitted
"I understand the angst the Japanese actors go through when they see my
stuff" because of the different timbres and intensity of the dubbed foreign
performances.
Burgess has
gotten small roles in some of the shows he's produced. "My first big role
was Street Fighter Alpha. "I was happy but I didn't get to kick the crap
out of anybody. Street fighter 2 is coming out and I get to fight twice.
I always made fighting voices when I was in school.
Anime conventions
keep attracting new fans, and the voice acting business keeps drawing new
performers. One of those newcomers appeared on a panel discussion on Anime
USA's opening day. The established performers who were on hand were the
popular Scott McNeil (on the right in the plaid and cowboy hat), the voice
of a bunch of characters including Duo Maxwell and Piccolo, and the professional
Keith Burgess (in black in the center), producer and sometimes actor for
Manga Video. The newcomer was on the left...
...Kelli
Shayne Butler, an aspiring opera singer who happened upon voice acting
when she attended a Jeff Thompson audition with a friend. "I've done theater
since I was ten years old," she said. "Now I'm an opera student - how can
you get more melodramatic?" Butler was a subtitle fan before she started
performing in dubs, mostly small roles in Boogiepop Phantom and Kare Kano.
"You take something like Kare Kano and there are tons of female voices,
and only four men - including the dog. "When guys do get a role they're
really good." Butler would love to perform the role of Eva Friedel in the
Katsuhiro Otomo "Memories," because she could handle both the acting and
the singing part of that role.
When McNeil
was asked his dream role, he had a surprising answer. Not his Gundam Wing
or Dragon Ball characters, not Wolverine from X-Men or any of the parts
from the Mainframe computer generated shows - his favorite was Hermie the
elf in "Rudolph on the Island of Misfit Toys," a stop-motion animated Christmas
show that was the sequel to the 1960's stop motion "Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer." "That was a gas," McNeil said, "I get to be in stuff I grew
up on. McNeil said he likes to refer to dubbing "...as acing with
someone else's lips." He feels the technical side of dubbing, making the
English-language voices fit the on-screen lip flaps, can be better than
the Japanese original. McNeil is working on the dub of the acclaimed "Master
Keaton," and said he was surprised to learn that the original voices didn't
match the animated mouth movements. But after hearing Japanese and German
dubs of animated shows where he's provided the voices, McNeil admitted
"I understand the angst the Japanese actors go through when they see my
stuff" because of the different timbres and intensity of the dubbed foreign
performances.
Burgess has
gotten small roles in some of the shows he's produced. "My first big role
was Street Fighter Alpha. "I was happy but I didn't get to kick the crap
out of anybody. Street fighter 2 is coming out and I get to fight twice.
I always made fighting voices when I was in school.
