When
Monica Rial wasn't taking phone calls from friends or accepting gifts of
art from fans, she was talking about the challenges of voice acting. Rial
was one of four actors who appeared at a panel discussion on the fledgling
convention's first day. Kirika, Rial's Noir character, is "...one of the
most difficult characters because she doesn't talk." The release of ADV Films'
first volume of Noir had some fans questioning her performance, but Rial
said it was all according to plan. "In volume one she's so apprehensive,
but I'm starting her out as apprehensive. As she goes along she's coming
into her own." Hyatt, her Excel character, speaks in a similar range, but
there are differences. Rial performs Hyatt in a more deliberate voice than
Kirika, with a subtle separation between words. "You have to do the characters
a little different so if you watched Excel Saga and Noir back to back you
couldn't tell they were the same actor."
Pianist-turned-actor
Vic Mignogna likes his work as Gawl in Generator Gawl. "Maybe it was special
to me because it was the first lead I got to do." Mignogna also spoke about
the challenge of his role in Aura Battler Dunbine. "All of the characters
have an accent of one kind and this guy has an Irish-Scottish accent. It's
one challenge to emote a character, but it's an extra challenge to do it
with an accent." Voice acting's main complication is delivering a decent
performance to the limits of the onscreen lip flaps of the animated characters.
Some dub studios cue each actor's line with three beeps, but ADV doesn't.
So when Mignogna took a dubbing role with another studio that uses the three
beeps, "There were 500 times when i was two frames early."
Deb
Rabbai, the improvisational actor who has found a second career as a dubbing
performer, has found that her anime work has prepared her for dialogue replacement
in major movies. One of the film industry's secrets is that scripts sometimes
are changed after principal photography wraps and lines have be replaced,
but the high-priced stars aren't available to revoice their lines. Movie
producers then find other actors to record those lines, and Rabbai has handled
that job in several films. While she doesn't think her voice resembles Laura
Flynn Boyle's voice, Rabbai voiced a line of dialogue for the other actor
in Men in Black II. All of that started when Rabbai was fooling around
at an acting session and a friend said she should audition for an anime dub.
Doug
Smith took up the "how do you become an actor" thread by telling how he started
as an actor. When Smith was a graphic designer at ADV Films, a producer ran
out of voices and asked Smith to fill in. Smith impressed the producers enough
to go from bit parts to a couple of leads, including Kintaro Oe in Golden
Boy. "If you can listen to what the director wants and learn how to express
yourself, you'll go far. You'll hear the same voices over and over again
because the director likes them." The other actors repeated some previously
mentioned truths: the only way to grow as an actor is to keep acting - especially
on stage - and the best way to get dub roles is to live in the areas where
the studios are located. The actors said they knew of at least one person
who moved from California to Houston to get roles in ADV dubs.
When
Monica Rial wasn't taking phone calls from friends or accepting gifts of
art from fans, she was talking about the challenges of voice acting. Rial
was one of four actors who appeared at a panel discussion on the fledgling
convention's first day. Kirika, Rial's Noir character, is "...one of the
most difficult characters because she doesn't talk." The release of ADV Films'
first volume of Noir had some fans questioning her performance, but Rial
said it was all according to plan. "In volume one she's so apprehensive,
but I'm starting her out as apprehensive. As she goes along she's coming
into her own." Hyatt, her Excel character, speaks in a similar range, but
there are differences. Rial performs Hyatt in a more deliberate voice than
Kirika, with a subtle separation between words. "You have to do the characters
a little different so if you watched Excel Saga and Noir back to back you
couldn't tell they were the same actor."
Pianist-turned-actor
Vic Mignogna likes his work as Gawl in Generator Gawl. "Maybe it was special
to me because it was the first lead I got to do." Mignogna also spoke about
the challenge of his role in Aura Battler Dunbine. "All of the characters
have an accent of one kind and this guy has an Irish-Scottish accent. It's
one challenge to emote a character, but it's an extra challenge to do it
with an accent." Voice acting's main complication is delivering a decent
performance to the limits of the onscreen lip flaps of the animated characters.
Some dub studios cue each actor's line with three beeps, but ADV doesn't.
So when Mignogna took a dubbing role with another studio that uses the three
beeps, "There were 500 times when i was two frames early."
Deb
Rabbai, the improvisational actor who has found a second career as a dubbing
performer, has found that her anime work has prepared her for dialogue replacement
in major movies. One of the film industry's secrets is that scripts sometimes
are changed after principal photography wraps and lines have be replaced,
but the high-priced stars aren't available to revoice their lines. Movie
producers then find other actors to record those lines, and Rabbai has handled
that job in several films. While she doesn't think her voice resembles Laura
Flynn Boyle's voice, Rabbai voiced a line of dialogue for the other actor
in Men in Black II. All of that started when Rabbai was fooling around
at an acting session and a friend said she should audition for an anime dub.
Doug
Smith took up the "how do you become an actor" thread by telling how he started
as an actor. When Smith was a graphic designer at ADV Films, a producer ran
out of voices and asked Smith to fill in. Smith impressed the producers enough
to go from bit parts to a couple of leads, including Kintaro Oe in Golden
Boy. "If you can listen to what the director wants and learn how to express
yourself, you'll go far. You'll hear the same voices over and over again
because the director likes them." The other actors repeated some previously
mentioned truths: the only way to grow as an actor is to keep acting - especially
on stage - and the best way to get dub roles is to live in the areas where
the studios are located. The actors said they knew of at least one person
who moved from California to Houston to get roles in ADV dubs.
