|
|
|
Otakon |
| Dub Voice Actors
|
| 2004 |
|
 Here's
your starting lineup for Otakon's dub voice acting panel on the
convention's opening night, an event so popular that the (relatively
small) room holding event was overstuffed and the convention staff had
to turn people away. Richard Epcar, director and actor whose experience
goes back to the original Robotech dub, is on the left. Next to him are
three of the mainstays of ADV Films, Chris Patton, Luci Christian and
Monica Rial. On the right is Chris Sabat, who has spent recent years
screaming the lines of Vegeta and several other Dragon Ball characters
for Funimation. When the actors were asked how they create a character
voice, they said that the key is to look at the character design and
use that as a guide to how the character should sound. Some of the
actors said they're not sure how they make up a voice, that it just
seems to come out of nowhere.
|
 Epcar
is going to get attention in the coming months as the voice of Bateau
in the dub release of the Ghost in the Shell TV series. "He's got a
warm, sensitive side and he doesn't take crap a lot," he said. "I have
several characters that I really love a lot - I play a lot of heroes
and a lot of villains." Beyond acting technique, the fans who crowded
the room wanted to know how to get started as an anime voice actor. As
always, the advice was to learn how to act outside the booth, in stage
plays. Epcar started in theater at the University of Arizona, toured in
Equity shows, and then began an on-camera and off-camera career in Los
Angeles that included on camera acting and voice work, writing and
directing (which included the original animation "The Pearl," where he
was the voice director for the major star talent. and it all started
with the original Robotech dub, done in the days of slicing tape and
film to edit scenes and dialogue. "We didn't have the (cueing) beeps,
we didn't have Pro Tools (audio editing computer program), we had to go
off the (TV frame) time code and grab it. It was basically like combat
dubbing...when we did Robotech, we did it at 2 o'clock in the morning.
Actors would be sleeping in the halls and the stairs." Epcar also plays
the
drums, and he noted that dub acting is as much rhythm as emotions,
since an actor has to match an on-screen character's lip flaps.
|
 Patton
has been acting in the theater since he was nine years old, and has
been in an endless run of musical theater, Equity shows and regional
theater in the Houston area. He was turned to voice acting through a
friend who convinced him to audition at ADV, and that led to roles such
as the physically demanding Yu Omminae in Spriggan. Patton's favorite
roles are Sasami in New Snow White Legend Pretear - "It's the first
show in a while where we get to dig deep" - and the infamous Ki from
episode 21 of Excel Saga.
From theater, Patton is used to memorizing his lines (and other actors'
dialogue in order to pick up his cues). In anime dubbing at ADV and
other studios, the actors learn only what they're going to record at
each session. "In anime you get surprised in every session. Doing
RahXephon, Matt (Greenfield, ADV director) kept us in the dark
constantly. He told us lies and he pitted our characters against each
other."
|
 Christian
may have had the earliest theatrical start of the panel members, being
introduced to the stage by her mother when she was three years old. "So
i was doomed from the start," she joked. Christian has bachelors and
masters degrees in theater, but that didn't help her at first when she
auditioned as ADV. "It's a different skill set that I didn't know how
to do," she admitted. "When I first auditioned, I thought I sucked I
didn't hit flaps, I didn't know what to do." Christian learned fast,
though, and has earned several lead roles in ADV dubs, ranging from
Mezzo to D.N. Angel and Panyo Panyo Di Gi Charat. "My favorite is Ran
in Super Gals - she's my alter ego I just love her. It's like
therapy without paying. Sasashi in Abenobashi was fun, a male
role There's no spin put on that voice, that's me." Christian is
one of the actors who can say they've had a conversation with
themselves in an anime dub. "I was cast in Kalideo Star and we thought
that the roles were never going to meet, but there are four times in
the show that Kate and Sarah meet - and it's not when they're in a
crowded room, they're the only persons there." On making her voices
sound different in those scenes, Christian said "I think that a big
part of it for me is speaking patterns. Everyone has a distinctive
voice pattern, and you can fool around with pitch in a specific range,
but the voice pattern makes a difference."
|
 Rial
began as a dancer, and still dances and sings in Houston-area theater,
but she's blossomed into one of the top dubbers in Texas, with major
roles at both ADV and Funimation. Despite Hyatt in Excel Saga, Kirika
in Noir and Lumiere in Kiddy Grade, Rial's favorite role remains Izumi
in Princess Nine. "She was a real person. A lot of times in anime, we
end up playing characters that are superficial, that rarely have any
depth to them. She was a real person. I am really blessed at both
studios that I get cast as all the cool chicks." "Timing is everything,
because Rial hit the business just as the number of roles was growing
and before the even larger growth in competition for dub roles. "Now
its like all this; suddenly the waiting list at ADV is three years long
because the popularity has grown so much."
|
 Few
anime dubs have been as popular as the Dragon Ball series, and Chris
Sabat has been in the middle of Funimation's dubs since they were moved
from Vancouver to Fort Worth. "I had some theater training, but I was a
radio guy," Sabat said. For the would-be actors in the audience, Sabat
recommended that they become comfortable with the sounds of their own
voices, something that isn't as obvious as it seems. A person's voice
sounds different inside their head than it does to others, and an actor
or voice worker has to become intimately familiar with their voice's
capabilities. "Record yourself and get used to your voice. It's a clear
sign of an amateur when you say `My voice sounds weird." Another point
from Sabat: all of that Dragon Ball fight screaming is real screaming,
so much that you can damage your voice and wear yourself out if you
don't know how to handle the stress. "There are favorite voices and
there are painful voices, but there has never been as painful a five
years in my life as voicing Vegeta in Dragon Ball Z - he won't stop
yelling!"
|
|
