Friday, September 26, 2014

Starting the process-How I got into voice acting

So, not sure how many will read this to start out, but I figured it might not be a bad idea to start posting about my experiences with voice acting, directing, and mixing and editing. But first, a bit about myself.

I am currently a preschool teacher by day, voice actor/director/mixer and writer/artist by night. I started working  in voice acting back in... oh when was it again? 2010? That sounds about right.

What got me into voice acting? Well, a lot of things, honestly. I have a friend who was doing amateur dubbing of little snippets of anime and video game sequences. I also had several friends who were really into anime. These worlds didn't collide until the second group convinced me to go to my first anime convention where Jerry Jewell was the guest of honor.

It was a small convention and I had the opportunity to sit down and just chat with Jerry about life in general. I will admit that, once I found out he voiced one of my favorite anime characters (Kyo Sohma from Fruits Basket), I did do a bit of fan-girling. But it was nice to recognize that he was just an "average Joe" like me, but who had either had a lucky break, friends in just the right places, or had gone out of his way to get into the field. I let this mull over in my head for quite some time. This is actually back in 2008, so I let it mull in my mind for a really long time. It was also during this time that I became friends with my (now former) roommate. She was one of the main reasons I moved to Texas. But more about that later.

Meanwhile, life went on and I was focusing on my artwork, doing pencil portraits for Jerry's band, no less. During this time, my anime friends and I were talking about how some of the anime shows were either just not really true to the source material, or were just incomplete, like my all time fave, Fruits Basket. The anime only goes about a fourth to a third of the way through the story, and isn't exactly very true to the source material. (Anyone who has read the manga will know what I mean, things out of order, and some specific characteristics of some major characters were changed.)

Anyway, while we were discussing this, one of my friends told me about a dream she had where I was doing a radio drama of Fruits Basket, going off of the manga. She also mentioned that I'd done a few other shows (redubbing them, that is) in this dream. Well, the idea stuck to the voice acting information Jerry had given me. And, thanks to my old roommate inviting me out to Texas, I fell in love with state. It was about a year later that I decided to move out there, closer to where all the voice actors are, including FUNimation.

However, I had a bit of a rough start after moving. I didn't know anyone, outside of my roommate and her family. I had to basically start over with everything, including finding a decent job, which I was finally able to do. During all of this, the idea of at least doing Fruits Basket kept creeping into my head. I couldn't keep it away, so I figured I"d do a bit of a test and us a fan fiction I'd written for a different anime as a sort of "crash course" in using the software (Audacity), and in learning how everything works.

Luckily, I'd already purchased some scripting software for a stint as an intern script writer for a small movie company back in my home state of Utah. Putting together a simple script was a piece of cake. And, I admit, I got a bit cocky and decided to just go ahead and start scripting out Fruits Basket, using the fan translation of the manga. I did my own transcribing and everything, thinking that it would be a piece of cake. I quickly found out that was far from the truth, but more on that later.

I decided to ask some friends that I'd met through mutual acquaintances, or that I'd run into and formed a friendship with, if they'd be interested in helping me out. However, after just trying that out, I realized that there would be a lot more to the project at hand, and that I was not satisfied with doing things halfway. I had to do more than just a snippet of the story to feel like I was doing something at all. So, I looked around and discovered the Voice Actors Alliance website and posted auditions. Again, I got cocky and posted auditions for Fruits Basket as well, with only a handful of scripts ready for the 136 chapter saga. I have since learned that was probably not the best idea.

And, to let you all sit in suspense, I shall continue with more later. My other projects are calling. That and I have a birthday to celebrate.

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