BangZoom! Voice Acting Workshop Day 2 - I do not suck.
Sunday, March 25th, was the Intermediate BangZoom! Voice Acting workshop. I had attended the Beginners workshop the previous day and Tony Oliver, the one heading the workshop, gave me quite a few compliments on my voice acting. From the first day, I gathered:
- I project very well, despite the fact that I'm a shy and withdrawn person.
- I have an unusual dialect or way of pronouncing words when speaking regularly...
- ...that seems to go away when I'm voicing characters, so it's all good.
- I have a decent little boy voice after all.
- I have a fantastic voice for younger girls (who didn't already know this?).
- I am honorary official dub Tsukasa!
- I do not suck as much as I think I do. Tony said I was very talented.
There were a few students there who had a lot of acting experience, involved in theater and whatnot, but I'm telling you, he didn't say those kinds of things to them. He gave these compliments to me, someone who's only actual acting experience was being a little girl in a box that was shipped to the North Pole to get Santa Claus to come back to work (6th grade Christmas Play called "Surfin' Santa"). I don't even think I had any lines... Maybe one line, but that's it. He said these things about someone who is kind of too withdrawn to participate in any kind of stage acting or anything. He said this to someone who's only training in this field is sitting in front of the computer for 11 years and watching others and learning from fandub and radioplay critiques.
This has become a major boost in my confidence, because for the week leading up to the workshops, I was nervous as heck. I really, really didn't want to be bad. I was near tears when I learned that the stupid 7 train was out of service and so I was going to wind up late (and slightly lost) because of this. Because I was treating it as serious as a job interview (that's in casual clothes). To me, it was like an extremely important job interview for the greatest job in the entire world, AND HERE I WAS, MAKING A BAD FIRST IMPRESSION BY BEING 5 MINUTES LATE.
I took it very seriously. I did not want to be a no-talented loser. And thankfully, it doesn't look like I was a loser!
Needless to say, I arrived on Sunday for the Intermediate class 15 minutes early now that I knew how to make up for the fact that the 7 train was out of commission for the weekend. It was a class of only 6 this time - 5 people from yesterday and 1 new one. The new girl, I think her name was Rachelle, something similar to that. She apparently won AX Idol last year (the singing division).
Ah, here it is, her YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Rachellular/
So Tony get some more tips and he talked about how it's a good idea to learn different dialects. Gosh, that first exercise was embarrassing and tough for me, lol. We had to practice a New York (the stereotypical Italian mafia dialect from Brooklyn, you know the one) dialect, which... lol, I can't do. And then we had to try a Southern (the stereotypical cowboy Texas dialect, you know the one) dialect, which... lol, I can only a little bit do.
Then, we went on to something that's apparently done with American animation. Tony gave us a script and gave us all parts to play. Then, we all went into the booth that had about 4 microphones set up. And we voice acted it out, live! It was a whole lot of fun and completely different from what I'm used to doing. I loved it, though! I played a talking cat that had about 10 lines (we did 1 scene at a time, but the whole thing put together was like a 5-minute long radioplay), as well as a random evil minion that only had 1 line. Basically, there was a dad with a wife and 3 kids and a talking cat (me). Some aliens or whatever attack, so the dad uses a time machine to send the family somewhere where they can defeat the aliens. But they crash into this evil queen (it was originally a male villain, but there was only 1 guy other than Tony, so Tony made Rachelle the villain and just made the character female)'s fortress or whatever. The family annoys the evil queen and so she tries to command her stupid minions to get them, but the stupid minions are, well, stupid. lol.
As it turns out, another VAA member was among us the whole time! She goes by NicoleM_animefan (or something like that) on the forums. I knew I recognized the name "Nicole M" somewhere, but as it turns out, I recently watched a Zero no Tsukaima fandub in which she voiced Louise. What a coincidence!
Oh, here she is: http://voiceactingalliance.com/board/showthread.php?76097-CLIP-The-Familiar-of-Zero-F-quot-You-Didn-t-Kiss-Me!-quot
So yeah, she played one of the daughters and one of the stupid minions. YOU GUYS, HER STUPID MINION VOICE WAS FABULOUS. LOLOLOL. Tony said it's a male role but he thinks he'll cast a female from now on because that voice was awesome, hahahahahaha.
So yeah, that was fun! We went to lunch, then came back to do some more anime dubbing! There were a lot more choices, it was honestly hard to pick only two. In the end, I picked Akiyama Mio from K-ON! and Asahina Mikuru, from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. The previous day, I went with Tsukasa and Konata, both from Lucky Star, so coincidentally, all 4 of my choices were anime produced by Kyoto Animation. I'm a KyoAni fan, but that was entirely coincidental. I chose Mio (instead of Yui) to voice because Tony said yesterday that he wanted me to try boy voices and more mature voices. Mio has a lower-pitched/more mature voice, so that's why I picked her. Otherwise, I would have gone with Yui. Another one I would have liked to have done was Nia, from Gurren Lagann. But I knew Nicole M really wanted to do Nia, so I didn't want to steal her thunder. So, Mikuru it was! (Which is perfectly fine to me, since I'm good at Mikuru.)
I did Mio first. I don't think I was bad, but I definitely feel I need more practice voicing that type of character. I did alright, though! Tony said it was good I took on the challenge of a different type of character. Of course, I do characters like Mikuru best. Although Nick doesn't think I can do a good Mikuru. ): That's only because he never heard me! (And I went to the dentist yesterday, so I wasn't in the best shape to voice act for him on the spot.)
Oh, I forgot to mention. Before the anime dubbing, we did a little exercise where we had to make up a character, give him/her a name, then go into the booth, "slate" your name and voice act some random lines. We could either write our own lines or steal a couple from a past script Tony gave us. This "slate your name" thing: you go into the booth, say your first and last name, then say who you are recording for. That's all it is.
So my character was this little kid named Jonathon who wanted to be a red-caped superhero when he grew up in order to jump off buildings and not go splat and get all the girls. I did the best boy voice I know how to do, and Tony said try making the voice... "chestier."
There's this thing he talked about earlier. You have to visualize and internal speaker, and if you place the speaker in your forehead, the voice vibrations actually come out from your head. This also makes the character sound younger. Likewise, if you place the speaker in your chest, you're giving it a chest voice and the character sounds more mature or serious. This is an entirely new concept to me, so I do not know what I'm doing, but I did my best to place these imaginary speakers in my chest.
Apparently, this was really good, since Tony said it sounded a lot more like a boy, rather than a girl who's trying to sound like a boy, hahaha. A lot of women do boys by making it sound huskier in their throat or something, but apparently, a chest voice is more authentic. Good to know! (Since I was doing it wrong this whole time! It explains why I only have 2 roles as a boy character all these years!)
After I did my little boy, everyone gave critiques. There was one girl there who has a crapload of stage acting, theater and singing experience and she said that I had an amazing range and that with my regular speaking voice, I speak with a slight lisp. But I'm somehow make this all work for me and nobody can tell these little nuances that exist in my regular speech even exist when I'm in voice acting! mode. Tony said he thinks he knows what she's talking about and agrees - it seems that my regular way of speaking and pronouncing words is unusual, but when I'm actually portraying a character, you can hear none of that.
*shrug* Ooooookay! If you say so! I don't really hear it, but I trust you!
It was another fun day! I wasn't as nervous as I was yesterday. I was literally SHAKING the very first time I was in the booth. Sunday, however, I had a much easier time. Not that I was completely relaxed, but at least I wasn't shaking, lol.
Man, I really give this workshop rave reviews. It was amazing. They plan to hold and advanced workshop sometime in the future and I definitely intend to sign up. My mother doesn't like that I paid $500 to attend, but I think it was so worth it. It was a chance for me to be evaluated by a professional, so if I completely suck, I'm aware. If I'm any good, I'm told so and told how to improve or whether I have the potential to be pro (provided I move to Texas [yuck] or California [aww, man...]). And apparently... I have a bit of talent in me. I definitely have the range. And Tony not once said anything negative about my acting ability. At the end of the workshop, out of the 6 people there, he said that, although he wouldn't tell us who, 2 people are already at the level where they're ready to make professional demos (demos, by the way, cost $1200~$1500, and if you don't get one professionally done and sounds like you did it from your living room, casting directors won't even listen to it). I don't know if I'm one of the two... and I was too shy to ask him, lol... but it gives me a lot more confidence knowing that
I do not suck.
I'm just disappointed that if I wanted to voice act in anime, I would have to move to Los Angeles (because loltexas. sorry for those in Texas! I'd just never want to live there). Y'all know that New York is the greatest state in the entire US of A?! Why would I want to move to a place that's going to crash into Alaska someday?! See? New York is perfect - it's staying put. Plus, it's a predominately blue (Democratic) state! Heck yeah, New York.
Plus... I'd kinda need money. Like, real money. I'm getting a bit of a promotion in May. I'll be moving to the IT department in the hospital and I'll get a salary. Right now, I'm making $15 an hour, and I make about $18k a year. I have about $20,000 to pay back in student loans. I'd really have to save up if I wanted to take an acting class or get a professional demo done. But we'll see how much I'll be making come my new position starting May 1st.
Before I left, Tony told me to keep up the good work. Thank you, that means a whole lot to me.
Back to making dumb voices in front of my computer with a Blue Snowball.
- I project very well, despite the fact that I'm a shy and withdrawn person.
- I have an unusual dialect or way of pronouncing words when speaking regularly...
- ...that seems to go away when I'm voicing characters, so it's all good.
- I have a decent little boy voice after all.
- I have a fantastic voice for younger girls (who didn't already know this?).
- I am honorary official dub Tsukasa!
- I do not suck as much as I think I do. Tony said I was very talented.
There were a few students there who had a lot of acting experience, involved in theater and whatnot, but I'm telling you, he didn't say those kinds of things to them. He gave these compliments to me, someone who's only actual acting experience was being a little girl in a box that was shipped to the North Pole to get Santa Claus to come back to work (6th grade Christmas Play called "Surfin' Santa"). I don't even think I had any lines... Maybe one line, but that's it. He said these things about someone who is kind of too withdrawn to participate in any kind of stage acting or anything. He said this to someone who's only training in this field is sitting in front of the computer for 11 years and watching others and learning from fandub and radioplay critiques.
This has become a major boost in my confidence, because for the week leading up to the workshops, I was nervous as heck. I really, really didn't want to be bad. I was near tears when I learned that the stupid 7 train was out of service and so I was going to wind up late (and slightly lost) because of this. Because I was treating it as serious as a job interview (that's in casual clothes). To me, it was like an extremely important job interview for the greatest job in the entire world, AND HERE I WAS, MAKING A BAD FIRST IMPRESSION BY BEING 5 MINUTES LATE.
I took it very seriously. I did not want to be a no-talented loser. And thankfully, it doesn't look like I was a loser!
Needless to say, I arrived on Sunday for the Intermediate class 15 minutes early now that I knew how to make up for the fact that the 7 train was out of commission for the weekend. It was a class of only 6 this time - 5 people from yesterday and 1 new one. The new girl, I think her name was Rachelle, something similar to that. She apparently won AX Idol last year (the singing division).
Ah, here it is, her YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Rachellular/
So Tony get some more tips and he talked about how it's a good idea to learn different dialects. Gosh, that first exercise was embarrassing and tough for me, lol. We had to practice a New York (the stereotypical Italian mafia dialect from Brooklyn, you know the one) dialect, which... lol, I can't do. And then we had to try a Southern (the stereotypical cowboy Texas dialect, you know the one) dialect, which... lol, I can only a little bit do.
Then, we went on to something that's apparently done with American animation. Tony gave us a script and gave us all parts to play. Then, we all went into the booth that had about 4 microphones set up. And we voice acted it out, live! It was a whole lot of fun and completely different from what I'm used to doing. I loved it, though! I played a talking cat that had about 10 lines (we did 1 scene at a time, but the whole thing put together was like a 5-minute long radioplay), as well as a random evil minion that only had 1 line. Basically, there was a dad with a wife and 3 kids and a talking cat (me). Some aliens or whatever attack, so the dad uses a time machine to send the family somewhere where they can defeat the aliens. But they crash into this evil queen (it was originally a male villain, but there was only 1 guy other than Tony, so Tony made Rachelle the villain and just made the character female)'s fortress or whatever. The family annoys the evil queen and so she tries to command her stupid minions to get them, but the stupid minions are, well, stupid. lol.
As it turns out, another VAA member was among us the whole time! She goes by NicoleM_animefan (or something like that) on the forums. I knew I recognized the name "Nicole M" somewhere, but as it turns out, I recently watched a Zero no Tsukaima fandub in which she voiced Louise. What a coincidence!
Oh, here she is: http://voiceactingalliance.com/board/showthread.php?76097-CLIP-The-Familiar-of-Zero-F-quot-You-Didn-t-Kiss-Me!-quot
So yeah, she played one of the daughters and one of the stupid minions. YOU GUYS, HER STUPID MINION VOICE WAS FABULOUS. LOLOLOL. Tony said it's a male role but he thinks he'll cast a female from now on because that voice was awesome, hahahahahaha.
So yeah, that was fun! We went to lunch, then came back to do some more anime dubbing! There were a lot more choices, it was honestly hard to pick only two. In the end, I picked Akiyama Mio from K-ON! and Asahina Mikuru, from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. The previous day, I went with Tsukasa and Konata, both from Lucky Star, so coincidentally, all 4 of my choices were anime produced by Kyoto Animation. I'm a KyoAni fan, but that was entirely coincidental. I chose Mio (instead of Yui) to voice because Tony said yesterday that he wanted me to try boy voices and more mature voices. Mio has a lower-pitched/more mature voice, so that's why I picked her. Otherwise, I would have gone with Yui. Another one I would have liked to have done was Nia, from Gurren Lagann. But I knew Nicole M really wanted to do Nia, so I didn't want to steal her thunder. So, Mikuru it was! (Which is perfectly fine to me, since I'm good at Mikuru.)
I did Mio first. I don't think I was bad, but I definitely feel I need more practice voicing that type of character. I did alright, though! Tony said it was good I took on the challenge of a different type of character. Of course, I do characters like Mikuru best. Although Nick doesn't think I can do a good Mikuru. ): That's only because he never heard me! (And I went to the dentist yesterday, so I wasn't in the best shape to voice act for him on the spot.)
Oh, I forgot to mention. Before the anime dubbing, we did a little exercise where we had to make up a character, give him/her a name, then go into the booth, "slate" your name and voice act some random lines. We could either write our own lines or steal a couple from a past script Tony gave us. This "slate your name" thing: you go into the booth, say your first and last name, then say who you are recording for. That's all it is.
So my character was this little kid named Jonathon who wanted to be a red-caped superhero when he grew up in order to jump off buildings and not go splat and get all the girls. I did the best boy voice I know how to do, and Tony said try making the voice... "chestier."
There's this thing he talked about earlier. You have to visualize and internal speaker, and if you place the speaker in your forehead, the voice vibrations actually come out from your head. This also makes the character sound younger. Likewise, if you place the speaker in your chest, you're giving it a chest voice and the character sounds more mature or serious. This is an entirely new concept to me, so I do not know what I'm doing, but I did my best to place these imaginary speakers in my chest.
Apparently, this was really good, since Tony said it sounded a lot more like a boy, rather than a girl who's trying to sound like a boy, hahaha. A lot of women do boys by making it sound huskier in their throat or something, but apparently, a chest voice is more authentic. Good to know! (Since I was doing it wrong this whole time! It explains why I only have 2 roles as a boy character all these years!)
After I did my little boy, everyone gave critiques. There was one girl there who has a crapload of stage acting, theater and singing experience and she said that I had an amazing range and that with my regular speaking voice, I speak with a slight lisp. But I'm somehow make this all work for me and nobody can tell these little nuances that exist in my regular speech even exist when I'm in voice acting! mode. Tony said he thinks he knows what she's talking about and agrees - it seems that my regular way of speaking and pronouncing words is unusual, but when I'm actually portraying a character, you can hear none of that.
*shrug* Ooooookay! If you say so! I don't really hear it, but I trust you!
It was another fun day! I wasn't as nervous as I was yesterday. I was literally SHAKING the very first time I was in the booth. Sunday, however, I had a much easier time. Not that I was completely relaxed, but at least I wasn't shaking, lol.
Man, I really give this workshop rave reviews. It was amazing. They plan to hold and advanced workshop sometime in the future and I definitely intend to sign up. My mother doesn't like that I paid $500 to attend, but I think it was so worth it. It was a chance for me to be evaluated by a professional, so if I completely suck, I'm aware. If I'm any good, I'm told so and told how to improve or whether I have the potential to be pro (provided I move to Texas [yuck] or California [aww, man...]). And apparently... I have a bit of talent in me. I definitely have the range. And Tony not once said anything negative about my acting ability. At the end of the workshop, out of the 6 people there, he said that, although he wouldn't tell us who, 2 people are already at the level where they're ready to make professional demos (demos, by the way, cost $1200~$1500, and if you don't get one professionally done and sounds like you did it from your living room, casting directors won't even listen to it). I don't know if I'm one of the two... and I was too shy to ask him, lol... but it gives me a lot more confidence knowing that
I do not suck.
I'm just disappointed that if I wanted to voice act in anime, I would have to move to Los Angeles (because loltexas. sorry for those in Texas! I'd just never want to live there). Y'all know that New York is the greatest state in the entire US of A?! Why would I want to move to a place that's going to crash into Alaska someday?! See? New York is perfect - it's staying put. Plus, it's a predominately blue (Democratic) state! Heck yeah, New York.
Plus... I'd kinda need money. Like, real money. I'm getting a bit of a promotion in May. I'll be moving to the IT department in the hospital and I'll get a salary. Right now, I'm making $15 an hour, and I make about $18k a year. I have about $20,000 to pay back in student loans. I'd really have to save up if I wanted to take an acting class or get a professional demo done. But we'll see how much I'll be making come my new position starting May 1st.
Before I left, Tony told me to keep up the good work. Thank you, that means a whole lot to me.
Back to making dumb voices in front of my computer with a Blue Snowball.