Chapter 167: Voice Acting Applications
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
Forgetfully, he played around with it for an entire morning. During the process of dubbing, Meng Fan also tried to control the appeal of his voice the same way he controlled his smile appeal in addition to controlling his sound. Simply put, it was how much emotion he was putting in. To put it in a more complicated manner, he was controlling the density of energy that was being put in.
Meng Fan’s original voice was average. The increased singing skill brought a wider vocal range, better tone, and sound quality in his voice. Even if he wasn’t completely stage-ready, his voice was very charming. If he spoke seriously, his emotions could be felt heartily. Meng Fan felt he could talk to Wu Tong in this voice, but it was a bit inappropriate to speak like so to anyone.
The thought of talking that way to Wu Tong made Meng Fan’s body tremble with silly laughter.
Including the time he spent yesterday, he had been practicing for a total of seven or eight hours. He was quite familiar with it, so he decided to carefully select a clip to dub and use it as his “resume”.
With his dubbing abilities, Meng Fan wanted to try actual voice acting and use his voice to shape a character in the process as well.
In this regard, Meng Fan had resources and connections. Meng Cai Wei aside, he made friends with a group of people through dubbing who had the same interest; there were several people in one group alone.
It wasn’t just voice dub enthusiasts in this group either since some were actual pract.i.tioners too, including voice actors, dubbing guides, vocal directors, and so on.
Of course, most of these pract.i.tioners worked through the internet or online dubbing, and they mostly partic.i.p.ated in network dramas or online TV series. Most of them didn’t have professional backgrounds and were all enthusiasts like Meng Fan who didn’t have the proper education.
This was the largest group of dubbers in the industry as well.
Speaking of enthusiasm, making money had nothing to do with this group. It wasn’t that they had enough and didn’t care, but it was because they really couldn’t make money in this industry.
If they wanted to make money, they had to convert to the business sector which was basically commercial dubbing.
Simply put, dubbing in the business sector was essentially just famous people dubbing. These were the top pract.i.tioners in the dubbing industry and were very rare.
Not including the internet, nowadays as Chinese TV series come and go, it was basically the same four people in a relations.h.i.+p back and forth.
It was excessive, but this was a fact.
These four voice actors were not only incredible and trusted by the crew, but they also reflected the scarcity of Chinese voice actors.
The main reason for this scarcity, of course, was undoubtedly the low pay.
Several hobbyists had entered the profession based on their enthusiasm, but they quit after two or three years because they got jobs that actually filled their stomachs. There weren’t many people at the base of the pyramid, so there was less who emerge on top. Because of this, there weren’t many crews and production companies that specialized in this industry, so they could only give little pay. The less these films pay, the fewer people enter the industry.
This negative cycle had been going on for years.
But recently, with the booming development of the entire otaku industry, there was a bigger demand for dubbing for both animes and video games. This enabled more network partners and even businesses to have more choices and a larger development platform. At the same time, it further highlighted the value of voice actors, allowing the entire industry to move in a straight path.
For example, in the past, animes were usually introduced directly from j.a.pan and America. There weren’t many that were aired on TV, so there were no Chinese dubs for them. The rest were screened online with the original soundtrack. There were some famous shows that were dubbed in Chinese, but those were all done by hobbyists free of charge.
Nowadays, the annual output of domestic animations was pretty high. As long as it was an animation, it would need voice actors. Since there was a demand, the salary naturally became high as well.
Being able to make money from a profession that a person loved was the cornerstone of development for every industry.
Besides, to solve the problem of low income for voice actors, “Bian Zhang Qiao and Ji” and other famous voice actors began their own forms of experimentation, such as setting up a voice acting studio or becoming a voice director for a film crew and starting a related platform that offered teaching inst.i.tutions and platforms to interested students.
It might sound like a stretch, but in j.a.pan, the most developed land of anime, the voice acting culture was already very mature. They had evolved from basic sound-shaping characters into the seiyuu era. The seiyuu not only act as voices for animations but also work from behind the scenes all the way to the big screens, working on alb.u.ms, photoshoots, posters, TV programs and even hosting concerts.
In addition to his idol Shan Jin bro, Meng Fan’s idols consisted mostly of these famous CVs!
Before his reincarnation, he had flown from Singapore to j.a.pan just to see a CV’s concert!
Having said that, Meng Fan had gone to vocal training with the help of Meng Cai Wei, so the teacher had been pretty great. The group formed by this teacher was also pretty impressive, and most of the voice actors in it were capable of professional dubbing. They also had some guiding and directing jobs on hand as well.
Of course, it was because the teacher knew Meng Fan was introduced by Meng Cai Wei, so he didn’t kick Meng Fan, who had no qualifications and previous works, out from his group in recent years. He was hidden deep in this powerful chatroom of many connections.
Meng Fan went around to send his voice-over clip to a few dubbing directors and then waited for the result. Although it was possible to find a dubbing job through Meng Cai Wei, he was not in a rush. He became anxious when he thought about it though. Besides, since his vocal abilities have changed so much, he could say he had been practicing hard and Meng Cai Wei would still ask around.
After sending out the clips, Meng Fan went to school to eat with Wu Tong. They had cla.s.ses in the afternoon, and he had no plans of skipping.
He didn’t physically skip, but Meng Fan was focused on drawing his manga during the entire lecture. Qin Jiao, who had been lecturing on the podium, did not even look at him or say anything to him. However, she did call him over after cla.s.s.
“The money you transferred last time has been donated under your name. Here’s the receipt.” Qin Jiao handed a certificate to Meng Fan, gesturing for him to leave now. “Are you busy this afternoon?”
“Busy with what?” Meng Fan asked.
“Did you know that your sister told everyone that I started a studio in order to find you work?” Qin Jiao asked. Seeing Meng Fan nod, she continued, “So I established one.”
“You… made one?” Meng Fan was stunned this time. “Isn’t this a bit much?”
“It’s alright.” Qin Jiao walked onto the road and took out her car keys, pus.h.i.+ng the b.u.t.ton. “Let’s go. I’ll take you around the studio. We can sign the contract on the way, too.”
“Why am I signing a contract all of a sudden? What does this have to do with me?”
“What do you mean ‘what does this have to do with you’? The studio was made because you wanted to find poster drawing work, right?”
“…”
“Come up quick, or else I’ll tell Wu Tong who your mom is.”
Meng Fan heard this and wanted to say she already knew, but on second thought, he swallowed his words and compliantly stepped into the car.
Of course, he trusted Qin Jiao enough to know she wouldn’t force him to sign an unfair agreement. Plus, he really wanted to see the studio.