Amateur voice acting
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Amateur voice acting is a hobby that draws upon the rich traditions of voiceovers in radio dramas (such as the works of Mercury Theatre) and animation (such as the works of Warner Brothers or Disney). Presumably, most amateur voice actors (or AVAs) practice their craft in order to become professional voice artists, although this is only a rule-of-thumb, not a given fact. In its more recent history, readily available multimedia creative suites and the Internet have facilitated in the creation and distribution of productions featuring amateur voice acting. This relative ease in production has also created a surge in its popularity as a hobby.
There are many examples of amateur voice acting in practice on the internet. Radio plays (or Audio Dramas) are a prime, age-old example, where stories, settings and characters are portrayed entirely via aural-only methods. There are also fandubs, where the original soundtrack of an existing media is replaced via a process similar to Additional Dialogue Recording (or ADR). Amateur voice acting has also been utilised in other media, such as home-made computer and video games, flash animations, commercials and other areas where voiceover work is required in a non-professional capacity.
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[edit] Basics of Amateur Voice Acting
[edit] Radio Plays/Audio Dramas
Radio plays are audio-only productions that set out to show that reliance on visual imagery is often unnecessary. These productions require a little extra work by the producer to ensure that the story is properly conveyed without confusing the audience. Without the benefit of visuals, the producer must creatively think of ways to properly convey the scene, mood and atmosphere of his or her story.
Of key importance in this process is the use of ambiance. Ambiance is the presence of just enough sound effects to accurately suggest the action without becoming slaves to pure realism. It is the use of music to affect the given mood of a listener. It is the interplay of voices to convey character and push the narrative forward. Producers of these audio dramas often take their cues from influential works of the past, such as The Shadow or War of the Worlds (radio). The delicate balance and mix of sound effects, music and voices can make or break the quality of the production: rendering it either a believable soundscape or a laughably fake setpiece.
Radio plays/Audio dramas also require a fair bit of attention to detail as well as time to mix. There is a great deal of fine-tuning that must be done to ensure a proper final product. Often, balancing the volume levels between sound effects and music can take longer than the actual recording of the lines themselves. The advent of multitrack mixing, however, has provided greater freedom to make changes "on the fly" and eased the effort of mixing.
[edit] Fandubs
Fandubs (not to be confused with fansubs) are copies of a foreign movie or television show (often anime) whose original soundtrack has been dubbed over by amateur voice actors. Fandubs are vastly more difficult to create than fansubs, due to the amount of technical detail required to recreate the audio portion of a given show and render it in a completely different language. In addition to translation and timecoding, fandubbers must also consider the voice talent they have cast and the work necessary to include it in the production. Other issues that must be accounted for include: matching lip movement (or lip sync), background music, sound effects and sound mixing.
Copyright implications for fandubs are very similar to fansubs except the difference of scale (see Fansub for a detailed explanation of the legal and ethical issues with this type of distribution). Some disagree with this and say that fandubs are not to be made or distributed. In fact, some BitTorrent providers do not even allow fandubs to be put on their sites, examples being Animesuki and Scarywater.
[edit] Current Equipment Used
Fandubs and radioplays do not require state-of-the-art technology to produce. A simple, inexpensive vocal microphone and a computer with some type of recording software are all that is actually required. The quality of work that one outputs can be dramatically increased by using a high-quality microphone, adding a mixer board and purchasing some professional software, but these are not essential for functionality.
In the beginning, Windows Sound Recorder was the default recording program and most widely used for amateur voice acting. Since then however, programs such as Goldwave, Audacity, and Cool Edit have come into popular usage. Goldwave and Cool Edit (now known as Adobe Audition), are both pay-per-license software, much like any other that would be sold over the counter. Audacity, however, is released under the GNU General Public License, and is free for use. It includes many of the features of Cool Edit/Adobe Audition that are the most commonly used in amateur voice acting and in the mixing of radioplays, such as noise reduction and multitrack mixing.
Fandubs require a quality video editing software, which is often expensive for a package that includes all the necessary features. A more cost-effective solution, VirtualDub, is available and in wide use in the AVA community. VirtualDub, like Audacity, is released under the GNU General Public License and is open-source software.
[edit] History
[edit] The Rise of Popularity on the Internet
The amateur voice acting boom on the internet had its roots in 1996. It all began with the completion of Mark Sprague's Sailor Moon S fandub, which was greeted with a fairly mixed response from the Sailor Moon Newsgroup. Overall however, it was fairly well received and influential: gaining a lot of attention from Sailor Moon fans and prompting many others to produce fandubs of their own. However, due to poor available equipment and modem bandwidth limitations, many fandubs rarely made it past the audition phase.
Inspired by the idea of anime audio drama CDs, the concept of "the radio play" was introduced to the community. The radio play format solved many technical issues budding amateur producers and voice actors had. With basic equipment and a nice story or script, they could now create their own "series" without the time consuming task of animating frame-by-frame.
Many of these fans flocked to the Anime Web Turnpike, which eventually formed a Fandub/Radio Play category.
[edit] The Voice Acting Resource Center
Amateur voice actors (AVAs) Michiru and Laura Vasillion formed the Voice Acting Resource Center (VARC) as a common gathering place for fans looking to break into the AVA scene. The VARC was an excellent information resource from its origins on XOOM in 1998, until its final days on Redrival in 2001 when schedule conflicts prevented Laura and Michiru from updating and moderating the site on a regular basis.
The VARC contained a constantly updated listing of radio plays and voice overs, as well as tips, tricks, rants, and even the foundations of VA etiquette.
[edit] Silent Dreams (SDUBB) and FLAVA
During the last few months of the VARC, another board with similar interests called AVA no Yume (English Translation: AVA's Dream) came about. This caused some quarrels, but was never intended to divide the AVAs. AVA no Yume did not last, and eventually shut down and/or became the Silent Dreams UBB (SDUBB)
SDUBB was hosted on aitenshi.nu -- a collective site owned by established AVAs Tom Galang, Erin, Marcy Amel, and Mandy Clark. With a majority of SDUBB members already involved in the AVA community, a category was set up devoted just to AVAing (project advertising, auditions, etc.) -- however, the SDUBB was never intended to be a replacement for the VARC.
A second community/AVA web clique was later formed known as Fine Lookin' Amateur Voice Actors (FLAVA) on the website http://www.filette.net. Later, this site became a fully fledged community and eventually moved to the website: http://www.laflava.com. FLAVA was run by Christine Lee, an AVA from Canada. FLAVA primarily revolved around voice acting and provided a safe haven for the timid to interact with other AVAs and break into the AVA community.
[edit] Popularity loss of SDUBB and FLAVA
Around 2001 things seemed to change rapidly as the old guard of voice actors seemed to take a step back en masse. Aside from Tom Galang, the owners of SDUBB all decided to retire from the community. SDUBB attempted to reinvent itself a number of times under Tom's watchful eye as the VAMB and under other aliases, but it didn't stick. Eventually, aitenshi.nu died as did the SDUBB.
Meanwhile, FLAVA was seemingly flourishing. The active member count was at an all time high, and productions were being completed left and right. However, Christine Lee had also stepped mostly away from the AVA community, and soon, FLAVA suffered from a nearly life-ending server crash in 2002. Over the next few months, members such as Matt Cruea and Sapphira would attempt a revival, but that wouldn't come for some time later.
[edit] Rise of the Voice Acting Alliance
As FLAVA and SDUBB fell, the Voice Acting Alliance (VAA) rose. With the mass influx of members from the two newly dead forums, the VAA, which had been a smaller forum with few devotees, became larger and more powerful than it ever had been before. Moderators were needed, as well as a new administrator. Saphire Blue (TamTu Bui), a FLAVA mainstay, became an admin, bringing along other FLAVA members such as Tropicana Raurenu and Matt Cruea to serve as moderators. After moving to a new domain at voiceacting.co.uk, the VAA became above and beyond the number one amateur voice acting community on the web.
[edit] The AVA Community Today
Eventually, Sapphira succeeded in resurrecting FLAVA with the help of Christine Lee. It is now located at voiceacting.org. The new FLAVA (now known as VA.org) exhibits less activity in comparison to its past iterations, with most of its traffic having been diverted to the VAA. This, coupled with the fact that most FLAVA members are also VAA members and the multitude of crossposts from one forum to the other, has caused some to declare the formerly burgeoning community to be slightly redundant.
After a recent move to voiceactingalliance.com, the VAA is working on a website to accompany the board and maintains its status as a major AVA resource. Attempts have been made to foster a greater sense of community through staff reviews of various productions, as well as regular events such as the VAA-Jam!, wherein participants are given a challenge (usually voice acting-related) to be completed within a set time period. Whether or not these attempts have borne fruit is up for debate.
A recently formed community (December 2004) is the Voice Acting Club (otherwise known as the Newgrounds Voice Acting Club) established by KagomeHigurashi (currently known as Rina-chan on the VAC). Beginning life as a single thread on the Newgrounds forums, it expanded and spun off into a forum in its own right: becoming a popular site for flash artists searching for voiceover talents unaware of talent pools outside of the VAC.
Quite a few amateur voice actors have gone on to do professional work, and the opposite is also true as a few professional voice actors have found time to visit the communities. To name a few: Jennifer Alyx (Princess Tutu), Michelle Ann (Negavision), Lila Atherley (InuYasha), Mandy Clark (Azumanga Daioh), Cody Coleman (Bets-Off), Kara Dennison (Papillon Rose), Lucien Dodge ([Pokemon]), Kyle Hebert (Dragon Ball Z), Diana Kou (I'm Gonna Be An Angel!), M. Christian Heywood (Grossology), Casey Mongillo (Brigade E5), Jenna Sharpe (Aquaria), Cristina Valenzuela (Broccolli DUP USA, BangZoom), Maria Vu (Kodocha), Laura Post (commercial VA) and Greg Houser (commercial VA).
[edit] See also
