Guest Panels often have a Questions and Answers time, in which fans take a moment to ask convention Guests an assortment of questions. At many panels, the same questions come up, again and again. Some questiosn vary with the Guest, such as 'Who is your favorate anime charecter?' However, some answers don't change, and the question can get very dull for those who have heard it all before. Here's a few questions that most attendees have already heard.
How can I become a Voice Actor?
Act. Voice acting is still acting, and one of the best ways to learn to act is to practice. Join a play, help a theater, take some drama classes. Host a local event as an MC, talk to your local radio stations and TV stations. Make your own stuff online.
But if you're specifically interested in anime, you'll likely need to move to Texas or California. A lot of things can be done over the internet these days, but studio time still means time in the studio, and the studios are in Texas and California.
What's it like to be a Voice Actor?
It's a job. Sometimes it's a very scary job, and otehr times is a very awesome job. Usually, a job starts by going in and trying for a part. We may know something about the job, or have no clue what the show will be about. We might try for a specific part, or a general audition. We might get a different part than the one we tried for. We come in, read some lines for the director, and go home. A few days or weeks later, we might get a call saying we got a part. Or we might never heard back at all.
A job might be a long term role that we go back and read to for months, or it might be a one day thing that only lasts a few hours.
We might have to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement, meaning we can't talk about what we read, what we saw, what's comming or, how it looked, or anything like that.
During a job, we head into the studio, and to the recording booth, which is a small box with a microphone. Often it's just three people, the Actor, the Director, and a tech. The Director tells us what to do, we read the lines, and the tech records it. Sometimes we have a screen to watch the lip flaps, sometimes we get to hear the japaneese version, sometimes we get to hear the lines of the person we're reacting to. And sometimes it's just lines on a sheet of paper. We might never see other members of the cast, or they might be there in the booth as well. It varies from job to job.
When the job is over, we get paid, go home, and are basically unemployeed until we find a new job.
Your Charecter (insert name here) should have...
Stop. I'm an actor. I come in, I read my lines, I go home. That's it. I don't make decisions on the charecters actions, or how the plot runs. I don't have that level of authority. Most often I read the lines how I'm told, with whatever emotion or lack of it the director tells me to. Sometimes I can make minor suggestions, but they're only suggestions. I may agree with you that a charecter should have done something different, but it's not my call.
Also, I'm just the voice. I know What's on the script, and no more. I don't know for sure what the charecter thinks about soemthing, or how they're react in a certain situation, or what the seceret mojo is any more than you do. Unless it was part of the script that isn't out yet, in which case I'm likely under an NDA and can't talk about it.