Voiceis the reflection of a person’s nature. It is the vehicle by which one’s age, personality, and relationshipswith others are conveyed. The job of avoice-actor is to bring to life various film characters merely with his voice. Without the supports of actions, a voice-actormust condense into the voices he produces emotions which normal actors tend toconvey with physical mannerisms. Such isthe challenge of being a voice-actor. Cheng-changYu has been a voice-actor for twenty years. It is a job closely related to his family, since both his father andbrother are voice-actors. Upon enteringthis job, he found it intriguing, since here he was offered many chances toexplore a myriad of voices by which he can make understood the emotions hewould like to express. He grew dedicatedto the job as he perceived the expectations of his audience. Yu soon felt that it was his mission to createhappiness and new sensations by means of his voice characterizations, and thatthis was possible only when the roles he interpreted were brought before his audiencelike real people. To make them real, Yu becomesone with them, and he tries to experience the same emotions they have. He is able to achieve this with the supportof his life experiences as well as what he observes around him. Yu remarked that his life experiences help him to enter the emotional state of the characters he interprets as well as the roles they play. Take Gian, a local bully in Doraemon, for example. The character harked back to the bullies he met in his elementary school years, who took advantage of the weak but became servile before the strong. These memories helped him to envision Gian’s state of mind during each scene of the film. And thanks to the impression these bullies had on him, Yu also added something new to the character. He added a sense of clumsiness not included in the Japanese original so that he could emphasize Gian’s cowardice as well as his oppressive attitude. With such a contrast the character became all the more entertaining. Xiaobao Wei in The Deer and the Cauldron is another representative character. Xiaobao is generally playful but privately he has his own thoughts about the world. Yu remarked that his own humorous nature enabled him to represent Xiaobao’s playfulness. Yet this humor was counterbalanced by a seriousness that did not make his characterization too cartoon-like, giving the character a private thoughtfulness and a similar kind of contrast we find in Gian. Yu stressed that it is the character’s oscillation between tightness and looseness that makes him so impressive; otherwise he would seem nothing more than a fool. Nevertheless, a voice-actor cannot experience everything. He must make constant observations of other people to compensate for what he has not yet experienced. Yu said that he has nurtured a habit of observing people in his day-to-day life. He further remarked that as he observes people closely, he will think through what he is observing and certain feelings will arise in him. It is these feelings that make the scenes he observes part of himself. They become assets he can use to widen his imagination, making it possible for him to identify with his characters and to make his characterizations true to life. While all of these things add color to his interpretations, different aspects of each character can also inspire him. Yu mentioned that by becoming absorbed in the character he is interpreting he can experience different ways of expressing emotions such as pleasure and sorrow, as well as varying intonation in order to represent different moods. Yu remarked that the knowledge he acquires from these experiences can affect his own life as well as open up diverse interpretive styles by which he can make his characterizations even more vivid. Yu remarked that, for him, life is like a play. It consists of impressions made upon him by people of different backgrounds. To do voice-acting is to bring these experiences and other observations to the voices that he portrays on film. At the same time, the characters he interprets will also add new things to the play going on in his real life. This process is, in short, a continuous push and pull between art and life. As the two push and pull with each other, inspirations are sparked, which, if nothing else, can make life more abundant. His characters breathe with life, and their vividness and diversity will always touch our hearts. - by Stuart Pei-hua Chuang a
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May 2024
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