This has nothing to do with Arvale. Well, not directly 🙂
You see, I am working on the next Episode of Arvale. However, I am currently not working at a formal job. And… a man has to eat. A man has to pay for other development costs too (like art). In any case, Japan has surprisingly many opportunities for Voice Over/Talent work in English.
Not quite as surprising, I actually have quite a bit of experience doing that very thing over the past few years. I recorded many of the voices for the Virtual Villagers series of games (yes, even the women and babies, don’t laugh), and recorded all of the voices for around 15 games while working for PDAmill, LDW, Trisystech, and others. Not to mention the American English voice for GPS directions on the iGO Navigation software.
So, I spent the last week putting some demo stuff together for some of the agencies here and I thought I might as well share some of the stuff with you here (just click on them to listen):
VO Commercial Demos: A collection of 6 famous Slogans (or Tag lines) from fake Japanese companies. Changing a letter and a word here and there in from the real company names and slogans just for fun (and to be safe).
VO_Announcer Demo: A quick, 15 second clip of the common announcer voice used on many Television and Radio programs, not just in Japan, but pretty much the world over. The idea was taken from the famous SmapXSmap television program here, which usually features lots of famous musical acts and whatnot.
VO_Audiobook Demo: A 1 minute quick reading of a book (extra points if you guess the title). Ironically, when I wanted to do this, I could only find one English book in the house. Some of the timing is a bit iffy on some phrases, but it’s perfectly fine for a demo (I think).
VO_Interview Demo: A short (really short) version of the wonderful interview I did with Al Lowe.
VO_Cartoon Demo: An edited version from one of the cartoon cutscenes from the PDAmill game, Rats!! I recorded it directly from the game, which is on mobile devices, so the quality is a touch lower than I want. Not sure if I’ll use it or not, but there are some cool moments in it. The voice was obviously pitch-shifted, but some of the phrases and inflections are so neat, it doesn’t matter.
Strangely enough, the talent agencies in Japan are also curious if Voice Over people can sing too. I won’t complain. If it can get me some work, why the heck not? So I also put together the following clips of singing work (again, just click on the links to listen):
Pop Vocals Demo: This is still one of my favorite songs.
Ballad Vocals Demo: Japanese musical tastes are no different than most of the developed world. Meaning, they love sappy ballads just as much as you do (even if you won’t admit it).
Kids Vocals Demo: No, not me singing when I was a kid, but for a kids-type program. You know, those silly, nonsensical songs that get stuck in your kids head and then get stuck in your head from them singing it all day. Yeah, that type 🙂
Rock Vocals Demo: A quick verse and chorus of singing in a rock tune.
Kids Vocals Demo 2: I just like this tune and it could really apply to anything, but I think kids would like it the most 😉
In any case, it was fun putting the portfolio together. Now I just have to figure out how to fit them all into one email to the agencies… Or actually burn a CD and use postal mail? Ugh…
Anyway, I hope you enjoy some of it 🙂