24
77 Star’s Seiyuus
Curious about what goes on in a voice acting class, I had the opportunity to observe a class in session yesterday afternoon.
77 Star Voice Actor Course – Saturday Class
And the voice acting class is anything but quiet. While waiting in another room for the students to arrive, I didn’t have to see them to know they’re already present: you can hear their banter from a mile away.
77 Star’s Voice Actor Course has four classes per week. Compared to the weekday classes, the Saturday class is younger and is a really hyper bunch – full of energy and passion. Within the first quarter of the hour, you’d be infected by their camaraderie and their enthusiasm. Laughter and lively banter is the order in the classroom, yet the students also give their due attention when the teacher is speaking.
Voice Actors and Actresses in Making
Compared to the weekday classes, the students in the Saturday class are younger, between 15 to 25 years of age. Some of them are still in school while the rest are already working adults. Of course, all share a common interest in anime and otaku-culture. If you’ve been around the scene, you may recognise some of the faces.
Mr. Keith Chun (曾华杰), a singing instructor by profession, is the resident instructor of the voice actor course. He was the person who coached Chen Weilian (陈伟联 aka Kelvin Tan), the winner of Project Superstar. Don’t be fooled by his seniority, he has a youthful heart and is very much in tune with contemporary popular culture. He even knows songs from Red Hot Chilli Pepper (’Californication’). [Additional interview at
Mr Keith Chun
As this is a foundation level class, the modules taught in this part of the course are fundamental to voice training – whether is it for speech or singing. The instruction is methodical, with a good balance of theory and practical. Students have to understand the principles behind human speech, and how our voice work.
Interactivity
There is a plenty of interaction between the teacher and the students. Unlike the typical Singaporean classroom, with passive students who don’t speak unless they asked to – this class is nothing like that. The students are eager to teach and the teacher delivered his knowledge like a fatherly mentor, and with humour. The conversation between the students and instructor is spontaneous, and there is an active exchange of ideas. It helps that there are a number of ‘mood makers’ in the class that catalysed the lively dynamism – a good balance of extroverted and introverted personalities.
The lesson for that day is on ‘Diction’
On Diction
Since the course is conducted in English, Keith expounded on the theory of the spoken English (yes, British English and not American English), going through syllabus such as dipthongs and tripthongs. Even if you don’t intend to become a voice actor at the end of the course, the skills that you acquire is enriching – you’re likely to improve on your spoken language and presentation techniques – a skill that can set you apart from the rest at the workplace.
Notes and Homework
Students are provided with study notes as well as homework – so that they can exercise and internalise what they learned. For this week’s assignment, they’re to prepare a narration for:
(1) Eulogy
(2) Selling a holiday destination
(3) Boxing Match
(4) Election Speech
Many of the students in this class learnt about the voice actor course from 77 Star’s publicity at EOY 2007 as well as the doujinshi fair KALEIDOSCOPE. Some of them knew about it from word-of-mouth. There’s a good multi-ethnic mix among the students of the Saturday class, and this cultural diversity surely enriches the pool of voice acting talents. The intake is rather competitive and there’s still people on the waiting list to join the next intake. According to Mr. Sunami, the administrator of the course, there are only 8 vacancies left for the March intake.
The Life of Bryan
Bryan is one of the live wire in class. He’s doing his ‘O’ Levels this year. In school, he’s with the drama club and has an interest in acting. He would love to voice characters in a comedy anime, preferably someone with a lower voice range. If there’s a character he’d voice, that would be Nagisa’s father in CLANNAD.
Khairun “Froggie” Nisah
The effervescent Khairun “Froggie” Nisah is a final year student pursuing a diploma in moving images at Temasek Polytechnic. With her sweet, moélicious voicals, she hopes to voice the hyperactive kind of characters such as Keroro or the ’sweet’ ones like Sakura from Naruto.
You might have seen them around before – Aidil and Nadiah.
Nadiah and Aidil
Aidil is working in the IT line, while Nadiah is a teacher. The vivacious lady would love to voice Tomoyo from Cardcaptor Sakura or Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh.
Melisa “Umeda Minako”
A graphic designer by profession, Melisa “Umeda Minako” is also a member of the local doujin circle “Comix Pandora“. She speaks fluent Japanese and is the ’spokesperson’ for the protocol droid acting on behalf of Mr Shinya Enomoto, the head of 77 Star. She converses with him in Japanese, and will convey his thoughts in English to the rest of the class. She would grab the chance to voice Edward Elric from Full Metal Alchemist.
Saturday’s Talents (yes, those are moé snacks from Akihabara)
It’s inspirational to see these promising youth of Singapore, taking the step forward to turn their dreams into reality. There’s still some way to go before their final qualification as professional voice actors (Seiyuu/声優). But along the way, with their wealth of talents, there’s so much fun and exciting projects that they can do on their own. They can produce their own doujin radio drama or audio CD, that comes with illustrated visuals – even with an accompanying manga. One of the things that I’d do, is to make a drama CD prequel to the animated feature that 77 Star intends to produce. Or to adapt (update?) some of the local writings – such as Adrian Tan’s Teenage Textbook from pre-mobile phone, pre-Internet age into the contemporary Web 2.0 context (manga/anime love-comedy style). The future is bright for these pioneers, as long as they know how to keep the torch burning.
[Additional Words: LianYL from RIUVA. Additional Photography: Windbell]
