Enter the garden and sit on a stone bench why don't you? Here's where you can relax and enjoy an interview from the summer of '98 at Anime North with John Demita, a professional voice actor as he shares his opinions and generously provides interesting information and insights about the world of voice acting in general. Yes, we sat behind the table and had countless pictures taken while we were interviewing Mr. Demita, even though I (Lina) was feeling sick from the Toronto tap water, we enjoyed the task we set out to do in the name of our anime club's fanzine!
 

Rei and Lina:   To start off, we wanted to know how dubbing differs from normal North American voice acting?

Demita-san: Well, it's nothing to do with where it is, dubbing is different because the performance already exists visually and you have to comply with what the artist has chosen to do. When you're the original voice in a series, the artist draws for you because your voice is recorded first. When you dub, of course, you are the second consideration, so you have to pay attention to what the artist wants primarily- and sometimes you need to pay attention to what the original voice actor in Japanese wants- and you can hear it while you're recording the American voice.

Rei and Lina: That's good! That answers one of our questions.

Demita-san: And they do ask you to do that, they give you copies of all the films in Japanese first, so you have a reference. I'm sure you're aware that Japanese performers have a completely different tradition and a lot of times their work is much more melodramatic. That's why American performers are occasionally accused of being a little over the top when they dub these films- is because we're trying to do it in the spirit of the Japanese performance which is very dramatic and extreme, I think their voices are extremely musical, very big, loud.

Rei and Lina: We've been told that the overall environment of a dubbing studio is strange- where you record your lines alone... is that where the mic is? That's always helpful! *mumble mumble* Sometimes you'll see those clips of say, Walt Disney actors dubbing in the studio.

Demita-san: Well, when you see clips of a Disney actor doing a dub, you are seeing him actually at work, but it's also in the environment where he knows that they're video taping his work and they're trying to do it for publicity purposes. You're not necessarily seeing the most accurate representation of what actually occurs and also, the difference is, of course, in the Disney films, with the exception of Kiki, they are the original voices. So, when you see the film (for example, Mulan) the voices were recorded over two years ago. It takes that long to animate the cartoon, like I said before, they're the first voices to work, and the artist then uses their voices as a guide. So they are much more free in what they're allowed to do. We have to match lip flaps! Which confines us to a very narrow pathway and it's often very difficult to do that.
 

Rei and Lina: We were also wondering, do you get called in often enough to make a living, or is it advisable to have a second job, if you're just starting out?
 

Demita-san: It's always advisable to know as much as you can possibly do in life. I can't honestly say that you should have something to fall back on because I entered the acting business with nothing to fall back on. When times are slow, I teach others the craft of acting and teach them about the history of theater, so I have a university job as well. The majority of my income comes from my voice work and through my on-camera work as well. I think I've worked in a lot of different Sci-Fi genre projects. I have a television show of Sliders coming up and I've done a couple of fantasy films for a company called Full Moon which are time travel pictures. I'm glad because I've been in Star Trek The Next Generation... I'm a big fan of Sci-Fi. It's cool when you get to be in it- it's so cool. When I was a Romulan on Star Trek (I should've brought a picture), it was a dream come true for me. And hanging out on the bridge of the Enterprise was totally awesome!
 

Rei and Lina: From your personal experience, we were wondering sort of an average salary for say...

Demita-san: Oh my God!

Rei and Lina: I think you worked on Tenchi?

Demita-san: Yeah, I worked on Tenchi.

Rei and Lina: We use an example like Sasami, an actor in that position...

Demita-san: Someone who's not in every episode...

Rei and Lina: Every episode, but not necessarily the "main character"?

Demita-san: Well, I don't want to reveal.. y'know. Well, let me put it this way, if you are not a star- a recognizable celebrity, like when Disney did Kiki, they hired Phil Heartman, Kristen Dunston- movie stars to do the voices. If you're not a movie star, and you're not the original voice in a cartoon, you're paid less money to dub the cartoons than you would be if you were the original voice actor. So, nobody gets rich dubbing anime... sometimes, depending on how many films you're doing, it can be an income, sometimes it's just half of your income. In the Tenchi projects, for example, there were so many different Tenchi television shows and so many movies, even still, they were recorded sparatically, over several years. So even people like Washu and Matt Miller who plays Tenchi- he only worked on every episode of Tenchi maybe a day or two, so you're only paid for that day or two. Nobody's getting rich doing it. Pioneer- the company that makes it, they're doing very well, but they're allowed to hire English/North American actors rather inexpensively, because it's already been produced before and you're not the original voice.

Rei and Lina: Okay! We noticed in a lot of North American animation, whether it be anime dubbing or... Disney that the actors don't seem to get a lot of recognition for their work. They're usually in the credits near the end, it's just a list of names.

Demita-san: Just a list of names that goes flying by!

Rei and Lina: We noticed in anime, the cast always comes first.

Demita-san: In Japan, voice actors are stars. You know who they are, you know their faces. The same respect is not awarded to actors in this country who do voice work. Why that is I can't tell you, cultural, I guess.  Animation in and of itself is much more part of mainstream culture overseas than it is here, so naturally, they're like movie stars.

Rei and Lina: How do you feel about the lack of recognition? Lots of people work hard to see if they can put out a decent dub.

Demita-san: It ticks me off (smiling)! I'll be honest with you. I would like it if our work was more recognized and appreciated, but I completely understand why it is not. Yes, any actor has an ego, and you work very hard on these things, and you do put a lot into them, so naturally it would be great if people were to appreciate it- but on the other hand, I understand because I'm a fan as well, why people prefer original language artists. I look at it from both perspectives and I appreciate it from both perspectives. I don't speak Japanese, so I can't be an original language artist, but I can do the dubbing work. It's the best opportunity I have to be a part of something I really like.  I'd like to be ordering a pizza one day and somebody say, "Aren't you the voice of Tekkeman Blade?" It's not going to happen, at least, not in the U.S. .

Rei and Lina: All right. Another question we have... we see on the internet that there are databases for amateur voice actors. We want to know if there are any for professional voice actors. Once you've participated in dubbing something, does your name go somewhere so other dubbers can find you?

Demita-san: You get known through the people you work with, that's how my whole voice career began. I worked on Tenchi and the producer of Tenchi hired me for Pretty Sammy and then the director for Pretty Sammy hired me for something called Willy Wool mouse, which is an Australian cartoon. Then the guy from Tenchi hired me back for an Urban Vision project, then the Urban Vision producers liked me so they hired me for every Urban Vision film, pretty much. It's just about the people you get to work with and the connections that you make. As far as I know, there are no internet source for these names... or databases- I worked on MTV cartoons like Aeon Flux and Spawn for HBO. That stuff is on the internet. If you do an internet search under my name, you'll find a very incomplete, but, an accurate list of my credits, including my animated work, but not my anime work, because no one's keeping track of that stuff. I have 25 cartoons that I've worked on, but no one's going to know about that stuff on the internet.

Rei and Lina: Do you have any advice for people who want to break into the field of acting and possibly dubbing? I know some people want to do it because so many people don't do it well. I won't mention any company names...

Demita-san: Don't worry! Mention companies!

Rei and Lina: (laugh) I find that Viz Video (Ocean Group) to be very good dubbing, but certain companies, I don't think they take a lot of time and effort into finding who would be best suited for certain roles. I think a lot of the problem is that a lot of people set standards that go along with the Japanese original voice actor. Some people just want to preserve the integrity of anime (as helped by Demita-san).
 

Demita-san: There's no one way to get into any aspect of show business, even something as specific as anime voice work. I think, if you are interested in doing that kind of work, the most important thing that you can have is a demo of yourself. A tape that you can make now, thanks to digital technology. You can make very, very impressive demos... at home! Although the problem with recording your own voice at home is you need the sound proof environment in which to do it. If you know anybody, if you have a TV station in your high school or your college, or a radio station-- if you have a recording facility of any kind, it doesn't matter how inexpensive it is. You can make a tape of your own voice on cassette which is very inexpensive. You should do that and make the tape no more than 90 seconds long and have it include a wide variety of what you feel are your most interesting character voices. In my advice for anyone in anime, get subtitled copies of the films, choose text from subtitled copies, make it as conversational as you can, since sometimes subtitles can be awkward, and create these demos of yourself and begin sending it to whatever local talent agencies there are. Then there's just the question of whether or not there's a market for it-- in Canada or elsewhere. All of the Urban Vision projects and all of the Pioneer projects are recorded in Los Angles because that's where the largest number of actors are. So if you don't live in LA, I'm not certain what opportunities exist for you, but it isn't all about anime, I mean, there's all sorts of voice work that's out there and interesting for people to do. As far as preserving the integrety of the anime, the thing that I know in my brief exposure- I've only been working in anime for about five years is they listen to the fans! So if you are dissatisfied or have suggestions and can speak with a loud enough voice via the internet or whatever service you want to use, tell Pioneer, tell Urban Vision, tell anybody what you feel about the work and they will try their best to make it right for you- because you are the most important thing- you're the only reason these companies do well and exist, so... One way to do it is become an actor yourself, another way is just express yourself as loudly as you can. Be loud. Be LOUD! Yell loud and get a thousand signatures even if it's only in your school or something like that. Just do it as loudly as you can and I promise you they'll try their best to make it work.

Hey! This is cool! Did you make these yourselves? (as he's examining our swords)

Rei: No, we actually had a prop maker do it for us, but he put reflectors there. (Rei points out the paint less strip on the hilt)
 

As a side note, the same prop maker made a mace out of a toilet floater and a chair leg. Crafty? Yes. What the diagram called for? No. Anyways, that concludes our interview and I hope it was as educational to you as Rei and I found it. It was great that he was so honest with his answers. On top of that, he was very friendly! Thanks, Demita-san!

Please don't leave any litter in the garden since it can be hazardous to the other VAs, thank you! We hope you enjoyed the insightful interlude and don't forget to visit the other interviews availible in the lounge!

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