Stephanie Sheh[/caption]Anime Boston 2013 rolled around about a week ago now, and I was very excited to see Stephanie Sheh there. Given the opportunity for interviews, or press panels at least, I jumped on the chance to talk to her, and ended up as one of five people taking turns to ask questions at her hour-long, press-only panel.
If somehow you’re not sure who Stephanie Sheh is, or more likely, you simply don’t realize just how much she does, take a look at her Wikipedia page and be blown away!
Other Site (O): First of all, what got you into Japanese animation in the first place?
Stephanie Sheh (S): You know, I think I was primed at a young age, because I watched Robotech and Voltron and I didn’t know that they were anime, but they were the best cartoons ever, because people died and the storylines were like cliffhangers and I was really into that. So I guess I don’t know other than that, other than just liking that kind of stuff, and being Asian. I grew up thinking that Doraemon was Chinese, because I watched it and it was Xiǎo Dīng Dāng, and then I realized it was a Japanese thing. I will say that I feel like sometimes, there’s a certain type of person who gravitates toward anime, and I haven’t really figured out why that is. A lot of – not all – anime fans tend to be a little bit ostracized or outcast in their normal school life or whatever, and I definitely had that growing up – you know, I got picked on, I was not popular at all – so I don’t know if that means my personality just made me like anime; I have no idea. But yeah, I liked it ever since I was a kid, apparently, and then when I was reintroduced to it in college, I thought, “Oh my god, it’s the best thing ever…” and then you realize, “Oh, it’s not the best, but it’s still pretty good.”
Fandom Post (F): Obviously you do a lot of work for NYAV Post on the LA side, but in the Bakuman dub, you were the only LA name in the cast. Was that another bi-coastal dub in which you happened to be the only LA actor cast, or did you actually record it in New York?
S: I think I just recorded it in LA. I think it’s just easier that way.
F: Have you ever gone to New York to do that kind of stuff for them?
S: I go to New York sometimes, and if I’m there I’ll record there, but I never go to New York just to do that.
O: You’ve done a lot of roles obviously. Which ones have really stood out to you that you’ve really looked back on and really enjoyed that you’ve worked on?
S: There’s a lot, I think. It’s hard to say. It changes every day, depending on where you are and how you’re feeling. And then if it’s new, you remember that. I will say that Mamimi from FLCL – I think that out of everything I’ve auditioned for, I’ve never wanted a part so badly as that part. I just really love the show, and I love that character and I felt like I got her, and I really wanted that part. I don’t think in any role since have I been like, “I will die if I don’t get cast”, and that’s how I felt when I auditioned for that. I knew that I really wanted to be a part of the Naruto cast, but I didn’t specifically feel like “it has to be Hinata”. I remember when I auditioned I told my friends who were anime fans and they said, “Oh, I hope you get Hinata”, or “I hope you don’t get cast as Sakura; Hinata’s a much cooler character.” I’m like, “Sakura has a lot more lines; why would you say you don’t want me to get cast as Sakura? That’s mean.” I tend to remember things that are a little different, so like Koi Kaze was a very unique and special anime, and any parts that are wacky like Akira in Lucky Star or like Guu, because they have two different voices. And Yui is also really special to me, more to do with how that show was marketed, and all the experiences we had, because Bandai made us learn all the songs in Japanese, and we had to sing them, and so we spent a lot of time with the girls, going around from convention to convention, cosplaying and singing songs, having to memorize phonetically these songs in Japanese, so it was an interesting experience.
O: As an actor, as a performer, how is your mindset when you’re creating a character different when you’re going in creating something for more of an adult subject matter, than say, something on Care Bears for kids. How do you focus your mind differently as a performer? Talk about that process a little bit.
S: I don’t think I think from an audience perspective, so to speak; I think from a character perspective. On a kids’ show, I’m not trying to be “kids-y”, but I will have to watch myself, like if I’m improving, I can’t say something that’s too out there. Actually, at the beginning for Care Bears, one of the versions of the voice we did for Share Bear at the beginning, they were like, “We want her to be kind of like Lisa Kudrow-y, more like… out there.” The director’s like, “Have you ever done drugs?” I actually haven’t. I have a lot of friends who have, but it’s just not something I have any desire to do. I’m never going to smoke pot. My roommates actually will hide in one person’s bedroom and all sneak to smoke pot because I don’t smoke pot, and I’m like, “You know it’s totally fine for you to just smoke it in the house. I don’t care; I just don’t smoke it”, and they’re like, “We just feel like the bad kids like this”, so they hide. But yeah, so the first version of that just came out way too weird, because she’s always like… offering people tea or making cookies… and it was just too weird; it seemed too druggy for kids, so we had to change that.
O: You portray a lot of the iconic characters like Yui from K-On!, Mikuru in Haruhi, Hinata from Naruto… is there ever a sort of pressure you feel when you have to portray these characters, or do you ever feel like, “I’ve got to get this right, or else I feel like I’m disappointing the fandom” in any way?
S: Well I think you always feel like you’ve got to get it right, but I think you can’t focus on it too much because, if you’re worried, it’s just going to come through in the performance as “you’re worried”, instead of just focusing on the character. They’re always going to love you or hate you, and there are always people who love you and there are always people who hate you, so you can’t take too much into that. I was just in the green room and someone was complaining like, “I was reading these posts, and they were complaining about using the same voice actors in everything, like ‘It’s so boring; they need to find new people.’” But in the same thread, you had people also complaining, “All these new people suck!” So you’re like, “Okay, you can’t really have it both ways.” They’re going to find a way, so you just have to be strong enough with yourself that you can kind of ignore that kind of stuff.
O: I’ve seen you’ve worked on a couple of video games, like Trauma Team. After you’re done recording, do you actually go back and play the finished product?
S: No, I don’t. I have no free time and I’m not very good at video games. I love video games; I’m just not good at them. I love watching people play them; I’m a hardcore casual gamer, and a hardcore spectator, if there is such a thing. But I am not very good at playing games. I think the furthest I’ve gotten was… I got to the last disc of Final Fantasy VIII, and then my friend told me, “Oh, did you get that (whatever)?” And I was like, “No.” And [he/she?] was like, “Oh no, it’s on that island.” I was like, “I didn’t even see that island.” [He/she] was like, “Oh, well it’s not essential; you don’t have to find it, so it’s not a big deal.” So I was like, “What?!” So then I went back to find it, but the third disc is so long that my last save point was really early on – and the other thing was that, when I was playing the game, I was also playing all the card games, and I had gotten all these cards, and I spent hours on these cards, and all this extra stuff, so I would have to redo it – and it was pre… me defeating the Tonberry King, which took a really long time, so then I never finished it, because I went back. But now, RPGs are not turn-based; they’re like… real time. And that makes it so much harder. I liked it when you stood in your line and you waited for your chance to go up to hit the guy or cast your spell; it was much easier, and now it’s too much for me. So a friend of mine who actually produced FLCL with me was like, “I can only play handheld games now. Console games are just too complicated. I feel like I’m getting old.” And I’m like, “Well, you are getting old…”
F: You do lots of work for pretty much every LA studio that works with anime, and you go to Dallas sometimes to record for FUNimation. Do you think you might end up going to Houston at any point, since they’re actually doing more anime than pretty much anywhere else?
S: I feel like, in terms of the Dallas thing, FUNimation have been really great and very open to having new people in stuff, because surely, it’s definitely a pain in the butt for them to do that. And it is a compromise, because Dallas rates are not the same as LA and, on top of that, generally speaking they don’t fly you out or put you up, so you kind of have to see, “How many hours are they going to give me?”, “Are the tickets cheap?”, “Can I crash at McFarland’s or Kira’s?”, so it’s more of a pain in the butt. But all of that came about from either director’s there or people there being like, “Hey, we have a show,” or “Hey, we’re having auditions. Why don’t you submit something remotely? And would you be up for coming and working under these terms?” And I have been, so that’s kind of worked out. Sentai has never reached out to the LA group or other people saying, “Hey, come out and we’ll try to get you in and do as many hours or whatever.” So I think, on that level, I haven’t been approached or anything, so I don’t know if that’s going to happen. Plus, they’ve given some of their titles to LA studios [for reprisals].
O: You’ve directed some stuff, animation-wise. What was the transition like from just voicing it to actually directing?
S: For a while, a lot of people were asking me to direct, and I really didn’t want to. A lot of things: One of them was just from a scheduling point of view; I’d much rather be acting than directing, and I was worried about, for shows I was on, was I screwing people over, in terms of my schedule, if I was sitting in the director’s chair all day? The other part of it was that I don’t like to go and have to sit in an office all day. It makes me crazy, my butt feels numb from sitting down that long, and I can’t do it. So that was another aspect. The other aspect, at the time, was that I felt like really, who am I to think that I should be telling anyone how to act or what the right read is? So I had a lot of issues. And then when Paradise Kiss came along, Eric from Bang Zoom! asked me if I wanted to direct it, and I said no, and then he asked again, and I said no, and then he said, “Well let me tell you what the show is…”, and then he told me the show, and I said “Hmm… I’ll have to think about it, and he said, “Okay, think about it.” And he was very flexible with my schedule. If I was working full days, it was only like two to three days, or I would work half-days; we worked it out. And then I got over the whole “telling people what to do” type of thing, and now it’s not so much of an issue. So I guess it kind of came from that, and now I do it out of necessity sometimes, like “Oh, we really need a director; would you please…”, and I’m like, “Okay, sure. Let me see where I can fit it in.” But in the beginning I was very resistant to it, actually.
O: You’ve worked as a producer and a director, so in the role of production, would you consider the one you most closely associate as an artist would you say would be as a voice actor? Directing kind of feels like something, as you said, that you’d do out of necessity, rather than something you truly love?
S: It’s weird, because people sometimes now will be like, “Oh, blah blah blah, you’re a director!” It’s something I don’t identify myself as a director; I don’t think of myself as a director. And then when someone says, “Oh, blah blah blah, she’s a director”, I’ll be like, “Oh, that’s right.” I feel like oh, I have directed, but I don’t really feel like a director, I guess. I identify myself as an actor.
O: I know that you’re also fluent in Mandarin Chinese, so I’m wondering if you’ve ever had the chance to dub something or do voice work in Chinese.
S: I’ve done some voice-over in Chinese. I had to sing a song for a Nokia commercial, but I don’t think it aired here; I think it was something for out of the country. And there was some kind of educational dental animation thing, so I did some voices of little kids in there. And then recently, I did these shorts for DC Nation, and they were called “Batman in Shanghai”, and there was a Chinese Catwoman. I think you can find them on YouTube, although I’ve only found the English version. They’re very short little videos, but I recorded both in English and in Mandarin for that. I can’t read Mandarin fluently; I can speak it, but I can’t read it, so if it’s something that’s super-super-technical, then it’s more difficult, especially if I have to speak fast and there’s a lot of vocabulary words, I have to study a lot and it stresses me out. But it’s usually easier if it’s on a character, because then usually the vocab is not so hard, because people don’t speak with all crazy, hard vocabulary, generally speaking, in conversations; it’s just normal conversational stuff.
O: Have any of the other actors, while you’re in the booth, left you little landmines on your reads to kind of trip you up or make you laugh?
S: Well, they won’t really do it in the script so much, but sometimes they’ll record it. They’ll record like a joke or something to try to make outtakes. I mean, it’s fun; I generally laugh, but it doesn’t derail me. I never get the giggles and can’t stop. Sometimes there’ll be just notes in the script if I haven’t recorded yet, that people will just write in. Although more and more, people are not using paper scripts, so then you can’t really leave little notes for people anymore, since it’s like a monitor. There was this old joke… Sam Riegel would leave these notes… it all started because he would leave these notes for Tara Jayne at 4Kids. He would write “I ♥ Tara Jayne” or something on the script. And then, one day, Tara comes in and goes, “Sam, someone’s been writing ‘I ♥ Tara’ on these scripts and I don’t know who it is. Do you know who it is?” And Sam knew it was him because they were friends, right? But then he decided to just mess with her, and just started playing on and being like, “I don’t know; I think somebody has a crush on you. Do you think it’s an actor or one of the engineers?” And she would try to figure it out, like “This actor came in”, or “Who could’ve recorded?”, and this whole thing. So he had told me this story, and I was like, “Oh, Sam.” And then he started writing like ‘I ♥ Sheh’ on scripts. So now that people see that, people start writing that on scripts, and everyone’s like, “People just love you!” I mean, yeah I have friends, but it’s more the history of this inside joke. He would mess with me too, like before Tara moved to LA, he’d be like, “You sound just like Tara. She’s moving to LA.” And I’d stand up and he’d be like, “You’re so short. You know who else is short? Tara’s really short. Oh, your boy voice sounds exactly like Tara’s boy voice.” He’d try to get me all worked up, and so I was like, “Just shut up, Sam.”
F: You said that Mamimi was the one role that you’d really be angry if you didn’t get. Now, you were listed as a casting director on FLCL, right?
S: Well I was part of the team that helped cast it. It was like myself, Marc, Shizuki, and Maki from Production I.G. We were like the board, so we had people come and audition. So if I was auditioning, I pretty much gave up my vote, so I didn’t get to vote on getting cast in FLCL. I only auditioned for Mamimi, and during my audition and after I read, Maki was like, “You’re cast!” Just like that. And she was the client, so the other people, Marc and Shizuki, couldn’t exactly say no. But I think they were in agreement with her, so I was like, “Oh my god!” and I was freaking out and super happy and excited. I had the luxury of knowing the show going into it, and knowing what the sides were, so I was practicing, really nervous in my apartment, and I’m actually shocked I didn’t screw it up based on sheer nerves, because that’s something that very easily can happen, especially with the voice. So yeah, I did not get a say, and then in I’m Gonna Be An Angel!, for Silky, that had more to do with that the director had said to me, “I know you’re an actress, but I don’t want you to be in this cast, because I want very clear lines – production side, acting side – I don’t want to blur any of that.” I was really disappointed, but I said okay. And then, at the end of the week, she did not like any of the Silkys that she heard, specifically that part. So she was like, “Uh… do you mind if you just read for this one part? I feel like we don’t have enough good people for this part. I’m not promising anything – I don’t know if I’ve changed my mind about wanting you cast in it – I just want to hear it.” So then I did it. And then at the end of the week she’s like, “I’m casting you in this. You’re far better than anyone else who read for that part.”
O: How has the We Heart Japan foundation been progressing?
S: It hasn’t really, actually. Everybody’s been super-busy and we really haven’t been doing anything, and the fund that we donated to is no longer, and it was all meant to be a temporary thing, so we haven’t really been doing it. I’m just very happy that we got to do what we could do, and I’m very grateful for all of the help of everybody, both the fans and people who have donated from the companies and whatnot, and the items, and even the girls who worked on it and their time, and all the stuff that happened.
O: What has the production been like working on Gundam Unicorn? How has that experience been?
S: It’s been really fun, actually, and also really, really hard. I go into a crunch and I feel like, probably for about two or three weeks, I average three hours of sleep a night. But it’s been a very close-knit family, with the team from Sunrise and Bandai Visual, and it’s been a wonderful experience. And I’m very proud of the work that we’ve done, to be able to say, “Hey, we’re the first simultaneous Blu-ray/DVD release.” Technically, Kurokami was the first simultaneous release, and that was even more hectic, because that was airing in the United States the same day it aired in Japan on TV. That was like, “Cram! You can’t go on vacation! Oh no, wait! This is not animated! All right, let’s just go for it, Laura!” Yeah, it was pretty crazed. I think I will be very sad when Gundam comes to an end.
O: Were you familiar at all with the Gundam franchise before?
S: I’m embarrassed to say that the most Gundam I had watched was Gundam Wing. That was back in my college days when I was still a fan. I did not finish Gundam Wing, though. I got very close to the end of it, but for some reason I didn’t finish it. I started Zeta, which seemed promising, and then I don’t know why I didn’t finish that either. And I started “Moustache Gundam” [Turn A], but I didn’t get very far with that either. But when I was working at Digital Manga as a producer, I had to put together some kind of “History of Gundam” document, so I did a lot of research on it. I spent like an entire week just researching who’s who, all sorts of stuff. I had to print this whole thick document of photos, and explaining storyline, and all that stuff. I don’t know why the president wanted it; I don’t know who he was presenting it to. But I did all that research, and miraculously enough, none of that stuff stuck in my head at all – none of it. And I was like, “Oh, I researched Gundam; I should remember it!” It did not stick in my head at all. So I feel like now, through this process, I’m learning a lot more and it’s sticking more and more. But even like the first episode… after we were done with it, it was something like, probably the fifth or sixth screening that I’d gone to of the first episode, where I had a moment where I was like, “Oh! That’s what’s going on!” Even though I’d been recording, recorded it, helped write some scripts, and been through that process. It’s just confusing. It’s like so much back-story and lore, which makes it great but then also, makes it hard for newcomers sometimes. And you don’t have to get everything – I think that’s the nice thing about it – you don’t have to know everything and get everything; you can just watch it and enjoy it, but then if you know all this other stuff, it makes it kind of more awesome.
O: You can go back to Zeta and see your character.
S: Yeah, as a child.
O: And a baby in the original series.
O: How is your process of working on video games different than how you approach a show as an actor, or just in general? How was your experience working on Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles as a director?
S: I think the main difference is that with anime, there is a process in how we record it, that is it doesn’t change much from studio to studio. It changes a little bit – some people use beeps, some people don’t use beeps; sometimes you can hear other actors – it changes very little – some people use these little marks for pauses – but for the most part, it’s the same process. For video games, it could be anything. Because you can have cut scenes, so you’re dubbing it like it’s anime; you can have not cut scenes – you can go into a studio, and they have all your lines sorted, which means you’re just saying your lines – you can’t even read somebody else’s lines – you don’t know who you’re talking to; you don’t know what the context is.
O: Do they give you any directing notes on emotions for that?
S: Sometimes they do. But it’s hard to get really specific, but you just have to go for it. And some people, if they’re really fast, are shooting the page. Sometimes you have to match timing, as close as you can get to the original timing. Other times you just have to get in the ballpark of it. Other times it’s like The Price is Right; you just can’t go over. [In the brief time the camera isn’t recording, she moves on to Resident Evil.] Even though it’s from Capcom and it’s made by a Japanese company, the original language is English, for the numbered games. Sometimes for smaller games, that’s not actually the case. So you have some freedom to change lines and whatnot, although the script is written in Japanese first, and then gets translated. But, sometimes, things don’t make sense, for game play purposes and for cultural purposes, so it’s an interesting experience. Darkside was fun; I had a lot of fun, and it was interesting also directing some of the actors who had been in the franchise for much longer, just to see how they had grown and stuff. Ever since 5, we’ve tried to make it a little bit more realistic, but still have some campy moments in there, so it still feels like Resident Evil; have a certain level of ridiculousness in there, but still try to make it more real, in terms of the situations. It’s not awkward-sounding anymore; there’s no Master of Unlocking, although I think in one of the games we kept an inside joke about that, in one of the later games, for Jill or something like that.
O: Are there any particular genres of anime you enjoy more, like horror or drama or comedy?
S: I don’t. I like a lot of shows across genres. I’m not particularly fond of harem comedy; it’s fine, but those aren’t the ones that I really gravitate toward. I know that, when I was watching a lot more anime, I loved anything to do with fantasy and mystery and whatnot, but I would also love Marmalade Boy and school drama, soap opera-y stuff. And I was really into Escaflowne, Eva, and Bebop, but I also liked Kodomo no Omocha and silly, kids-y shows like Mahōjin Guru Guru or Akazukin Chacha; I don’t even think they’ve ever made it over here. I know this sounds generic, but as long as it’s a good show, I like it, across genres. But yeah, I don’t really know how to qualify what makes that good or not. I think what I was saying earlier about anime and being a fan, “Oh my god, everything is so awesome!”, is that I feel like what I don’t like is things that are generic, and so as a new anime fan, you watch anime and you’re like, “Oh my god, this is so creative and so awesome!”, but then as an older anime fan, you realize, “This is generic, and it’s formulaic, but it’s just a different formula.” It’s not what you’re used to in Western society formula; it’s kind of like a Japanese culture formula. But then, that said, there are original ideas in anime as well, but then there are shows that are formulaic, so I tend not to like stuff that’s more stereotypical, formulaic, “Oh, I could’ve guessed that would’ve happened…”; I like things that are more innovative. So that’s why I like things like Cowboy Bebop. And I think that there was a period of time around when Bebop, Evangelion, and Escaflowne were coming out, when a lot of the shows were so creative; there were so many new ideas, and I do feel like over the years we lost some of that, and some of that is due to just that the industry is not doing well. I’ve said this on many panels, that because of my production work I’m friends with the Japan side, the creators and stuff like that, and I’ve had several creators come and tell me that they have ideas for shows but they don’t ever get made because they can’t; the studios are like, “Your show doesn’t have anything that we can sell. There’s no toys or product attached to it, so we’re not going to make our money back, because nowadays we make anime at a loss, and so we make money by selling products and your show doesn’t really lend itself to that”, and there are stories that are not being told, and that’s another reason why you see things that are kind of a little bit more generic in terms of storylines. Also because people are not willing to take a risk anymore; “We know this works, so let’s make another one like it.”
O: Do you think maybe it also has to do with the 1% otaku fan base over in Japan, and how they tend to be more into the fanservicey type of anime, and they know that that kind of works over there more than others?
S: Well, usually you market to the masses, so there’s that; there’s marketing to the mass, and that can be your generic whatever shounen, robot, whatever show of the month that’s new that seems generic that somebody is producing. But the other thing about it is the 1% hardcore otaku, where you get the super moe, strange, cutesy stuff, but the thing about that 1% otaku is that they spend money, and it’s all about spending money. They will buy the physical media, they will buy every single product associated with it, because they like that kind of stuff, so then you end up having that kind of stuff. There was a creative time when anime started doing better in the United States and becoming more mainstream and it seemed like, because it costs a lot to still produce anime, what the studios would do is they would take investors, and if you were a foreign investor, like if you came from the United States and said, “I’m going to invest money in your show”, then you had a little bit of a say creatively on what goes in that show. And there was a time when it seemed like, “That’s what we’re moving toward, so we’re going to get more stuff that’s going to be more palatable for the US audience”, but then that didn’t happen; I attribute a lot of it to illegal downloading. So now the US doesn’t have the presence in any of that level of investment, so they don’t even think about the US market, because “it doesn’t matter; no one’s going to buy any of this anyway – they’re just going to steal it – so why do we need to worry about how we tell the story, or if it’s okay for US audiences? The hardcore fans are just going to steal it by downloading it online; it’s not a problem, we won’t need to worry about it, or worry about that storytelling.”
F: So you say you identify yourself as an actor much more than as a director. What about work you’ve done as a script writer or producer; where do those fall in the line?
S: It’s weird; I think I identify myself as an actor first, but I do identify myself as an adapter and as a producer. That’s part of my identify definitely, but for some reason with directing, I still have this block and I don’t think of myself as a director; I don’t know why. “Yeah, yeah, I do it from time to time; I don’t even know if I’m very good.” But the other stuff, I’m like, “Oh yeah, sure.”
O: Do you ever think about crossing over more off into doing any live-action or anything?
S: I would love to. At this point it’s not really up to me; I audition for stuff, but I don’t get cast much. I think part of it is because I have been so focused on a voice-over career, so it’s hard to do both. And no one gives a crap if you’re an anime voice actor or if you’ve done voice-over; they’re not going to be like, “I’m going to write this part in for you!” The rare thing was Wreck-It-Ralph, where they actually got Kyle and Reuben and they got to do their voices – that was so rare! And it was voices; you know when they made the live-action Dragon Ball they weren’t going to be like, “Hey, let’s put cameos of the people from FUNimation”; nobody cared. They’re making Resident Evil movies; I would love to be like, “Hey! Make me a zombie or a random villager or a civilian that gets killed”, but no one’s knocking on my door, or even if I approached them I think they’d be like, “Yeah, who cares?” So to pursue that, you’re like everybody else in the masses of people, and a lot of people put a lot of work into it, so I think part of the reason is just the focus. I’ve done a few things; I did a pilot for ABC; that was fun. Because I was in a flash mob group, I was in an episode of Modern Family as a dancer, so no lines, just a dancer. I got a lot of screen time if you end up seeing it, because I’m so short; they needed somebody short to stand in front of the principal, so it still looked like they were in a crowd, instead of like the first person in it, so they needed someone. And I had a feeling I was going to get a lot of screen time, because the day we were shooting and stuff, a lot of the crew were like, “Hey, nice moves!”, or “Oh, we love to watch you dance!”, or “Oh, you were killing it out there!”, you know, this was the cameramen, so I was like, “Hopefully I will be in it a lot, if they’re saying these kinds of things”, and I was in it a lot. So that’s not really acting, it’s just learning an easy dance. But to segue that, I do have a Kickstarter going on with some friends of mine and they wrote a web series, and that would be live-action acting, face acting, and they wrote a part for me in it. There’s only, I think, four more days left before that Kickstarter is over. [The Kickstarter has now ended, but it was successfully funded!] The show is called Hollow Ship, and the premise is basically like, if you imagine the holodeck on the Enterprise, the entire ship’s interface is a computer program that is full of holograms, so like instead of building buttons and levers and whatever, you build whatever, and then it’s a holographic interface, and the system that controls that breaks down, and they’re stuck in 21st century Los Angeles, so they’re like walking around LA, trying to figure out “Is this Engineering?” or “Is this Sick Bay?”, and they also have a completely new crew, so not everybody knows each other yet, so they’re also trying to figure out like “Is that a crew member or is that part of this ship’s programming?”
It’s an interesting and fun concept, and I helped them produce it and put it together. We had a reading and certain people were interested and they wanted to see a shot completely shot first, so we shot a teaser, and that’s what the Kickstarter is for, and we just need stuff for digital effects and post-production, and we also need to give some money back to pay the crew, because our crew were all professional people who just donated their time, and then hopefully with that, we can show all the interested parties and then maybe get picked up, or if somebody wanted to do it on their own; I don’t know. Who knows where the future lies in that?
O: You had plugged on the stage today about a film that a bunch of voice actors worked on. Tell us a little about that one.
S: Okay, so that movie is called The Painting, it’s a French film, and oh my god – there might be some clips on YouTube – it’s probably the most beautiful animated thing I have ever seen. The premise is there is a painting, and you go inside the painting, and you meet all these people. And in the painting, the characters are painted; there are different types of people: there are the “all-dones”, who live in the castle, and they’re fully painted; then there are the “halfies”, who have something missing, and they are shunned, so they have to live in the garden; and then there are the “sketchies”, which are just like pencil drawings that are roaming around, and the sketchies have it the worst – the all-dones chase them for sport and beat them up, and the halfies are like, “Oh, it’s a sketchy; we can’t see them and that’s how they get away with it.” The all-dones are like, “We are the chosen ones; that’s why we’re painted”, and the halfies are like, “The painter’s going to come back and finish us, and then everybody will be equal”, and there is a love affair between Ramo, an all-done, and Claire, a halfie, and they want to be together, but they can’t, because there’s segregation among them. So Ramo sets out on a quest with Lola, his best friend, to find the painter, and they leave the painting, they go through a war painting, which is hilarious, because it’s this red and green side and they’re constantly at war and they don’t know what they’re fighting for, because they’re in a war painting and every morning they just fight. And once they get into the artist’s studio, then they incorporate CG, and it looks real, and then you have these paintings, and it’s so beautiful. It’s actually really, really, really cool. And some of the voices you know; J. B. Blanc is in it, Steve Blum is in it, Michael Sinterniklaas is in it, Eden Riegel, Vinnie Penna, all sorts; I have a teeny, teeny, tiny little part in it, but there are sorts of them and you should be able to pick them out. I just think it’s a beautiful visual film, but it also has an interesting message, and it’s playing in theaters now; it’s probably all very limited-run. It’s not doing well, since no one’s really promoted it; it’s an art house animated film, but people should check it out. It’s one of the prouder things I’ve worked on, and I adapted the scripts for it. It’s French animation, but if you went to watch it, you probably wouldn’t tell; you’d just think it was an animated film.
O: It’s like Sylvain Chomet’s Triplets of Belleville.
S: Yeah, you wouldn’t necessarily know, although there’s barely any talking in Triplets of Belleville.
O: Do you have any future goals or plans and where do you see the industry going? Are you hopeful that anime in America will get better and get bigger?
S: I don’t know about getting bigger or mainstream; I don’t know. I think a lot would have to change for that to happen, so I don’t really see that happening, especially with the way things are going. I think the industry has to probably find different ways to monetize, so that it will be a place where people can make money. That said, I don’t think it will ever go away. There’s demand so I don’t think it will go away, but that said, it doesn’t mean that just the fact that it’s around means that it’s around in a good, nice way. There are trends to it; everyone wants it cheap, cheap, cheaper, so the quality then suffers, or there’s not as much work, and you hire new people and pay them less. So I think, depending on how it will be in existence really depends on both the industry figuring out a viable option, business-wise, where it can sustain, and also for the fans to start taking responsibility for themselves as consumers to realize that, if you love this, then don’t contribute to killing it. So I think that’s what is up in the air, and I don’t think I can weigh in either way, in terms of predicting where it will go. I’ve given up a little bit on holding on to that, because it just makes me crazy and angry, because it’s personal, because I love it so much, and I started from fandom; it hurts my work personally, but also just hurts me as a fan of the genre to see it not flourishing.
O: You mentioned about starting out in the fandom and jumping into a voice acting career. What sort of advice do you give to people who are looking to follow a similar path as yourself?
S: I think the main advice is to treat it like a business, or treat it like any other career that you would go into. Maybe it’s the idea of stardom or whatever – and first of all there’s no stardom, and you have to prepare for going hungry and working really hard; people who succeed really, really work hard at it and treat it like a business, and so that means, if I was going to be a doctor, I would want to get training, I need to do my research. And all those things – that’s how you should treat acting. It’s not that I just step in front of a mic and talk and that’s easy; it’s more than that.
F: And if they want to follow you, they’d have to give up on free time and sleep and those things, too.
S: Yeah, if they want to follow me personally. Why you would want to model your life after mine I do not know, but yeah, you would give up free time and sleeping; exactly.
