Vietnamese voice talents: The solo performance
Vietnamese voice talents: The job of people standing behind the screen in the movies. They are the Vietnamese voice actors but the audience watching film does not know them, but by their voice, they convey the true feelings of each character to the best in the film. They are Vietnamese voice artists.
Vietnamese Voice actors are those only use sound to express characters on screen. They work diligently and never complain that “this profession is unappreciated.”
When enjoying foreign movies in Vietnam, a large number of audiences are surprised because the foreign actors speak Vietnamese so fluently. In fact, it is the voice of Vietnamese voice talents.
Their sounds must perfectly match with the characters’ face, portraying exactly the psychological expressions of the role in all circumstances. But not few know that this Vietnamese voice over career is also coupled with much hardship and tragicomic.
Traditional Vietnamese voice over career
Ms. Vo Huyen Chi (born in 1984, Ho Chi Minh City), who has worked as a Vietnamese voice over artist for 13 years, said that the important factors of the profession shall be ranked in the following order: High concentration, memory and expressive voice. In the early days of her voice over job, Huyen Chi’s voice also had many shortcomings, but in return she possessed the first two important factors. So when recording, only she herself, the script and the character, “make a solo performance.”
The concept of “expressive voice” in the Vietnamese voice acting is extremely abstract, largely dependent on the each audience’s feeling. In order to convey appropriately or most closely appropriately the character’s expression, the Vietnamese voice actors must study thoroughly the film and the role, and simultaneously proficiently use acting techniques with tone and sound strength.
“But I myself must really have feelings, cry and laugh, is sad and happy with the characters, then I will be able to voice out their nature and identity, otherwise it will be unable fail to express appropriately.”- Huyen Chi expressed.
Listening to Huyen Chi voiced, we can feel every emotion of a Vietnamese female character performed by her. From high-pitched scold to the softly or gently, calmly voices, has been soulful into acting”, even though there have only one screen and microphone.
If according to Huyen Chi, the study of the character’s psychological phase is an important stage to successful voicing over in Vietnamese, the view point of veteran Ba Nghi actor is slightly different.
A Vietnamese voice over product of VNVO Studio
His sharp, adamant Southern Vietnamese voice was attached to the roles in TVB films, especially the character making “Ba Nghi brand” – Cao Cao in “Three Kingdoms” for more than 20 years in his voiceover work. He said: “When I’m skilled, speed is the key factor.”
He observes the smallest expressions on the characters’ faces to start voicing over as soon as the first sentence is spoken. He can do 20-30 episodes per day, averaging 45 minutes per episode, but its only takes him half of such time to voice. However, new Vietnamese voice actors will definitely have to record dozens of times because voice “dropping words”, “losing words”, Ba Nghi of the early years is not exceptional.
At the age of U60, he is experienced enough to understand the psychology and sentiment of most of characters of all ages, from young-aged role to the middle-aged and old-aged role.
“Vietnamese voice over job” is not “Reading” but it is real acting, even more arduous because we only have sound as the only expressing tool” – Ba Nghi commented.
Talking about the know how to fulfill a role, the whole “veteran” generation as well as the young generation all share the same answer: “hard-training.” Despite of possessing a good voice, Ba Nghi still believes that his success is thanked to his practice of the “Voice” subject during the time he studied in School of Theatre and Cinema of Ho Chi Minh City and “learning” from Minh Khanh teacher when he was firstly “putting his feet” to this job. He carefully kept his voice by saying “no” to alcohol, cigarettes and does not talk much.
As for Huyen Chi, a young Vietnamese voice talent of the industry, she chose another practice method. It is vocal training, so that every syllable emitted is clear, even when expressing excessive emotion, the sound won’t be distorted. Huyen Chi said, “Vietnamese voice actors is required to have a rich sources of Vietnamese words, so Chi reads a lot of books to cultivate more.”
Struggles of Vietnamese voice talents career
This profession will not gradually lost and not unappreciated
Nowadays, the motion picture market has changed, leading to a different taste of the Vietnamese audience. They tend to prefer foreign movies with live record or subtitles.
Explaining this, Vo Huyen Chi said: “The character’s original sound is directly rooted in their emotion, the dialogue is also formed by writers, directors – those who clearly know the soul of the movie most. The audience has subtle enjoyment sense, so the fact that they prefer this truthfulness is understandable.”
However, dubbing films still have a large number of loyal audiences in Vietnam and possess certain advantages, enough to prevent it from being “boycotted” or gradually lost. Children (who are not able to read the subtitles), middle-aged women and the old-aged are the ones who always offer special love to dubbing movies. They believe that the language and cultural barriers of foreign characters make if difficult for the audiences to perceive, but the Vietnamese voice acting is the “solution” for this.
The heyday of TVB movies and ancient martial arts has passed, the times that Ba Nghi and his time’s actors and actresses had a lot of “space for performance” also went out. However, he still faithful to his chosen career, partly because it is suitable with him, partly because “this job is not unappreciated.”
A Vietnamese voice over product of VNVO Studio
For Ba Nghi actor, the characteristics of Vietnamese voice acting are the convergence of qualities and talented elements, peace of mind before pressure and public opinion. He is very suitable and loves these values so “I will voice until I get old and lose my voice,” he said.
Moreover, the life expectancy of the Vietnamese voice over job is quite long, although the income is not too high, it is still enough to live peacefully with the family, which is understood and respected by the Vietnamese voice talents.
Whenever watching foreign animated films in cinemas, you’ll always be offered two options for the same movie: Subtitles and Voiceover. Movie subtitles are movies that contain translation of characters’ words on the screen, while voice acting movies, the audience does not need to read the words but only listen to the Vietnamese voice artists translating and expressing the words of the characters. So have you ever wondered how a voiceover process for a movie takes place? Which principles should be followed by Vietnamese voice talents? And learn what to become a Vietnamese voice artist?
What does the Vietnamese voice talents do?
Vietnamese Voice artists, simply, are the ones who recreate the characters’ dialogue. Although this is the post-production work, it plays a vital role in the film’s success.
The dubbing is the job of “matching sound” for cartoon characters, or replacing actors in films that do not record sound live, scenes that are unable to record the dialogue, or because the voice of the actors role is not suitable for the character. In developed animation industry countries (such as Japan’s anime), Vietnamese voice acting is very developed, and voice talents can pursue it as their major career.
The specific work of a Vietnamese voice actor is as follows:
– Reading the script in each scene of the character like the actor on the screen
– Memorizing the lines of characters necessary to be voiced
– Recording, dubbing voice to match the character’s mouth shape on the screen.
– Feeling, closely attaching to the psychology of the character to exactly express the emotion and intonation of the words.
Do you suit with Vietnamese voice talents job?
Due to the specific natures of the job, the Vietnamese voice actor needs to meet two prerequisites: the voice must match the mouth shape and the voice must be emotional.
Professional Vietnamese voice actors need to converge following qualities:
– Good and inspiring voice, clear pronunciation
– Ability to perceive and understand character’ s psychology
– Ability to keep the emotional level of each scene
– Being meticulous, patient
– Being skillful, good adaptability …
A Vietnamese voice over product of VNVO Studio
Career consultation on Vietnamese voice actors career
The Vietnamese voice talents must cry, laugh, scream, roar, moan, even eat and drink like the character in the movie. Compared to other job, Vietnamese voice acting has long expectancy because each role requires a suitable voice for the character’s face. Therefore, Vietnamese voice acting requires the Vietnamese voice talents to have many different voices to be able to voice a lot of characters from old to young, from women to men … The voice must always match the character’s mouth shape, thus, the movie is real and attracts audiences, accordingly can also show the professionalism of Vietnamese voice artists.
Vietnamese voice talents can work at:
– Movie production companies
– Radio and television stations
– Media and advertising companies
Or you can do Vietnamese voice acting as the secondary job besides your main specialty.
What to learn to become a Vietnamese voice artist?
You can practice to become a voice actor through the following exercises:
– Practicing reading aloud confidently, practicing pronouncing correctly with intonation to improve your voice.
– Recording your reading practice, then listen again to familiarize your own voice through the microphone as well as draw lessons for the next time.
– When listening to your own voice, considering whether you are using a nose, mouth, chest or diaphragm.
– Practicing controlling breath.
– Mimicking the voice, intonation of famous actors or cartoon characters.
– And finally try random role-playing into the characters you like, starting from easy to difficult.
In addition, you can also become voice actor after graduating from the Faculty of Actors of the Theatre and Cinema, Arts and Culture Schools or professional voice actor training courses.