The pit is difficult to find, the promotion system is vague, and the voice actor ecological environment award

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With the development of the Internet and the two-dimensional industry, the emergence of new media such as audiobooks and radio apps, everyone's attention and acceptance of voice actors have greatly increased, and these channels have increased the demand for dubbing, and also provided more possibilities for voice actors to enter the industry.

The prosperity of communication has made more and more dubbing enthusiasts hope to enter the dubbing industry. But can the job of dubbing really be like the advertisement said, "one yuan can learn, a monthly income of 50,000 is not a dream"? In fact, such a simple and crude propaganda is usually an exaggeration and does not truly reflect the real living environment of dubbing practitioners.

In reality, there is a huge gap between the situation in the voice over industry and the description of advertising. In the 19th Domestic and International Anime Voice Actor Competition alone, 7,012 contestants participated, and Baidu shows that the number of domestic voice actors has exceeded 100,000. The current dubbing market can provide dubbing opportunities is obviously not enough to support such a large number of practitioners.

People believe in opportunity and want change to continue. But after in-depth communication with voice actors, voice directors and voice agents, Bone Duo found that it is not easy to make a living from the profession of voice actor.

01

It is easy to enter the pit, but difficult to seek the pit

It's easy to be a voice actor, but it's especially hard to be a voice actor who lives by voice acting.

Early on, the job opportunities of voice actors mainly came from three aspects: film and television, anime, and games. With the rapid development of the Internet, these three categories have been subdivided into many vertical fields, such as radio dramas, audiobooks, Douyin short dramas, dynamic comics and so on.

The barbaric growth of these verticals has brought sound products into an era of diversification, bursting into strong demand and creating a large number of jobs for voice actors. Dubbing is no longer a vassal of the film and television industry, and the industry threshold is gradually decreasing.

The channels through which voice actors enter the industry are also constantly fissioning. The rise of dubbing training has allowed a large number of dubbing enthusiasts to get the entrance ticket to the industry. Since then, voice actors have no longer been the exclusive domain of the academy, but a group of industry liberals with enthusiasts as the main body.

Senior voice actor Bei Sangqiu (pseudonym) told Bone Duo that after liberals get the ticket, there will indeed be dozens or hundreds of people to fight for a role, but in fact, such a role does not require high professionalism of voice actors.

"After entering the industry, due to the constraints of ability and popularity, newcomers will not be exposed to large-scale high-quality projects, let alone play a core role in the projects."

Dubbing director Tomb Qi'er also believes that "professional voice actors are very stressful as an art practitioner". First of all, in terms of work, liberals can only be exposed to some marginal characters and projects below the waist, which makes it difficult for them to have masterpieces; Second, in terms of life, liberals have a main business or several part-time jobs to support themselves, which also leaves them without time, energy and economic conditions to improve their business capabilities.

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The current charging standards of the dubbing industry are mainly based on fame (including the number and magnitude of representative works, popularity) and level (including working time and personal ability). Taking radio dramas as an example, most of the super-head voice actors take the total package price of the project as the main body, and there will be some resources and benefits in addition to income.

For voice actors who can enter the first echelon, the price of a single episode (about 20 minutes) can reach more than 3,000 yuan, and such projects have high requirements for the level of voice actors, usually with a volume of about 100 episodes; The cost of the second-tier actors is about 1,500 yuan, and the size of this part of the project is the main reason for widening the income gap between them and the head voice actors; As for ordinary voice actors with a unit price of about 500-1000 yuan, they often face dozens of people competing for an opportunity, and the number of projects is extremely variable, which has caused a lot of trouble to practitioners with shallow foundations.

In addition to the income gap, the limitation of connections is the main reason why they do not have access to big projects and good roles.

"If you don't enter the professional system learning, it is difficult to get into the inner circle of dubbing on your own." Voice actor Su Man (pseudonym) has been popular for a while by dubbing short video projects, and has already had some masterpieces that can be written on his resume, but he is still worried about employment pressure.

Ling Bingbing, who has participated in the dubbing work of the anime "Rebirth of the Demon Venerable", also has the same worry. "The employment situation of voice actors is not optimistic, and the market competition is becoming more and more fierce."

Their concerns, unlike those of enthusiasts who bought a recording phone and a few hundred dollars in sound cards, knew that improving themselves was the most important thing. "People want high-quality service, just like any other industry." The voice actor said the cat in the chair. He is acutely aware that the threat posed by those in the industry who are talented and have a higher foundation than himself is often oppressive.

However, although the changes in the industry are overwhelming, the biggest challenge faced by voice actors today is not the superb technical system or personal relationship of professional voice actors, but the current hot AI new technology.

Zhuo Yang, the head of Shanghai Meisheng, told Bone Duo that many projects, especially those below the waist, have begun to choose to use cheaper new technologies instead of labor, which has led to the compression of job opportunities for low-level voice actors again. Most of the ones who are not affected are those with strong professional skills, that is, the head voice actors.

Shanghai Meisheng Recording Studio

02

There are many hardships in the industry, and the road to "promotion" is bumpy

Nowadays, the dubbing industry has developed so that practitioners have no weekends, 24-hour standby, etc. are routine operations, and the boundaries between life and work have long been blurred.

But what's scarier than overloading is not working. When discussing the problem of "the head can't finish eating, the waist can't eat well, and the bottom can't eat", Ling Bingbing ridiculed himself as "a low-level practitioner who eats".

Since voice actors do not have a clear promotion path, the day they work in voice acting means choosing a crisscrossing career path.

For voice actors, being a voice director, project planning, and voice choreographer in a project is a "vertical promotion". And "horizontal promotion" has both the opportunity to transform and change careers, becoming a dubbing teacher and post-sound effects are all transformations. As for turning to two-dimensional singers, virtual anchors, drama and musical theater actors and other fields, it is a career change with a large span.

"You have to have your own masterpiece," Kita Sangqiu described as a voice actor's career path as pyramid-shaped. Compared to other jobs, the process of technical improvement of voice actors is very painful and difficult. She used cultivation as a metaphor, "Every level of breakthrough takes a lot of effort, energy and time. In this process, many people will choose to give up this "road to heaven" at different stages due to their own and external reasons.

The grave boy who has completed the "vertical promotion" has not stopped moving forward, and she is still exploring more possibilities of her career. "As a voice director, I have the opportunity to work in technical ways, and I may try to develop in the post-sound direction in the future." The public is not familiar with the position of dubbing director, but as the controller of the project audio, in order to be competent for this job, not only need professionalism, but also have many aspects of comprehensive ability, which also makes the tomb have more opportunities to try.

For "horizontal development", most A-list voice actors are rejected. Suwen often receives invitations to be a voice blogger, but she still wants to deepen her career as a voice actress and grow into a senior voice actress as soon as possible. "I still want to use my voice to bring more characters to life."

Ling Bingbing, who is between generating electricity for love and the rising period of her career, also hopes that she can always maintain her original intention after choosing this career. "Passion is to persevere, and I will continue to improve my professionalism. After all, the mountainside is so crowded that I want to go to the top of the mountain. ”

03

Domestic dubbing industry and Japanese voice actor industry,

              What's the difference?

Although the domestic dubbing industry seems to be prosperous, in fact, most people are not clear about the market development stage of this industry.

Take Japan, for example. In China, staff who dub various works of art and various characters are called "voice actors"; In Japan, the staff who dubbed anime and games and participated in some commercial performances were called "voice actors". "Japan has a dedicated voice actor school and a voice actor training institute, and the whole industry is very mature." Zhuoyang said.

In China, the first batch of companies established by professional voice actors were generally born between 2013 and 2015, such as Beidou Penguin and Photosynthetic Building Blocks and Sound Bear Lianmeng. In 2017, Otokuma Lianmeng founded the voice actress girl group V17, and in 2019, the group already had 12 full members and several trainees. But in 2021, their careers almost stalled, and the selection mechanism and training program ended early.

In Japan, as early as 1997, Nana Shimizuki, who dubbed more than 100 TV animations, debuted as a voice actress, and in 2009, her album "ULTIMATE DIAMOND" sold more than 100,000.

Seiyuu also has specialized schools and training institutions in Japan. According to the statistics of the voice actor タマゴ website, there are 76 voice actor offices and 28 specialized voice actor schools across Japan, and according to the data of the magazine "Voice Actor Memorabilia", the total number of voice actors registered in 2022 is 1,658.

It is not only Scorching Yang who believes that there is a stage gap between the domestic dubbing industry and the Japanese voice actor industry. At present, although there are voice actor idols in China such as Bian Jiang, Ajie, Yang Tianxiang, Liu Jun and so on who have successfully embarked on the road of voice actors, these individual cases do not represent that the development of this industry has entered the stage of industrialization.

"Overall, the entire industry has not fully established an idol system from the cultivation stage, and the current scale of idolization is very small and not large." Kita Sangqiu said. "Compared to other types of actors, voice actors are a hard-working profession that does not receive widespread attention and discussion, which also leads to the development of many practitioners being limited."

In terms of exposure, Japanese voice actors who are also behind-the-scenes staff can have a series of commercial job opportunities such as magazines, photos, concerts, etc., and these commercial itineraries are the norm for them. Ling Bingbing told Bone Duo, "In Japan, voice actors have many fans like ordinary idols, and in the consciousness of the Japanese people, voice actors do not belong to behind-the-scenes workers. ”

There were 11 people in the group at the time of the first anniversary of V17, and only 4 people will remain in 2023

But there are two sides to everything, idolization can speed up the commercialization process of the dubbing industry, but it will also burst into a new set of problems.

"Idolization means that voice actors have to do other work besides dubbing, which requires not only strong professionalism of voice actors, but also other talents and appearances." Bei Sangqiu, who has been on the front line for a long time, believes that there are only a handful of voice actors who can have these characteristics at the same time, and they have not yet reached the volume that can promote the idolization process of domestic voice actors. In her opinion, instead of gaining attention in the name of idolization, it is better to improve personal business ability.

Su Wen feels that just like some artists rely on variety shows to open up their popularity, some artists think that the mystery of variety shows is not conducive to shaping their own characters, "Each person's professional demands are different, and the gains and losses are their own trade-offs." ”

Perhaps, when the boundaries between voice actors and voice actors are no longer blurred, the discovery and training of talents form a system, and practitioners are both professional and idolized, the real inflection point of the industry will come.