Forum - View topicAnswerman - Is It A Big Deal When A Voice Actor Changes Agencies?
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MajinAkuma
 Posts: 1199 |
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And what about the freelancers? They have to do it obviously themselves, but what are their chances?
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xchampion
 Posts: 370 Location: Idaho Falls, Idaho |
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Even tho anime is becoming more mainstream in the west, when it comes to LA they still don't take anime voice actors seriously. I've been to many conventions and all the voice actors say the same thing. If they meet with anyone with some clout and ask what they've been in if they start out with anime they totally dismiss them. It basically doesn't even count. The voice actors may enjoy doing anime, but it doesn't pay the bills. Almost anything thing else you could name pays more. Radio ads, commercial voice overs, audio books, and so on. That's why many anime actors do more than just voice work. That's why you see some doing the script adaptation or being the ADR Director. I can assume if their agents are only sending them to do anime voice work they wouldn't be their agent for long. All these things can influence whether you keep your agent or not.
As an example Eric Vale just so happens to be the voice of Dave and Busters commercials and has been for several years. He said one D&B commercial pays more than he makes in one year doing anime. His agency sends me him out and he auditions for dozens of roles he doesn't get for every roles he does get. There is a lot you don't see that happens behind the scenes. In return if a voice actor isn't getting roles consistently then his agency won't send them out for more auditions either. You have to look at it from both sides of the relationship as well. If voice actors only did anime then they wouldn't be able to make a living. When it comes to agents and their talents it comes down to more than just anime that's for sure. |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4640 |
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I've heard similar things about Ian Sinclair being paid better to travel to Chicago to record for car dealerships. At a convention, Chuck Huber mentioned that auditions for commercials are a balancing act since the pay can be better than other voice over, but you can also spend most of the day waiting around only to not get the part. |
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xchampion
Posts: 370 Location: Idaho Falls, Idaho |
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What you've heard about Ian Sinclair is true. He is the voice for a major chain of car dealerships in the Chicago area. He is also the voice of a fried chicken fast food chain in Texas. The name escapes me at the moment though. I heard all this from him at a convention I attended in 2015. It also just happened to be the same convention that Eric Vale attended that heard him say the information I talked about in my previous comment. Its really ironic that you mention what you did. 
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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That has little to do with "being taken seriously" and more to do with demand. There's a good number of anime voice actors that are also fans. That's great, but it also points to HOW they got their job. Basically if a voice actor wants to make big money for doing anime work, then the anime studio probably just moves on to the next young kid that wants to "break in". (the video game development industry has long been notorious for the same thing) Why pay X actor 10s of thousands when you can pay Y "unknown" much less? Especially when there's questions about if the show will even break even. (and a bunch of fans love decrying the English voices whether experienced or not) I'd assume this plays a role in whether or not anime work is "respected" also. If you lead with your anime work, then the immediate thought is probably that you haven't actually DONE anything else. And if you're a new person trying to make it, then who knows how discriminating the casting director for whatever anime was. Heck, for that matter most actors that have a "visual" role (where you see their face) would rather tell you all about that anyway. I feel like its gotten a little better now, but a decade ago I questioned if the actors THEMSELVES even respected the job of voice acting. |
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crosswithyou
 Posts: 2899 Location: California |
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I don't know about the English side, but for the Japanese side, if they already have a name for themselves (eg. Ono Daisuke, Yusa Kouji, etc) then they'll be fine. I think it's worth noting that even if someone is freelance, they may still have a manager. Some prefer to do it all themselves, but some will hire a manager who works under them to handle their schedule and such, kinda of like a secretary. Sometimes the manager might even be someone from their previous agency. And before anyone gets the wrong idea, just because someone changes agencies or goes freelance doesn't mean their relationship with their previous agency soured. When Ono Daisuke left Mausu Promotion, Kamiya Hiroshi teased him about it on their radio show saying that OnoD had a fight with the agency, but OnoD insisted that it was amicable (and there's no reason to believe it wasn't; Kamiya really was just joking). |
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#Verso.Sciolto
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There are, of course, other examples to mention here too but both in-universe and in real world experiences the story and cast of Amachan, Non and Kyōko Koizumi in particular, came to my mind immediately when reading this. Interesting topic.
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mewpudding101
Industry Insider
 Posts: 2210 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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Hmmm. I feel like this is missing a lot.
But, as you mentioned, changing agencies CAN make a big difference in a career because sometimes those agencies are on the production committee. While it might be sucky to be at a huge agency with so many people and so few jobs, if you were at a smaller agency with less power, those auditions might not come around to you at all. Also Might I just mention that many times, it's not a JP voice actor FIRING their agent (though if you're famous enough you can switch boats or go freelance in order to keep a larger cut)--a lot of the time, they get DROPPED. Aoni Production is especially harsh about this, and even at other agencies, I see people getting dropped all the time because they haven't accumulated enough work (though personality might be another factor in them being dropped). |
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#861208
Posts: 423 |
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That's.... not entirely true. What about that Kiramune thing? Isn't that like, idol things from voice actors, based on them all being at the same agency?
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mewpudding101
Industry Insider
Posts: 2210 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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Kiramune is made by the Bandai Namco Group. They're not all at the same agency. Kimura's at Gekidan Himawari and Okamoto and Horie are at Pro Fit. |
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crosswithyou
Posts: 2899 Location: California |
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Kiramune is a music label, not a talent agency. Their label has artists from various agencies. As for agencies dropping talents, I think in most cases it's the juniors, not the established talents who have a number of decent credits to their name. That said, most likely people are not familiar with the people who get dropped. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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I can say that, during my brief time working in Hollywood, there was a general dislike of anime among most people there. This is only speculation, but I'm guessing that they generally see anime as outside competition (there is a lot of shuffling of talents around the major Hollywood studios, and it's essentially one big network of people, at least among the famous and/or powerful). That being said, one of the people who doesn't mind that I met happened to be an agent, who WOULD occasionally assign some of his actors to works normally done by anime voice actors (though I don't think he ever brought them to any anime, just plenty of Japanese video games). |
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Xiximaro
Posts: 151 |
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By what I read in this article, if it turns confusing you will only need to watch Entourage or Episodes to get a general idea.
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Primus
 Posts: 2820 Location: Toronto |
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There are agencies in LA that won't touch anime. That's not because they hate the content, though. That's because the pay is too low. Even a SAG anime dub is <$70/hour, meaning the agent is making chump change compared to other things.
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