Well I'm not particularly interesting...I got into voice-acting as a result of my tween-age fandom for a cartoon series "Sonic the Hedgehog" produced by DiC, and my obsession/relation to the character Sally Acorn. I loved her voice-actress, Kath Soucie, and dedicated myself to sounding as appealing as her.

 

My interest grew as I started hearing familiar voice-actors such as Rob Paulsen and Jess Harnell in Animaniacs and other Warner Bros. cartoons that were popular at the time. Eventually I moved on to other interests, anime such as Sailor Moon, Ranma 1/2, and Tenchi Muyo! filling the gap Sonic left. I still loved to imitate voices, but my interest for voice-acting waned as I moved on to other interests, such as Japanese and writing.

 

My biggest hobbies have always been writing, Japanese studies, online roleplay, and studying. I returned to voice-acting after I got the part of Haruhi in Marianne Miller's Ouran High School Host Club fandub, and my friend Kei McCarthy suggested I try out for a few fandubs by Kira Buckland. It just took off from there, and my interest was revived.

 

I lived in Tokyo at that time, and found myself rubbing elbows with Japanese seiyuu on more than one occassion...I will always love voice-acting though, although it sometimes has to struggle with my other interests to get its due time.

"Going pro," albiet in a minor sense, is a great accomplishment for me - it's one of those things I dreamed of doing, but never believed would happen. I'm still not an outright professional voice-actress - or actress in general full-time. As much as it would be fantastic to do so, I have other things I find more important, and voice-acting still remains a hobby - that isn't saying that I wouldn't jump at the opportunity should it present itself. I'm just not willing to put the rest of my life on hold while waiting for my big break. I wish I could, but I'm getting too old and I've worked too hard to get where I am at in other areas of my life.

I have four computers - each of them with a different Windows OS. I did my earliest working on my Japanese laptop with Vista. However, I also have my tablet I currently record on mostly (since I can do it in bed before going to sleep! XD) with XP, and I have a new gaming computer with Windows 7. All of those use Adobe Premiere. I use Audacity on my Mac, though I'm still not familiar enough with it to do much.

 

As a Microphone, I use a Snowball USB.

There are so many! I think the biggest one for me was detaching myself from my work. Sometimes you take your work so personally, so seriously - it's easy to get things out-of-perspecitve, and investing too much of your emotions and pride into your work. I had to remind myself (and sometimes others) - that this is what it is - it ain't brain surgery, we're not saving lives. We're giving noise to cartoon characters. We're enriching our world, perhaps, but we need to remember that we have no true ownership to the final product. We're a key part of that final product, but we're no more or less important than any other member of the team. We need to work together and appreciate what each member of our voice-acting community brings to the table, be it a writer, producer, actor, actress, critics, and most of all the audience.

 

On a more shallow side - screams and being type-casted as big sister/mother types at inconvenient times.

I have produced a few. As far as being an actress helping - I've learned that constant reminding of your cast does wonders for productivity. We're all busy people with outside lives. If we haven't done our lines, it's most likely because we forgot or are busy. Follow up and ask if they want to relieve themselves of the work.

 

It also helps me a lot, as a producer, to know what works and what doesn't for actors and productivity. I guess it's a personal preference for each user, but for example - Skype sessions, while fun, are impractical to expect from people working full-time jobs and supporting themselves. Additionally, I typically like to stay away from recorded "how-to's" with delivery, unless it's referring to pronunciation. There are rare occassions that I'm cool with it, and even prefer it, but usually I will ask.

 

I also plug-and-play when it comes to video clips. You can't do this with audio dramas really, but with video clips, timing and what-not is already in place for you...and the sooner to get stuff adjusted, the less daunting it is when it comes to complete that clip.

Production-wise, not much. Global Conflict episode 3 is dragging along, and should be done soon. That's about all I have for the production front at the moment.

 

Voice-acting wise, more than I can remember! The most exciting of projects for me are some flash animations, a few fandubs...I think the Fighter4Luv Sailormoon fandub is the one that has gotten me the most attention, oddly enough. You'd think that with all the Stars fandubs around there, this wouldn't be such a big deal, but even the old Sailor Moon voice actors are talking about it.

 

As for the project I am most excited about...hmm, that's a good question. Twin Stars with Kung-Fu Action Theatre is really fun, and I'm hoping that Morgan Barnhart's "Dodging Raindrops" will be reaching its conclusion soon. I'm really looking forward to seeing how that wraps up.

I think what I mentioned earlier is the best advice I would like to see taken to heart. Also, accept help when it's offered, and cherish it. Had I not gotten the attention from others I had received in my earlier days, I would not be doing what I do, nor would I want to. There is a bit of competition, but there is a place for everyone in voice-acting, be it rising to the fame of Rob Paulsen or whoever, right down to using your skill to read to the elderly and children. You have been given a gift, use it selflessly.

 

 

Mippa has voice over demos available at her voices.com and can be e-mailed at mippachan[at]gmail.com