"When you practice your lines here or even at your houses, remember the 5 C's." Ryoko continued.
"First, it is Clarity. You MUST be clear and easy to understand. Do not mumble! Be sure to practice extremely emotional scenes, because speaking clearly can be more difficult with those."
"Second, it is Cleanliness. Our mouths make weird squishing sounds as they open and close, and as gross as it sounds here, it's even grosser when you actually hear it. Because the microphone is so close to your mouth, you have to practice opening and closing quietly so we don't hear those distracting sounds in the recording."
"Third, it is Consistency. Directors often need just one or two lines changed out of entire paragraphs. You need to be able to deliver your lines almost identically in each take, while only varying up what the director asks to be changed. Although you haven't worked with the animation director yet. He will oversee you guys starting next Wednesday. You guys will have to try to follow his instructions the best you can. I can say for sure that he is a master of his craft, so he knows about anime production like the back of his hand. That's one of the reasons I'm explaining these basic concepts to you all again. If he thinks it is necessary to remind you all about it, I believe in him."?Ryoko said with a confident smile on her face.
Everyone couldn't help but become curious about the animation director, they wondered who it was. As they could see how much Ryoko, their boss, admired the guy. But they didn't have much time to delve into the subject before Ryoko started talking again.
"Fourth, it is Connection. You must connect with the story and the character to avoid coming off flat. Make sure you're deeply connected to the emotional core of the text and really FEEL the emotions. The more you feel, the more engaging your voice will be! I know you guys already read the light novel, so I'm aware that you guys are aware of this point and concept."
"And finally, in fifth place, is Control. The more control you have over your voice, the better. Whether that takes the shape of being able to control your breathing to deliver long, emotional passages, or it takes the form of being able to control your accent or do character voices, the more control of your voice you have, the further you'll go as a voice actor."
"These concepts may be old news for the experienced ones among you, but good things are always important to be remembered." Ryoko said with a light smile.
Experienced voice actors like Laura and Kimi nodded in agreement with her statement, although they subconsciously knew these concepts because of their vast experience. Sometimes it was good to be remembered of them.
While the less experienced voice actors had thoughtful faces as they digested what they just heard.
Although most of them frequented voice acting classes before, they were nothing like working in anime production.
Working in an anime production demanded much more than they had done in the voice classes. The two cases couldn't be compared at all.
Nana, as the rookie without any experience, felt much more than others. The other voice actors were already somewhat used to process, but everything was new for Nana.
Early on she already noticed that practicing her voice during an acting class was vastly different than performing during an anime production.
Even though she would only perform a side character in the anime, she still had so many things to do!
She had to perform lengthy research on her character, she had to practice for hours in search of the best voice for her character, she had to try to create an emotional connection with her character, she had to try to follow the instructions of the production team, long story short, she had so many things to do in the last week that she didn't stop working even when she went back home.
Only after going through this process for a week that Nana understood why the studio wanted her to practice her skills in the [SAO] Anime Production as a side character before she assumed the main role of their next anime.
Nana had to admit that she was severely lacking in experience. That's why she started to admire her seniors even more.
Especially Laura and Kimi, the two of them had the main roles in the anime. This meant that their workload was exponentially higher than Nana's, who only had a side character. After all, it was their voices that would bring life to the main characters of the story they wanted to tell.
Nana was deeply grateful to them because even with their busy schedule and workload, they still took time to answer her questions and doubts.
She tried to not disturb them too much, so she only searched for them when she realized that she wouldn't be able to solve the problem alone.
With a hardworking mentality and with her sempais' help, Nana was able to improve her skills little by little with each day that passed.
She hoped that when she finished working in this anime production, she would be ready to assume the responsibility to be the main star of an anime.
Only after observing Laura and Kimi that she was able to understand how heavy the responsibility of being the main voice actress in production is.
Laura and Kimi worked nonstop each day arriving before she did and leaving the studio much later than her.
She wondered if she would be able to be as good as them when her turn arrived.
"You can ask me anything that you may have doubts about during this time. Don't be shy." Ryoko said with a light chuckle.
There were a lot of things that they wanted to ask, but they knew that Ryoko knew much more about the production, so she had much more knowledge about what they needed to do.
Laura was the first to raise her hand and speak, "Kaichou, I have some doubts about my character."
(Kaichou means 'president' in Yamatese or Japanese)
Ryoko nodded as she said, "Please say it and I'll try to solve your doubts."
"Well, Asuna is a character that meets Kirito..." Laura started to express her doubts.
After she did extensive research on her character, Asuna, she had some doubts about the intention of the character in some situations.
Ryoko, who had received an extensive explanation from Theo about each character, was able to solve Laura's doubts without many problems.
When the others saw that, they didn't waste any more time, and one by one, they started asking Ryoko dozens of questions.
Just like that, their one-hour meeting went down.
Although it was a short meeting, it was an extremely productive meeting.
With Ryoko's help, the voice actors would be able to do a much better job in the following days.
But would they be able to finish before Theo went back to work on Wednesday?