On the Internet, people who praise people for their good looks often use this sentence: “The protagonist of the novel has a face.” Liu Yingjie’s job is to give voices to those two-dimensional characters who live in books and games. Niu Gao, the heroic patriarch of the anime “Douluo Continent”, Doss, the leader of the valley boy group in the game “Dark Zone Breakout”, and even the shouting and killing sounds in many game fighting scenes, all use this young man born in 1997 voice. He has a different understanding of dubbing: this is a process of fully mobilizing the imagination and filling the characters on paper and paintings with emotion, even if he is just a small character in the game.
Pushing open the heavy wooden door is the recording studio that Liu Yingjie is most familiar with. Because of the special sound-absorbing facilities, the recording studio is so quiet that sitting in it can even cause tinnitus. In such a space, Liu Yingjie let the characters jump out of words and pictures, expressing full emotions.
In fact, before opening this door, Liu Yingjie’s work had already started. “For our industry, it is very important for the voice to fit the character. We need to fully understand the plot and grasp the character of the character.” To dub an anime character, Liu Yingjie has to watch the complete episodes more than ten or twenty times in order to fully understand Characters, let the lines blurt out with appropriate emotions in the minutes and seconds limited by the storyboard. Game dubbing usually counts the number of sentences, and there are not many coherent dialogues. Liu Yingjie will still carefully understand the stories that happened to the game characters before dubbing – he has prepared a large number of narrations for “World of Warcraft”. “Only by knowing his experience and ending can he make a sound that fits with it.” This is also Liu Yingjie’s favorite part. He doesn’t play games very much, but he is fascinated by exploring the story background of games.
“Use sound to drive the plot and create dreams for the audience and listeners”, Liu Yingjie said, this is his career orientation.
It is no different from the usual dubbing artist. There is a “degree” for using voice to stick characters. Before the official recording, you must constantly adjust the mouth shape and tone, give a variety of expression possibilities, and then capture the most ideal “degree”. “This is a work that seems to be free to play but is very subtle and precise. There is a saying in the industry that being too real is not art. We provide emotions for the characters, but we cannot be carried away by emotions. We must maintain a gap of one or two points. Rational, and accurately attach the voice to the characters.” When he first entered the industry, the emotional Liu Yingjie was too involved in the production of a radio drama, and couldn’t stop crying for a while. “The voice state is unstable, and the rhythm of dubbing is also disrupted.” He has learned this lesson and has a deeper understanding of the old sayings in the industry.
Most of Liu Yingjie’s dubbing objects stay on the screen or even literally, and there are not many real people. “Real dubbing needs to be more precise, while virtual characters need a lot of imagination. Especially audiobooks, the plot is full of imagination, and the characters are not even human. For this type of script, the voice actor must first fill in the picture with the brain, pause, and Light and heavy sounds, etc. to describe it”, Liu Yingjie called the dubbing of audiobooks “broadcasting”, broadcasting with deduction, and using sound to visualize the details hidden in the text in the minds of the audience, “In this process, important The most important thing is to tell the story clearly and express the characters clearly, whether the voice is beautiful or not is secondary.”
Cheng Yaojin, who broke out halfway, gave it a go for his dream
Liu Yingjie has a baby face, but his voice is deep and deep. He is a rare “big voice” among young people. If you can tell people by their voice, it is hard to imagine that he is under 26 years old. In anime, audiobooks, games, and radio dramas, he’s mostly the voice behind the big, decent characters. Generals, kings, and even kind elders all have emotions through Liu Yingjie’s voice, “live” and enter the world of audiences, listeners, and gamers.
For the dubbing industry, Liu Yingjie is Cheng Yaojin who came out halfway. Because of family reasons, he entered the society very early, worked as a regional manager of a hotel, and worked as a chef in a restaurant. Every job was very different from what he is doing now.
The days are busy, but Liu Yingjie has dreams in his heart. He would practice his lines in the air when he was alone, and even went to the park to complete some emotionally intense scenes that required shouting. The smoky life is not what he wants, and these actions that are not easy to understand support his dream.
After his living conditions improved, Liu Yingjie wanted to do something he really liked. At that time, there happened to be a national dubbing competition, and when he got the news that only the Fujian competition area was open, he hurried to Fujian to sign up for the competition and produce voice works. Liu Yingjie didn’t know how far he could go on this road and whether it was suitable for him, but for his dream, he chose to give it a go.
There are many major students competing in the same field, and the sound conditions are very good. Liu Yingjie didn’t expect that he won the first place in the competition area surrounded by experts, and opened the door of the industry since then. Looking back, he felt that it was the pyrotechnics left on him by years of social experience that helped him.
“For dubbing to keep people out of the show, you need to use real voices.” Liu Yingjie’s dubbing has always been life-like and down-to-earth. It’s not real life if you have a full voice and a sound on the ground. The voice is a little vague, and it feels right when you yell it out. “And these all need observation in life.”
Observing life, observing real characters and their voice changes when expressing certain emotions is an important homework in Liu Yingjie’s life. Whenever he is free, he looks for an opportunity to “listen to the booth” and learn from his predecessors; dramas and movies are his “stealing teachers”; In Liu Yingjie’s view, skills, like voice, are used to support emotions and add color to characters.
No matter how intense the inner emotions are, the limbs and seats cannot make a sound
Statistics show that from 2012 to 2021, the scale of online literary works in my country has increased from more than 8 million to more than 32 million. The prosperity of online literature, people’s need for a short break in the virtual world and the desire for “accompanying voices” have given the dubbing profession a broader space for development and also called for more fresh blood to enter the industry. In the large and small dubbing studios in Shanghai, there are many newcomers in the industry like Liu Yingjie.
Although the content of dubbing is popular among young people nowadays, the process of dubbing will inevitably dissuade many young people on a whim. “This is a job that needs to be calm and patient,” Liu Yingjie said. Voice actors often laugh at themselves as “shed bugs”, going in and out of the shed, and not seeing the sun. Sitting in the recording studio, no matter how intense the individual emotions are, the limbs and seats must not make a little sound-the requirements for dubbing are almost harsh, and even swallowing saliva will affect the quality and progress of dubbing.
But Liu Yingjie loves this job. He enjoys the process of being full of characters, and is also fascinated by the experience brought to him by this profession-different time and space dimensions and fantasy experiences. Under the guidance of the voice, he has experienced all of them, “I was even surrounded by two non-carbon-based creatures. I was moved by my emotions, and I felt my own heartbeat at that moment.”
What makes Liu Yingjie the happiest is that this career allows him to hear the familiar voice from childhood ringing in his ears again. Because of work, he often goes in and out of Shanghai Translation Factory, “Mr. Liu Feng and Mr. Cheng Yuzhu who dubbed the animation “Journey to the West”, Mr. Wang Xiaobing who dubbed “Ice Age” and Mr. Zhang Xin who dubbed “Ultraman Tiga” …” Mentioning the names of these great seniors, Liu Yingjie is like a treasure, and their voices used to weave one dream after another for him as a child. Today, Liu Yingjie has also become a “sound dreamer”. Once a child left a message under his dubbing work and was inspired by the voice of the character. He thought of himself sitting next to the TV when he was a child.
“Buzz” is Liu Yingjie’s WeChat nickname, after “Buzz Lightyear”. This is a character that brings joy to children, and it is also the character name of an important work since Liu Yingjie entered the industry. In that work, the opponent actor is Liu Beichen, a senior dubber whom he admires very much.
Being able to bring happiness and dreams to people together with the voice of childhood, Liu Yingjie cherishes his own value.
author:Liu Liyuan
Editor: Shi Wei
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