Chapter 246 - GGain Characteristics by Coincidence, Gain Skills by Force (1/2)

Maybe because he’d spent too much time in the recording studio, or something else entirely, but Meng Fan had grown accustomed to rehearsing in an enclosed space.

The set was well-equipped for recording and it even had a recording studio — a large one filled with a lot of people. It was not possible to herd everyone else out just so Meng Fan could practice by himself.

After asking an employee, Meng Fan headed inside an empty breakroom and shut himself in to practice.

Although there was no dubbing equipment, Meng Fan had his live stream assistant and black magic earbuds. With them, he could monitor and control the status of his voice at any time.

“The Message” was a group scene. Meng Fan had to dub seven roles: two women and five men.

Meng Fan picked up the live stream assistant and played the scene again. He’d seen the movie before, but that was a long time ago. He had to familiarize himself with the characters so he could find their uniqueness.

Out of the seven roles, six of them didn’t use the original audio track. Only Alec Su’s role of Bai Xiaonian used the original audio. All six voice actors had been top tier in the industry, and they were able to pick up the attractive qualities of all six actors and their roles. There was a deliberate attempt to imitate the voices of the six actors, which Meng Fan naturally was not able to do. He skipped ahead to look for the distinct characteristics of each role. Although he couldn’t imitate their voices directly, he could still rely on the actors’ original sound.

Meng Fan was able to capture the beauty of Gu Xiaomeng, played by Zhou Xun, while also incorporating her emotion and malice. Meng Fan also captured the coldness of Li Ningyu, played by Li Bingbing, while adding a hint of patience and wisdom. For Yan Zhiguo, played by Zhang Hanyu, Meng Fan managed to depict an iron-like coldness on the surface, yet a stubbornness emanating from his bones…

Bai Xiaonian, played by Alec Su, was an extraordinary character that was the hardest to grasp. He had to encapsulate his femininity, simplicity, and his rashness, as well as his subtle stupidity. It was slightly difficult. When Meng Fan watched the movie, he had been genuinely surprised by Alec Su’s acting skills. Su had successfully performed the fragile role of Bai Xiaonian.

The characteristics of Takeda, played by Huang Jiaozhu, was the easiest to express. All he had to do was use a Japanese accent while delivering the original Japanese lines. As for Meng Fan, Japanese was not an issue.

As for the two roles played by Wang Zhiwen and Ying Da, Meng Fan decided it was best to follow the original script.

After watching the scene once, Meng Fan extracted all seven roles and rehearsed them individually. Afterwards, with his +8 Voice Acting skill and +8 Voice Appeal, he found no problem in the output of emotional energy and consistency. It was simple to just use his vocal range to imitate the original sounds of the actors.

For voice acting, imitation was just the starting point. Sculpting a character with your voice was the ultimate goal.

It didn’t take long for him to familiarize himself with all seven roles. He then began to practice transitioning between the characters. When this was done, he rehearsed alongside the scene from the film. By then, it had smoothly flowed out like water on stone.

He was basically done after running through it twice to get used to the technicalities of several characters speaking at once.

Would he remember all the lines?

Meng Fan had a decent memory, but what’s more important is that he had his black magic equipment: He didn’t have to memorize anything. Of course, there would be a prompt screen on the recording set, and he could even directly read off the script if he wanted.

After running through it again and confirming its smoothness, Meng Fan fixed a few knots and decided to stop rehearsing altogether.

He switched to the scene from “Da Zhai Men” that had several people speaking at once. However, most of the characters only spoke one or two lines and were not important to the main plot. Meng Fan was able to select four characters to dub: Bai Jingqi played by Chen Baoguo, Bai Yingyu played by Liu Peiqi, Wang Xiguang played by Lei Kesheng, and Eighth Uncle Yu played by Li Xue Jian. All of them were well-known experienced actors in the industry.

There was a lot of pressure on Meng Fan to dub this scene.

It didn’t take long for him to complete “The Message,” but after an hour or so of rehearsing “Da Zhai Men,” Meng Fan was still unsatisfied.