00:08In Macross, I play the role of Hikaru Ichijo.
00:13I played Roy Falker.
00:16I know there's a joke there, just let it go.
00:19I play Commander Bruno J. Global.
00:24Roy is the senpai to the hero.
00:28To get the chance to play Hikaru has been a real pleasure.
00:32The first thing I saw was the wavy blonde hair.
00:35He wears a big white hat, like a white sailor's cap and a big blue jacket.
00:39I want to put that on.
00:41Unorthodox, a little kooky.
00:42He's a lot of fun. He's a fighter pilot.
00:45He's a bit bratty.
00:46He's part Italian.
00:47No, no, no.
00:48He's Italian, actually.
00:49He's from Dallas.
00:50He's a bit...
00:51Bit of a bumbling character.
00:53Immature.
00:54Probably a football player.
00:56Unorthodox, a little kooky.
00:57But he's got a great attitude.
00:59And he likes to drink his beer.
01:00Which makes him a lot of fun to play.
01:02At first I didn't want to do it.
01:03I'm not sure how I got this role.
01:06Certain amounts of money I need to drive from Austin to Houston.
01:09It's such an enormous privilege to be a part of something that has had such a huge impact.
01:15And this wasn't it.
01:16Been working with Matt Greenfield and ADV.
01:19And he said, I'll make it worth your while if you'll just come and do this bit part.
01:23When I found out that ADV was doing it and got the opportunity to be cast as Hikaru, I was
01:29really excited.
01:30So then I came down and he goes, okay, now here's the real reason why I wanted to bring you
01:34down.
01:35And the neatest thing was...
01:36One day walked into the work and...
01:39There's this show and I was like...
01:41Somebody was talking about Macross and...
01:43Funny thing about this...
01:44Matt turned around and said, and you're global.
01:46A year earlier...
01:4720 years ago.
01:48What's a global?
01:49Living in Houston.
01:51I had met...
01:52Just got out of high school.
01:53This really sweet girl.
01:55Working just a regular schmuck job.
01:57I met her at Anime Weekend Atlanta.
01:59On Channel 39.
02:01I didn't know anything about what she did.
02:03There was the show came on called Robotech.
02:05And I'm not an anime fan, but...
02:07She and I really hit it off because we were both musicians and singers and had a great weekend.
02:12I saw this cartoon and I thought, this is really cool.
02:14I find out a year later...
02:16The story's really good.
02:18ADV is not only doing Macross.
02:20And the thing that I thought of was, boy, I would love to play one of these characters.
02:25But they are hiring the girl who played Minmay in the original series 20 years ago.
02:33I wasn't even thinking about being a voice actor then.
02:35And then I find out the kicker.
02:3720 years later...
02:38It's Mariojima.
02:39I was like...
02:40I was so excited.
02:4220 years later, I get to be Roy Fawker.
02:44I knew her already and I had no idea.
02:46This is awesome.
02:47I knew nothing about Macross.
02:48I knew that Robotech was huge.
02:51Being someone who liked the show when I was younger.
02:54Certainly that Macross was part of that series.
02:58I was on the wrong side of the curve for the Robotechs.
03:03The original Robotech actually took three series and melded them together.
03:08I knew about it, but I wasn't really into it. I didn't...
03:12You know, I was...
03:13We wrote the stories and made it one big story arc.
03:16And that's why they changed some of the names.
03:18Rick Hunter.
03:19I'm sort of an anomaly, I guess.
03:21I'm a...
03:22There are a lot of fans that really wanted the original story.
03:27Um...
03:27An American-English version of the original Macross.
03:31Or an enigma, whatever the word is.
03:32I, uh...
03:33I watched...
03:34I'd watched Johnny Quest over and over and over, you know.
03:36And I never got into new shows.
03:38It's a huge honor.
03:39It's a huge privilege.
03:40It's almost like, uh...
03:42Going back and...
03:43And being able to redo an old classic, you know.
03:47A film classic.
03:48It's really cool to be able to see if we can...
03:52With the limitations of the animation and the music and stuff.
03:58How we can come back and still make it something viable and interesting to watch.
04:02Unfortunately, I can't give you some...
04:04Well, fortunately, I can't give you some long-winded answer about it.
04:08What I find most enjoyable about the work that I do are the fans.
04:14The chicks.
04:16That's...
04:16That's my favorite thing, you know.
04:18The most important thing to me is preserving the character.
04:21Actually, it really is the most rewarding thing.
04:23Because if I would have never gotten into voice acting, I would have never met my wife.
04:27Did he marry her?
04:28I was doing children's theater at the time.
04:30She had just done some roles and...
04:34I thought it looked pretty cool.
04:35And she said, well, if you think you can do it.
04:37After I did my first job, I went, wait a minute.
04:39You know, I went to work in jeans and a t-shirt.
04:42I didn't have to shave.
04:44Ten years later, I've still been doing it.
04:46All the time thinking that, uh...
04:49You know, that's...
04:49This will be my last role.
04:51And Matt seemed to see something that he liked, so...
04:56My two passions merged.
04:59Acting and voice work.
05:00When I go to conventions...
05:04Or I get emails from fans...
05:07To me, that's my favorite part.
05:10It's weird, because a lot of people are, what's the most...
05:13It must be the money.
05:13No, it's definitely not the money.
05:15I made how much?
05:16Wow, I kind of like this.
05:18It's the ability of walking into a booth and having fun with the character.
05:21One thing that I just pray never happens is that...
05:25You know, Hikaru in episode 13 doesn't sound anything like Hikaru in episodes 1 and 2.
05:32When you're in the studio and you do a line, you deliver it...
05:36People actually were watching what I did and liked what I did.
05:40They loved this show or they loved this character.
05:42People go, wow, how do you do that?
05:44I go, well, you know, I just do.
05:45It's just, it's my job.
05:46It really is a charge to know that people like what you do.
05:49They really enjoyed what you did here or they were really moved by what happened here.
05:54Recognition from your peers, affirmation from your...
05:57People that you work with in this business that recognize you as doing something really well.
06:03I think that's the greatest reward you could ever ask for.
06:06It seems like the fans know a whole lot about the process by now.
06:09There's, I believe, a misconception with voice acting.
06:13A lot of fans still don't really understand that we record alone.
06:19You're in a booth, there's a microphone.
06:21There are no other characters in the booth.
06:23You know, I go to the conventions and the people pretty much, they pretty much know what's going on.
06:29It's not just walking in the booth and opening your mouth and letting whatever spew forth, spew forth.
06:36You know, the Japanese do it very differently.
06:39They record together as a group, almost like, imagine like a reader's theater,
06:44where they would stand in a line and somebody steps up and says their line,
06:48and then they step back and somebody steps up and says their line, and they record as an ensemble.
06:53Any really talented actor, when you watch them in the booth, they're not sitting there like this doing their lines.
06:59They're animated, they're acting it out, you know, and it's, you have to be careful not to hit the microphone
07:04and stuff like that.
07:04But they're, they're physicalizing their character, which totally brings it to life on screen, which is so, so important.
07:15And that's why it's exhausting, and you can't sit in a session for four hours at a time and do
07:22this.
07:23We can't do that.
07:24Because they wear themselves out.
07:25The attention to matching the mouth flaps and the attention to the detail of the reads, it would be impractical
07:30to try to record several people at once.
07:32You don't want this to sound like you're just reading words off the script.
07:36There's a little bit of a trickiness to that, that a lot of fans don't really know.
07:42Because much like the camera can detect if you're faking it, the microphone will pick it up as well.
07:51So when you hear an emotional, heart-wrenching scene between characters, and it really sounds like they're talking to each
08:00other, that's completely the magic of the process.
08:07I think the most important thing about voice acting, is about any acting, is that it has to sound like
08:14it's coming from here.
08:15Because they're not together, they're not in the same room, and many times they can't even hear each other.
08:23Whoever records first doesn't have anybody to, to play off of.
08:27That's sometimes a very hard bridge for actors to cross.
08:33So that sense of dialogue needs to be created, completely created.
08:39Once you can get across that bridge and make that leap, it's like, you know, the heavens opened up.
08:44You're like, oh, I see how this is done.
08:46Because it really is, it makes the difference between a great performance which is believable, and a performance that is
08:55not believable, that just sits there.
08:57I think they'd probably be surprised at how hard it would be to make a solid career out of it.
09:06You know, there's so much luck involved, and so much timing.
09:10How much hustling you have to do.
09:12As much as I'd like to believe how wonderful I am, there are plenty of other actors out there who
09:17are just as good, probably a lot better than I am.
09:20If you wanted to not only be successful, but make enough money to actually really make money.
09:29When I'm not directing or acting.
09:31I do a lot of other things professionally besides voice acting.
09:34Yard work.
09:35I'm a professional music composer and producer.
09:38I'm sitting around wishing I were.
09:40I've been doing a lot of stuff lately.
09:42I do a lot of shooting and editing.
09:45Nah.
09:46I have a production company of my own.
09:48Um.
09:49I like to eat.
09:51My degree is actually in film.
09:53I like to eat a lot.
09:55Yard work.
09:57It's a very simple life I lead.
09:59And I also do a lot of graphic design work.
10:01No.
10:01Uh, I've been...
10:03I'd like to say I like to exercise, but that's pretty self evident I don't.
10:07I also am very active at my church.
10:09I love going to shows and seeing a good band that I've never seen before.
10:14I play guitar and...
10:15Play the piano and sing and lead the band.
10:17Uh, I'm becoming really addicted to Guitar Hero for the PlayStation 2.
10:21I'm married.
10:22I have two children with one on the way.
10:24And that's a very, very big part.
10:26A very important part of my life.
10:28I'm a musician myself, so when I have a chance to play, I like doing that.
10:33I love music.
10:35I don't think I could ever just say, okay, I'm just going to be a voice actor.
10:39This is a very crazy business.
10:41My full time job is doing IT work.
10:43It's all about working when you can because you don't know when you're going to work again.
10:46Fixing computers, that kind of thing.
10:48I could never do that to music or video or film or graphic design.
10:52It's a great job to have when your secondary career is voice acting.
10:57There's a lot of tough decisions sometimes to make.
11:00Because I've got the steady money and then I can do the other stuff.
11:03And I'm not so much at the whim of the director.
11:06I wouldn't just want to be a music composer, producer or a singer.
11:10I love voice acting. I love acting. I love video.
11:14Try to just juggle that lifestyle.
11:16I try my best to juggle all of them and kind of keep all the balls in the air at
11:20the same time.
11:21My goal is to get everything, have a restaurant one day where everything comes on a stick.
11:26I'm really happy doing what I'm doing.
11:29I'm really grateful to be able to get the chance to do all of them.
11:33And I don't think I could ever give any one of them up, but I love them all.
11:38I just want to just continue enjoying my life and not being stressed out and worrying about if this person
11:45likes me or this other one.
11:46And I just enjoy my life.
11:48And if the good role comes up, take it and do my best.
11:51Just every time, I just try to do the best job that I can.
11:56And just be in the role instead of going, well, what is this going to do for my career?
12:01I think that's more important.
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