As always, this thread does succeed to illuminate the harsh realities of the business and hit the proverbial nail on the head. Big props to dafool for giving light to the inner workings of the local Philippine animation industry.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...make-ends-meet
After this article came out, I wasn't surprised at all that these people have to juggle even five jobs a day just to pay most of the bills. Good thing
j1m0ne made a more illuminating commentary on that report.
Now, I had some friends in the Philippine VA industry who started out either in the theater, in radio, or came by walk-in auditions. Most of them do admit that they have their hands full, working six hours per episode and several shows per day, and they practically dub almost everything -- anime, standard US cartoons, soap operas for TV networks -- and sometimes do some outsourcing work for minor games, advertising agencies and telecom industries. Of course the money isn't easy, and some of them do freelance, others are attached to a specified agency or television network. There at least some more I know of who sometimes join a theater troupe, appear in a magazine (like some AV :lol: ), or be an extra in a live-action feature, or even star in a TV ad. :lol:
But still they run into problems: tight deadlines, errors in the script, little or no details on how the story would flow, translation problems, and occasionally an errant voice actor does not work well with his/her fellows in the sound booth. It really pisses them off sometimes that the TV network cancels the show they worked on very hard.
I believe that the VAs here have different and perhaps better arrangements in their contracts with the broadcasters, and recently they've just set up a non-profit guild for themselves. Local fans are also beginning to give recognition to these voice actors, and I'll not be surprised if a fan club springs in the midst.
Strangely, given the disparity in economic conditions (lower wages are common here in the Philippines, but costs of living in Japan are higher, of course), and despite that the hardcore pro-sub "purists" insult them on the net on the daily basis, Filipino VAs seem to be better off and living simpler lifestyles than their Japanese counterparts, judging from the pictures they have on their Friendster accounts.