Metamorphosis

Sir Brian is not our instructor today. I kind of expect that because of what I saw in Facebook that someone from hia family died. So for the second day, it was the ceo of the academy itself, Sir Pocholo Gonzales who became our instructor for today. His work that I am most familiar with is Sanchai's father fron Meteor Garden Taiwanese version. And who doesn't know Meteor Garden right? It is now on Netflix. It was nervewracking. Because our activity for today was to have group radio ad and fairy tale voice acting. We have to write it on our own. And we will record it in a professional recording studio! The two photos were my groupmates. One had a radio jacking experience, one worked with advertising and the old lady is a communication teacher. It looks like I am the most inexperience and neoohyte here. We made a radio ad about an anti-aging moisturizer. I love that one. I acted like an old lady. I don't know if I have done that right. I madr my voice slower and deeper. Idon'r kniw if I have done it right. Our fairy tale version was kind of sloppy though. I guess its because we thought we only have two minutes to narrate rhat. Our story was a about a modern day Cinderella whose characters uses facebook and stuff. But other teams exceeded two minutes mark so they have longer and full bodied stories. I played as an annoying sister. I kind of imitate the voice of a character in Friends. I forgot the name but she has this annoying voice amd I used her catchphrase "Oh My God!!" And I tried to imitate her laugh. I did my best and even of we are.not the best group, I had so much!

So there you go. Last year I told myself that I need a creative outlet to keep me sane. I know I already have photography. I have my blog. But apparently, those were not the one I was looking for. I always wanted to be a performer. I always wanted to feel like I’m somebody else. I want to be the instrument. So I decided to enroll to VoiceWORX. I originally planned to enroll last 2017. I can’t believe I waited for 2 years to push this. Last time, I remember it was because I don’t have enough money. But that was not true even last year. I guess the reason was I am too scatterbrained.  I have many wants. And I am sort of doing many things then get tired of it. I have to go through an emotional breakdown last Christmas season to really figure out what my heart is aching for. I want to perform. Use my voice, my body and soul as channel of feelings. I originally wanted to do theater. As much as I  believe I am not shy, I’m actually self-conscious. So I guess I’ll start with voice acting lessons. It’s still acting minus the pressure of being watched by many and be crazy on what they think I looked like. I could be a queen or witch. I could be a man or the evil. I could be many characters in one show. I could sing too. I’m excited with the possibilities.

The class was 2pm. I was a bit late because I have no sense of urgency. I woke 11 am but I have to eat and watch few episodes of “Friends” in Netflix. It was 1 pm already when I woke up from procrastination. By then I have no time to take a bath. Because if I did, I’ll be super duper late. So I decided not to take a bath. Don’t judge me. I have no choice!

Thank God it was easy to book a grab. I was only for about 10 minutes late. To tell you the truth, I was not that impressed on how the establishment looked. It doesn’t looked like there is a “school” in the outside. The building is so old. The paint is rusty and the metal in the windows are rusty. It was like a building of dust. I need to ask someone from the outside on where is the entrance for the VoiceWorx school. He pointed to this dark alley. I was scared and I don’t know if I should go on anymore. I saw a door and still it doesn’t look like a school. It was creepy looking dor. When you open it, it leads to a staircase which still does not look like it houses a school in there. But of couorse I enetered and then on the second floor, there are a lot of animation poster and clippings that are related to voice acting. I calm down now. This really looks like it will not finally lead me to a voice acting school. When I reached another door, it was a reception. Not fancy loooking but there are now computers and some people. A beautiful girl approached me and confirmed that she is Josephine, the secretary of the school. I paid half of my tuition fee then advised me to go to the classroom upstairs.

And yes finally, I got to arrive in the classroom. IThe CEO of the school is there. I recognized him because he is the face of the website and social media of Voiceworx. His name is Pocholo.Gonzales. He is sort of having a get to know session of my classmates there. And they were eight of them already.  All girls. Honestly, I was kind of disappointed because I want boy classmates. I mean in voice acting school, I think its nice that you would be able t interact to a male talent. Just a thought. I took a seat. Sir Pocholo began asking me to introduce myself. Of course. The usual scenario. He also asked me on how did I learn about the school. And why I enrolled. I told him the first paragraph. But the short version of course. I told him I learned about this in Facebook and I really searched for a voice acting school. 

He remarked me that some of my classmates told him that they enrolled because they are bored. If you think about it, in my case, that is true also. I am incredibly bored with my life.

After a while, he told us that he won’t the instructor for today. He’ll appear again at the middle part of the whole course. Our professor for today was a man with an incredibly powerful voice in terms of volume and charm. His name is Brian Mathew Ligsay aka DJ Big Brian. His name suits him well. Physically, he’s tall and he as this commanding aura on him.

This is what he looks like.

He is the voice in LRT2 stations telling people that the train is arriving. Of course he has a lot of work apart from that. But that was the one I was most familiar with. And damn, that voice is really charming. It feels like it belong to a young handsome man. In person, he’s really handsome but not so young anymore.

He told us names from the voice acting industry. And to tell you the truth I know nothing of those names. Unlike in Japan, voice actors is not that popular in the Philippines. But looking on the brighter side, voice actors is not prone to being outdated or “Laos” in Filipino. As long as they have the voice, they can land work. He mentioned a lot of names and the only one that stucked with me is Tit Delly Magpayo. She was a beautiful woman in persomally which radiates even at her old age. She was in icon in this filed. She died while doing her job on the radio. I was so curious that i searched her in the glosious land of internet.

The wikipedia states that:

Fidela Magpayo-Reyes, (October 29, 1920 – September 1, 2008) known as Tiya Dely ("Aunt Dely"), was a Philippine radio broadcasting icon well-loved by generations of listeners and advice-seekers who tuned into her radio counselling programs. She was a pioneer radio broadcaster who debuted in the 1950s, and was among the first wave of broadcasters who popularised Filipino songs as American music still dominated the airwaves following the country's independence from the United States in 1946.[1] 

And she looked like this. Wow, she’s indeed beautiful. And he’s also an actress!

We got a taste of performing when Sir Brian asked us to get an object inside our bag, give that thing a voice, make that thing our best friend and let that thing introduce us. He also made us sing! My classmates are gamem performers and some of them shows potential talent in voice acting already.

What did I do? I pickd up my camera, named her Fuji. I gave my camera a shy small voice. Fuji introduces me as Guresu and told everyone that its because I was fond of Japanese anime’ wchih end up Sir Brian asking me to sing an anime’ song. Good thing I remembered few lines in Kaze no Koe, my favorite ending song of Hunter X Hunter. But my song was so short because I kind ad a mental block on what’s next. But my classmates sang shorter so that’s okay.

But anyway our first class is really not the start of our lessons. That was just getting to know or more like a backgrounder of the voice acting field in the Philippines. We signed a contract of commitment and we had an assignment!

1.  Gargle two times a day. e tbspn Salt + Lukewarm water 

2. No COLD DRINKS.

3. Listen to Radio Televsion Commercials.

4. REad a loud everyday for 20 minutes.

By the way here are my classmates. DJ Big Brian said that we will have more classmates next time because the students in the morning session were 18 and it was too much. I  saw in the facebook account that they were cramped out in the classroom. There were a lot of boys too.  I hope some of them will join us. That would be more exciting to have boys in the class.