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This month’s interview is with Thomas Himinez, who is the producer of Tigers’ Quest. The series is about the survival of two Royal Bengal tigers. The official website, tigersquest.com, has information about the story, characters, and voice actors. He is also the script editor of the Doctor Who audio dramas at dwad.net.
1. What was the first project that you were involved in (either as a producer or voice actor)? Ooh, that was a long time ago. I believe it was a radio adaption of The Hand. I remember having to be choked to death...more than once. I think that was way, way back in 1974. Boy, I’ve been in this business a long time! 2. Are there more voice actors who are willing to join your projects now, compared to your first few projects? Oh yes. Our list of actors has grown immensely. We generally send out casting notices to three places: one to our own Call Board and two to the other well known VA boards. For the big professional productions, we also cast from Voice123. 3. Do you have any voice actors who, although you are paying them to voice your characters, would not accept their payment? If so, then where does that money go? Every once in a while, for Doctor Who anyway, we do get an actor who doesn’t cash the cheque. They frame it, as it generally represents their first professional job. That money simply stays in the kitty and is used for future productions. I’ll bet you were expecting something like “We donate it to charity”. Nope. We’re so broke, we’re a charity case unto ourselves. :) On the other hand, for productions by Everlasting Films, Tigers’ Quest, Kingdom of Syree, the law requires that the actors be paid, so we’ll chase them down and make sure it gets cashed. I’m sure the question nagging at the back of your mind is, what law am I referring to? When you have a contract between any two people, each side must receive something or the contract is void. In the case of an actor and a production company, the production company receives acting services and the actor receives compensation. You can not have a contract where an actor works for free. That isn’t legal. They have to receive something in return or there is no contract. And that ends our legal lesson for today.
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4. Was there an increase of payment from your early projects to your current ones? Yes, we did bump up the pay a bit. It still ends up being a token payment, but we did see a bit of an increase. And again, it depends on what the production is. SegalChord Productions, which does Doctor Who, pays very little because it’s more of a “for fun” project, while Everlasting Films pays more because those are professionally released productions. 5. What is the reason behind releasing your projects in real media format, not mp3 format? We add video title sequences which can not be done in mp3. Also, we actually do have mp3 versions now which you can find on Apple’s iTunes. Those are released one month after they appear in Real Media format on the Doctor Who Audio Dramas website. 6. How did you develop your skills as a producer? Did you have a mentor or did you just learn them by yourself? Oh how I wished I had a mentor. This was all self-taught. But it was taught over a number of years. I’d shudder to think of anyone trying to do this with no experience. It’s overwhelming. It’s almost a full time job. Fortunately I have that luxury, most people do not. 7. How much of your free time (in terms of percentage) do you spend on making your productions? Has that percentage increased or decreased, comparing your early projects to the ones that you are making right now? Oh, overwhelmingly it has increased over the years. Like I said, it’s pretty much a full-time job now. Between writing, producing one show, post-producing another, pre-production on a third, there is no free time in the day. Fortunately, I have a business which runs by itself and makes my income, so I get to stay at home and do what I enjoy. Nice work if you can find it. God has blessed me and that is what I get to do. 8. How strict are you when casting your voice actors? Depends on the production. For Doctor Who we try to be a bit liberal. The acting or accent can slip, the audio quality doesn’t have to quite be on par. We understand there are a lot of people new to the world of acting and recording, so we use this to help them get experience. For Everlasting Films, though, we are a lot stricter. Except for very, very minor audio problems, we’ll bounce an audition. Which is why I constantly tell actors to “audition their own auditions”. You’d be surprised how many times an actor will send an audition that has horrible hiss or other noise, or an echo that sounds like they recorded in a tunnel, or some other huge problem. And it isn’t only the “amateurs” who do this. At Voice123, people pay $300 to sign up for these service, so these people are trying to break into the business. And even they turn in duff auditions. So I can not emphasise this enough: Listen to your own audition before sending them in. If you can hear it, we most
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