More and more foreigners these days want to live and work in Japan long-term. But there are still a lot of hurdles for foreigners to rent an apartment in Japan. Contracts are almost always in Japanese, or require a lot of up-front fees and guarantors. That's why many foreigners choose Oakhouse share houses to start their life in Japan.

In our 6th Oakhouse resident interview, we spoke with Alec Shea, who lives in Social Residence Hana-Koganei. Alec is from Australia, and works as a freelance voice actor and composer.

We asked Alec about his life and work.

What do you do for work?

I freelance. I mostly get my voice-over offers through Australia, but I have clients all over the world. For example, when I do voice over work for English textbooks, the clients may be a Russian company, or a Japanese company. The reason most of the requests come through Australia is that there are not many freelance English voice talent with an Australian English accent, which is one of my strengths.

Since my work is freelance, my fees are paid into my Australian bank account, so to be specific I actually work in Australia, but I use that money to live in Japan.

I do many things, like compose music for video games, or do voice work for games, anime, and commercials. I also record lines for English textbooks, so there might be a chance that some people studying English in Japan have heard my voice. I can do all the work from my share house room.

You can even do voice recording in the share house?

Yes! When I lived in Australia I had pro studio equipment, but since I just have the share room I don't really need that much specialized equipment. I studied sound engineering in university so I understand room acoustics, so I'm able to still make high-quality recordings. This may be hard to believe, but actually I hold the microphone and mic stand, and cover my head with a blanket. This actually cuts down a lot of unwanted reverb. Recording in a private share room is not the ideal situation, of course, but I make it work!

Of course it's not very comfortable under a blanket, recording lines. But it's not that much of a problem. But there was one time I had to record an Australian audiobook, that was around 4 to 6 hours long, and it took 3 or 4 days, basically holed up in the room with a blanket over my head. Not very fun!

Using the blanket isn't just because it's a cheap option right there; it actually gives you surprisingly good sound quality. So for example, when doing voices for games, you can change the quality of the recording depending on where the character is speaking from. So if the character is in an underground dungeon, the voice my reverberate. But in order to get a basic take from which to work on, you need to record the original line without any reverberation at all. So if I cover myself with a blanket I can do just that. Now, of course you could also spend 10,000 yen on acoustic paneling and line the room with them, but I mean, I already have a blanket. So really, as long as I have a blanket and a quiet environment I can record anywhere.