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Chandan Roy Sanyal: Mental exhaustion working on audio format is higher
Chandan Roy Sanyal opens up about staring a new chapter of career by lending voice to a podcast series
Chandan Roy Sanyal has started a new chapter of career by lending voice to a podcast series, and the actor says he found working on the audio format in the entertainment space more mentally exhausting.
“What happens when you’re on a visual medium, when you’re doing a scene, it’s done over a period of probably the whole day. We start a movie, do the scene over and over again. And here (in the audio medium) what happens, I think the mental exhaustion is way higher than when you’re on a set doing a certain character with other actors,” Sanyal tells us, adding, “Because there is a visual cue to it. There’s a certain muscle memory involved in responding to situations, like when someone walks towards you, you can see it happening and time your response accordingly”.
The actor has lent his voice for podcast series Wastelanders: Wolverine for the character of Crossbones.
Explaining further, the Aashram actor shares, “In the audio medium, it’s all in the dark, so to speak. You solely rely on what you hear through your headphones. You have to imagine yourself in various environments, a vast ship, a dense forest, reacting to unseen threats like someone descending from the sky or dogs chasing you. Every detail, from footsteps to rustling leaves, exists only in sound. While you’re recording it, your voice gets tired and there is also exhaustion for the mind”.
“The mental strain of conjuring up these scenarios is quite taxing. I remember feeling mentally exhausted after just a few hours of recording sessions. Voice acting requires intense mental engagement, as you’re constantly visualising and responding to imagined situations, adjusting your speech, tonality, throw and pitch, everything,” he says.
For Sanyal, who has been part of several big and small films since 2006, days spent doing theatre helped him cope up with the challenge.
“Since my journey began on stage with theatre, that is something that really excites me, and then obviously I got introduced to another medium, cinema. When you grow up, everybody watches cinema, but to experience as an actor, getting used to the camera, the lenses, the lighting, the costume design, the production design, it’s a whole new world to watch a film which changed while I was experiencing cinema as an actor. So now this is my new medium (audio), which I just experienced two months back. I’m excited about this medium. I’ve spent enough time on stage or in front of the camera to understand that world. This (audio) world also I would like to know more about and master,” he says.
