After Jiang Xia gave specific instructions, Meng Xiulian acted quickly, receiving nearly 20 voice actor interview requests in just two days.

There's no way around it; Tom and Jerry is now a nationwide phenomenon, and Qitian Animation's reputation is at its peak. Moreover, this is with restrictions on the job requirements; otherwise, the number of applicants would probably be more than double.

In other words, almost all of these job applicants were locals from Sichuan.

After receiving Meng Xiulian's message, Jiang Xia brought Lin Yanwan to the company.

There were 18 people sitting in the conference room, almost all of them young students. After all, this voice actor recruitment did not require strong professional skills. On the contrary, it valued individual voice and timbre more, the more distinctive the better.

Jiang Xia walked onto the stage and said directly, "I believe everyone has seen Tom and Jerry. The reason why this voice actor recruitment is open to the Sichuan and Chongqing areas is because we plan to make a dialect version. Therefore, in the following dubbing segment, please use your local dialect. There are no specific lines. You need to improvise based on the scene and the character's mood. Don't have too many reservations. Speak freely and say whatever you want."

The group of people looked at each other in bewilderment; this was the first time they had ever encountered such a dubbing requirement.

"Alright, now we'll be selecting the voice actors for Tom and Jerry. In the dialect version, they have a brand new name: Fake Old Man and Windmill."

Jiangxia said this in the Chongqing dialect, and many people smiled knowingly upon hearing it, feeling a strange sense of familiarity.

He nodded to Meng Xiulian, then walked into the recording studio with his wife and signaled to the others that they could begin.

The projector in the recording studio was playing a video of a seemingly experienced womanizer trying to win someone's heart. This was one of the few episodes Jiang Xia could recall in which he could recite the entire script.

However, after interviewing several people, Jiang Xia shook his head. Putting aside the lines, their voices just didn't have the right feel, and they were too uncomfortable dubbing in their local dialects.

Helpless, Jiang Xia even went up and gave the voice actors a live demonstration.

The story begins with a villa surrounded by a wall, with a doghouse in the corner. As the camera slowly zooms in, Jiangxia's Chongqing accent comes through.

"My beloved, my dear, the one I love so much, the one I can't back down from, Chun Chun, I'm looking for you, you old fool."

Just as that sentence ended, the fake shrewd man's head peeked out from outside the courtyard wall, perfectly illustrating his current behavior.

Meng Xiulian was very surprised. Not only was the boss's animation well done, but she didn't expect the voice acting to be so good. Both the demeanor and expression perfectly matched the persona of a fake old-fashioned.

The scene then shifts to inside the villa, where the silhouette of a mother cat putting on makeup is visible through the curtains.

"Wow, Chun Chun is still putting on makeup, how relaxing. Let's sneak in the cello first and take a look."

His humorous tone elicited soft laughter from the audience.

So, the fake old fox sneaked over the courtyard wall and onto the doghouse, where the bulldog, Mundun, was sleeping.

"Hey, Brother Mang is in this pond again." The fake veteran stuck out his butt and looked at the mute, then suddenly woke it up with a whistle.

"Who is it!"

"I, I, I, come out."

Jiang Xia played two roles, leaving everyone else completely bewildered.

However, after finishing this scene, Jiang Xia did not intend to continue. He was merely demonstrating how the voice actors should proceed.

"See? Just like that, describe each shot in words as much as possible. I don't have high requirements. Just bring out the characteristics of your dialect. As for the lines, if we get selected, we can work on them later."

The voice actors nodded. After Jiang Xia's demonstration, the contestants who went up to try dubbing all used various local dialects to improvise on the spot. Laughter often rang out in the recording studio. Only Meng Xiulian was a little confused. She was a local from the capital, and some of the dialect accents sounded like singing. She couldn't understand what they meant at all.

Looking back now, it seems that Jiang Xia entrusted this task to her rather arduous task.

However, after listening to so many people's accents, Jiang Xia was still not satisfied with the choice of the fake experienced one. Instead, Lin Yanwan selected a girl from Chengdu for the windmill, whose voice was very similar to the original.

Until he heard someone say, "Hey! Brother Mang, you should be more civilized. Oh, you've finally escaped!"

Jiang Xia's eyes lit up, and he looked at the young voice actor and asked, "Where are you from?"

"Drip from the middle river."

"You're the one." He made the decision immediately.

This accent isn't just similar to "pretending to be sophisticated," it's practically identical.

Then, Mendun'er chose a chubby boy from Zigong. As for the other characters—Heiwa, Chechefeng, and Big Brother—the choices were relatively random, as they didn't appear often. However, to avoid repeating accents, they still had to be chosen separately.

In just one morning, Jiang Xia had almost finalized the selection of voice actors for the dialect version.

As for the lines, they'll have to write them themselves. Just make them as funny as possible. This might be quite different from the original dialect version, but as long as it's the most distinctive local dialect and the most down-to-earth lines, it can bring joy to the locals.

In short, the matter of the Sichuan dialect version has come to an end, and he can now focus on drawing Slam Dunk. He believes that it won't be long before a brand new version of Tom and Jerry will be on TV.

He felt a strange sense of anticipation.

After leaving the recording studio, Jiang Xia and Li Weiya went to check out the renovations next door.

This is an office of about 200 square meters, and the renovation is nearing completion.

The main issue is that the current office is already almost full. If he wants to expand the team and set up a new project group to produce Slam Dunk, he will have to hire new people, which will make the original office space insufficient.

"Godmother, I'm planning to officially launch the Slam Dunk project. I need your help to recruit another batch of people, about five times the number of the Tom and Jerry project team," Jiang Xia said.

"Are you sure?" Li Weiya frowned slightly.

There are currently 38 people in the company. Even if we exclude unrelated administrative, financial, and maintenance positions, there are still 32 people. Five times that would be more than 160 people.

Jiang Xia nodded. "The workload of Slam Dunk is much greater than that of Tom and Jerry, and the production cycle is also much longer. Tom and Jerry can produce a season in two months, but Slam Dunk can meet the requirement of one episode per month, which is already considered very efficient."

As a veteran in the industry, Li Weiya certainly understands this principle. Generally, a slightly larger animation project involves several hundred people in its production, and the animation cycle can be measured in years.

Compared to that, this number of people is nothing.

"Okay, I'll post the job ad right away."

(End of this chapter)

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