When
Scott Houle was the preferred dub producer for AnimEigo, he developed a
troupe of actors from the theater and film world around Wilmington,
North Carolina. Now, Houle has moved to the Phoenix Post ADR studio in
the Carolinas, and now is creating the Miami Guns dub for Anime Nation.
A new location means a new troupe of dub actors, and Houle brought four
Miami Guns cast members to Animazement. On the left is Charles Dee Rice,
who plays the bombastic police chief in the dub. "I really came up with
him during my first audition," Rice said. "It was really a matter of
seeing him on the screen and hearing some basic backstory on him (the
idea is that the chief yells out orders that the lazy police officers
ignore). It was a lot of fun to come up with him, there were a lot of
different concepts melded together." The line "We're Miami cops and
we've got guts" gets used a lot by Rice. Theatrical actor Nicole B.
Gibson (right) plays Yao, who is "...extremely energetic and
self-absorbed - some of my friends say it's type-casting. She's got a
lot of energy - it's a been a ball" to play that character.
Crystal
Waters (left) plays Nagisa, "A rich, very spoiled brat - and she wants
to be a princess. Probably my two favorite episodes would be number
three with the locker room - you can leave that up to your own
imagination - and number nine, it's really cool." Mary Evans' Kaken
character is the opposite. "It's just me running around. I have a very
dry character and I can be antisocial. She sometimes doesn't get it -
she looks smart, but she's not people smart. she can be a riot because
of that. Then there's another side of her, sunning on the beach and
having a good time. She had a real personality." All of these actors
developed their characters through Houle's techniques, which are
different from other dub directors. Often, dub actors won't get a
script or a look at the original animation until they walk into the
studio for a dub session. Houle prepares the script in advance and
gives it to the actors, along with a video recording of the original
show, wanting the actors to view the show in advance and rehearse
before they start recording their lines.
Some
efficiency is needed to finish an anime dub, but Houle feels it's
possible to work too fast. "We don't do `two takes, that its it.' We go
over it and over it until we have what we call `the pad,' then we being
people in for individual sessions to tighten things up. It's expensive
but it's not the point. Five years down the road, people will still
like it." Translation and script adaptation is Houle's other major
challenge. He's found that "There's no such thing as a direct
translation between Japanese and English." How? Houle said he
commissioned three top translators were to help with an anime scene,
and "All three translations were totally different with totally
different words...the thing that was significant was that all of the
translations meant the same thing. The stories were the same, the words
were different." Even where a translation tells a good story, the
script has to fit a character's on-screen lip flaps, and Houle has
found that even the best translations don't fit at first, usually
coming up short. That's when rewriting and adaptation starts, a process
that always needs to "...tell that original creator's story to a new
audience, exactly as he perceived that story. We can not change that
story. If you start throwing in your own private jokes because you
think they're funny, you've failed."
When
Scott Houle was the preferred dub producer for AnimEigo, he developed a
troupe of actors from the theater and film world around Wilmington,
North Carolina. Now, Houle has moved to the Phoenix Post ADR studio in
the Carolinas, and now is creating the Miami Guns dub for Anime Nation.
A new location means a new troupe of dub actors, and Houle brought four
Miami Guns cast members to Animazement. On the left is Charles Dee Rice,
who plays the bombastic police chief in the dub. "I really came up with
him during my first audition," Rice said. "It was really a matter of
seeing him on the screen and hearing some basic backstory on him (the
idea is that the chief yells out orders that the lazy police officers
ignore). It was a lot of fun to come up with him, there were a lot of
different concepts melded together." The line "We're Miami cops and
we've got guts" gets used a lot by Rice. Theatrical actor Nicole B.
Gibson (right) plays Yao, who is "...extremely energetic and
self-absorbed - some of my friends say it's type-casting. She's got a
lot of energy - it's a been a ball" to play that character.
Crystal
Waters (left) plays Nagisa, "A rich, very spoiled brat - and she wants
to be a princess. Probably my two favorite episodes would be number
three with the locker room - you can leave that up to your own
imagination - and number nine, it's really cool." Mary Evans' Kaken
character is the opposite. "It's just me running around. I have a very
dry character and I can be antisocial. She sometimes doesn't get it -
she looks smart, but she's not people smart. she can be a riot because
of that. Then there's another side of her, sunning on the beach and
having a good time. She had a real personality." All of these actors
developed their characters through Houle's techniques, which are
different from other dub directors. Often, dub actors won't get a
script or a look at the original animation until they walk into the
studio for a dub session. Houle prepares the script in advance and
gives it to the actors, along with a video recording of the original
show, wanting the actors to view the show in advance and rehearse
before they start recording their lines.
Some
efficiency is needed to finish an anime dub, but Houle feels it's
possible to work too fast. "We don't do `two takes, that its it.' We go
over it and over it until we have what we call `the pad,' then we being
people in for individual sessions to tighten things up. It's expensive
but it's not the point. Five years down the road, people will still
like it." Translation and script adaptation is Houle's other major
challenge. He's found that "There's no such thing as a direct
translation between Japanese and English." How? Houle said he
commissioned three top translators were to help with an anime scene,
and "All three translations were totally different with totally
different words...the thing that was significant was that all of the
translations meant the same thing. The stories were the same, the words
were different." Even where a translation tells a good story, the
script has to fit a character's on-screen lip flaps, and Houle has
found that even the best translations don't fit at first, usually
coming up short. That's when rewriting and adaptation starts, a process
that always needs to "...tell that original creator's story to a new
audience, exactly as he perceived that story. We can not change that
story. If you start throwing in your own private jokes because you
think they're funny, you've failed."
