In
the spring of 2005, three of the hottest anime series in North American
release were InuYasha, R.O.D the TV and Fullmetal Alchemist. Directors
and producers` from all three of those series were at the same panel
discussion on Project: A-Kon's second day, people familiar to dub fans
and regular visitors to this site - but if you're not familiar with
them, from left to right they're Toshifumi (InuYasha) Yoshida, Taliesin
(R.O.D) Jaffe and Michael (Fullmetal Alchemist) McFarland. Yoshida and
McFarland work on their series a half-continent apart - InuYasha is
dubbed in Vancouver, B.C. while Alchemist is dubbed in Fort Worth - but
their work has something in common. Both InuYasha and Alchemist make
their dub debuts on the Cartoon Network before the episodes are
released on DVD. That gives the directors two chances to review their
dub choices before the shows go to disc. Yoshida and McFarland said
they pay close attention to the cablecast dub episodes of their series
- and fan reaction to those dubs - and use those observations to decide
if they will rework actors' lines for the DVD releases.
However,
producer Yoshida knows that he'll never win over some self-styled
expert anime fans. He told of an example where an InuYasha episode on
the Cartoon Network cablecast was shown on a TV screen at the Nan Desu
Kan convention in Colorado. "When it was over people started ragging on
it," Yoshida recalled. "I asked them what part they didn't like. They
said `I just didn't like it in English.' " "I'll work on that" was
Yoshida's reply to those fans. "You have to do your best to do an
adaptation of a popular show. Hopefully you don't piss off two many
people." Yoshida calls upon a select group of Vancouver actors to
perform in his dubs, actors who handle several projects at once and
stay so busy that they usually read lines "cold" with a minimum of
preparation. That kind of rush-and-read style is second nature to the
best of the Vancouver performers, but others have trouble getting it
right. Yoshida recalled the time when an actor, frustrated with his
inability to match his character's onscreen mouth movements, "...took
his headphones off and said `I can either match the flaps or act.' We
finished the session and we recast (replaced) him that same day."
Yoshida is an admitted non-actor among this group...
...while McFarland has an acting and musical background. "It seems like
the directors who have acted before have a better line of
communications," said McFarland. "They're used to taking directions. I
know what I would like to be told and how I would respond - you learn
how to get to the meat faster. There are very successful directors who
don't have a background in acting. My experience is that people who
aren't involved in acting have a hard time at first. They either sink
or swim - sometimes they work out to be pretty good." Directing an
anime series sounds like a teaching job, in that you can get away with
staying one lesson ahead of your class, or keeping one episode ahead of
your actors so you can guide them through their characters' changes.
McFarland doesn't want to play that game. "I also research everything
I'm working on. If I'm working on a show, I try to get as much
background as possible so I'm not blowing smoke." Some of that research
comes online, but the best research comes from the original Japanese
writers and producers of a series...
...and Jaffe has been extremely grateful that the R.O.D producers have
gone so far to let him know everything about that series. "I got a big
bunch of notes from the original creators. I ask them if there was
anything they'd like us to do, and I got this huge letter of background
notes on the series." Jaffe said the R.O.D original producers also
asked him, through the dub, to clear up some of the lingering questions
from the original Read or Die OVA series. One of the challenges faced
by Jaffe was the need, imposed by the people in charge above him, to
select a new voice cast for the series, especially the holdover
characters from the original OVA's. In casting the TV series' lead,
Jaffe wanted to get a contrast in voices for the four main female
leads. One of the best actors on the West Coast, known for her young
voices, auditioned for one of the series-long lead roles. However, Jaffe
decided to cast against her recent roles and gave that actor the role
of an older character who doesn't appear until the mid-point of the TV
series. That character goes through some major changes in the series'
second half and plays a pivotal point in the final episodes. Jaffe also
chose to cast child actors in the roles of children in the dub, again
to show a dramatic contrast between the childrens' roles and the adult
roles. The result pays off in a first-class dub, but it's not easy.
"Working on R.O.D is like living with a very intelligent celebrity
girlfriend who wonders why you want to go out with your friends on
occasion," Jaffe joked.
In
the spring of 2005, three of the hottest anime series in North American
release were InuYasha, R.O.D the TV and Fullmetal Alchemist. Directors
and producers` from all three of those series were at the same panel
discussion on Project: A-Kon's second day, people familiar to dub fans
and regular visitors to this site - but if you're not familiar with
them, from left to right they're Toshifumi (InuYasha) Yoshida, Taliesin
(R.O.D) Jaffe and Michael (Fullmetal Alchemist) McFarland. Yoshida and
McFarland work on their series a half-continent apart - InuYasha is
dubbed in Vancouver, B.C. while Alchemist is dubbed in Fort Worth - but
their work has something in common. Both InuYasha and Alchemist make
their dub debuts on the Cartoon Network before the episodes are
released on DVD. That gives the directors two chances to review their
dub choices before the shows go to disc. Yoshida and McFarland said
they pay close attention to the cablecast dub episodes of their series
- and fan reaction to those dubs - and use those observations to decide
if they will rework actors' lines for the DVD releases.
However,
producer Yoshida knows that he'll never win over some self-styled
expert anime fans. He told of an example where an InuYasha episode on
the Cartoon Network cablecast was shown on a TV screen at the Nan Desu
Kan convention in Colorado. "When it was over people started ragging on
it," Yoshida recalled. "I asked them what part they didn't like. They
said `I just didn't like it in English.' " "I'll work on that" was
Yoshida's reply to those fans. "You have to do your best to do an
adaptation of a popular show. Hopefully you don't piss off two many
people." Yoshida calls upon a select group of Vancouver actors to
perform in his dubs, actors who handle several projects at once and
stay so busy that they usually read lines "cold" with a minimum of
preparation. That kind of rush-and-read style is second nature to the
best of the Vancouver performers, but others have trouble getting it
right. Yoshida recalled the time when an actor, frustrated with his
inability to match his character's onscreen mouth movements, "...took
his headphones off and said `I can either match the flaps or act.' We
finished the session and we recast (replaced) him that same day."
Yoshida is an admitted non-actor among this group...
...while McFarland has an acting and musical background. "It seems like
the directors who have acted before have a better line of
communications," said McFarland. "They're used to taking directions. I
know what I would like to be told and how I would respond - you learn
how to get to the meat faster. There are very successful directors who
don't have a background in acting. My experience is that people who
aren't involved in acting have a hard time at first. They either sink
or swim - sometimes they work out to be pretty good." Directing an
anime series sounds like a teaching job, in that you can get away with
staying one lesson ahead of your class, or keeping one episode ahead of
your actors so you can guide them through their characters' changes.
McFarland doesn't want to play that game. "I also research everything
I'm working on. If I'm working on a show, I try to get as much
background as possible so I'm not blowing smoke." Some of that research
comes online, but the best research comes from the original Japanese
writers and producers of a series...
...and Jaffe has been extremely grateful that the R.O.D producers have
gone so far to let him know everything about that series. "I got a big
bunch of notes from the original creators. I ask them if there was
anything they'd like us to do, and I got this huge letter of background
notes on the series." Jaffe said the R.O.D original producers also
asked him, through the dub, to clear up some of the lingering questions
from the original Read or Die OVA series. One of the challenges faced
by Jaffe was the need, imposed by the people in charge above him, to
select a new voice cast for the series, especially the holdover
characters from the original OVA's. In casting the TV series' lead,
Jaffe wanted to get a contrast in voices for the four main female
leads. One of the best actors on the West Coast, known for her young
voices, auditioned for one of the series-long lead roles. However, Jaffe
decided to cast against her recent roles and gave that actor the role
of an older character who doesn't appear until the mid-point of the TV
series. That character goes through some major changes in the series'
second half and plays a pivotal point in the final episodes. Jaffe also
chose to cast child actors in the roles of children in the dub, again
to show a dramatic contrast between the childrens' roles and the adult
roles. The result pays off in a first-class dub, but it's not easy.
"Working on R.O.D is like living with a very intelligent celebrity
girlfriend who wonders why you want to go out with your friends on
occasion," Jaffe joked.
