New York Anime Fest - Corinne Orr and
Peter Fernandez - 2007
Corinne Orr was in radio plays with William Shatner in
Montreal. Peter Fernandez was dubbing foreign films in New York. With a
small group of actors, they were part of the birth of anime dubbing,
making the English-language versions of 1960's TV series such as Astro
Boy, Marine Boy, Gigantor and Speed Racer. Decades after Orr voiced
Trixie and all of Speed Racer's female roles and Fernandez had the
roles of Speed and Racer X, the series has not lost its appeal,
remaining a cable TV mainstay that is set for a live-action feature
film release in 2008. "It's about cars, and most kids have played with
cars," Fernandez said when asked about the series' continuing
popularity. Orr replied, "I played with dolls." Fernandez went on to
note that the lead characters make up a family of sorts, and viewers
can easily tell that "They care about each other. That gives it (Speed
Racer) a dimension above all others." The nature of Speed Racer's fast
paced dub, similar to the sort of quick patter from 1940's movies, came
from the practical challenges of dubbing the show. While modern dubbers
use computers and can stretch and compress lines to match onscreen
action, the 1960's practice was to record individual lines of dialogue
on loops of film containing each line and edit the film together - the
source of the film production term "looping" as a synonym for dubbing.
Fernandez wrote the dub scripts from bare outlines - he
didn't have the
luxury of the detailed, annotated translations used by today's dubbers
- and he had to make up all of the character names. The acting style in
Speed Racer was that of the 1960's, combined with the characters'
onscreen mouth movements. Fernandez, used to dubbing foreign-language
live-action shows where he had to match mouth movements, was faced with
the Japanese animation practice where mouths opened and closed rapidly
without making vowel shapes. "There are only three letters in the
English language where you close your mouth (N, B and P). I had to
write a lot of dialogue for those flippy mouths," Fernandez explained.
The waves of dialogue meant a special challenge for Speed Racer's
small, four-person dub cast. "You needed a lot of breath and yo had to
memorize a lot of lines," Orr recalled. "We loved it and we all got
along so well." Fernandez even had to write English-language lyrics for
the series theme, changing "Mach-a go-go-go" to "Go Speed Racer Go." He
still gets small royalty checks for the lyrics, although Fernandez
mentioned that the makes more money recording grocery store commercials
for radio. The new Speed Racer feature film is going to mean more
attention for the dub cast members; watch for Fernandez' bit role in
the movie as a race track announcer in a porkpie hat.
Corinne Orr was in radio plays with William Shatner in
Montreal. Peter Fernandez was dubbing foreign films in New York. With a
small group of actors, they were part of the birth of anime dubbing,
making the English-language versions of 1960's TV series such as Astro
Boy, Marine Boy, Gigantor and Speed Racer. Decades after Orr voiced
Trixie and all of Speed Racer's female roles and Fernandez had the
roles of Speed and Racer X, the series has not lost its appeal,
remaining a cable TV mainstay that is set for a live-action feature
film release in 2008. "It's about cars, and most kids have played with
cars," Fernandez said when asked about the series' continuing
popularity. Orr replied, "I played with dolls." Fernandez went on to
note that the lead characters make up a family of sorts, and viewers
can easily tell that "They care about each other. That gives it (Speed
Racer) a dimension above all others." The nature of Speed Racer's fast
paced dub, similar to the sort of quick patter from 1940's movies, came
from the practical challenges of dubbing the show. While modern dubbers
use computers and can stretch and compress lines to match onscreen
action, the 1960's practice was to record individual lines of dialogue
on loops of film containing each line and edit the film together - the
source of the film production term "looping" as a synonym for dubbing. 
Fernandez wrote the dub scripts from bare outlines - he
didn't have the
luxury of the detailed, annotated translations used by today's dubbers
- and he had to make up all of the character names. The acting style in
Speed Racer was that of the 1960's, combined with the characters'
onscreen mouth movements. Fernandez, used to dubbing foreign-language
live-action shows where he had to match mouth movements, was faced with
the Japanese animation practice where mouths opened and closed rapidly
without making vowel shapes. "There are only three letters in the
English language where you close your mouth (N, B and P). I had to
write a lot of dialogue for those flippy mouths," Fernandez explained.
The waves of dialogue meant a special challenge for Speed Racer's
small, four-person dub cast. "You needed a lot of breath and yo had to
memorize a lot of lines," Orr recalled. "We loved it and we all got
along so well." Fernandez even had to write English-language lyrics for
the series theme, changing "Mach-a go-go-go" to "Go Speed Racer Go." He
still gets small royalty checks for the lyrics, although Fernandez
mentioned that the makes more money recording grocery store commercials
for radio. The new Speed Racer feature film is going to mean more
attention for the dub cast members; watch for Fernandez' bit role in
the movie as a race track announcer in a porkpie hat.
