Forum - View topicAnswerman - Setting Fire To Your Dreams Since 2013
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PurpleWarrior13
 Posts: 2024 |
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I got stuck with an awful Phillips DVD player that I finally replaced with a Samsung Blu-ray player last July. My grandpa gave it to me for free since he didn't need it anymore (he said he only used it once). At first it worked alright, nothing special. My only problem was the fact that there was no "open" button on the remote (you had to do that with a button on the player), and that it took so long for the tray to open and close. Also, the batteries always came loose in the remote, and you had to constantly take them out and put them back in. Nothing too bad. However, as time went by, it started skipping almost everything I owned. It even skipped on BRAND NEW discs (which I tried out in other players and worked just fine). The tray kept getting stuck (especially with no disc inside), and I had to keep pressing the open/close button for it to open, later I had to PULL it open halfway, and PUSH it closed. I hated that piece of shit. I started to just watch my DVDs on my laptop most of the time. Then I got my (so-far, pretty nice) Blu-ray player, and I didn't have to worry about that crappy DVD player again, right? Wrong. When the living room DVD player stopped playing anything, guess which player got stuck filling in for it until we got THAT room a BD player? Yup, the crappy Phillips player. We're still using it to this day until the BD player comes in to replace it.
Also, there's the ancient VCR we had for over 10 years, and while it always had issues of screwing up on certain tapes, it got really bad when it was really old. It started spitting tapes out and SUCKING THEM BACK IN! I didn't even know that was possible... Also, I'm an actor, but I'm more focused on on-camera and stage work. I would love to do some voice acting, however I know that I could never make a living on anime work. It would be nice to do some on the side, but never put all your eggs in anime. You pretty much have to be doing other kinds of acting and voice work to make money doing it. |
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SnaphappyFMA
Posts: 216 Location: California |
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The picture of Bang Zoom's Adventures in Voice Acting DVD led me to believe you were going to actually discuss the DVD (which if you did, I missed it somehow in reading the article). I picked up this DVD at AX at Bang Zoom's booth one year and it's very good. Oddly, it contains numerous interviews with successful voice actors who talk a lot about how hard it is to make a living as a voice actor and that there are no guarantees, and they also discuss a lot of their personal and career struggles.
I say "oddly" because this DVD was produced by Bang Zoom, an anime dub studio, so you'd think it would highly encourage viewers to pursue a career in voice acting. Instead, it seems to take pains to do the opposite. 
As for electronics horror stories, I have one from years ago. I purchased a Coby brand portable DVD player. I think it was $99 or something. It broke pretty quickly. I read the insert that had come in the package, which required me to mail the player back to the Coby factory/distribution office in Brooklyn, NY. I did so and it cost $13 to do by snail mail. Weeks went by, and then either the same one (now fixed) or a new one came in the mail from Coby. Alas, this one too broke within about a year and I haven't bought a portable DVD player since. I now have a tablet and a netbook and streaming is readily available for almost everything, so I'm curious as to how many people actually buy portable DVD players these days and for what purposes. I was recently in Best Buy and there was a small aisle just for portable DVD players. It looked like a sad and seldom-visited aisle. |
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PurpleWarrior13
Posts: 2024 |
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^ Who needs a portable DVD player when you have your laptop?
I did have a VideoNow about 10 years ago (well, technically I still have it, but I haven't used it in forever). It was a personal video player that played it's own format of discs. They looked like DVDs, but were a tad smaller. They didn't hold much memory. One movie had to be spread across three discs, and the screens were TINY. They sold Nickelodeon shows for it, but later I think they finally had Cartoon Network shows (by that point, I think it had just about died), including Dragon Ball GT (I think there was some stuff available for it that, to this day, haven't even come out on DVD). I had the color edition, but the older versions only played stuff in black-and-white. I had A Boy Named Charlie Brown, and three Fairly Odd Parents discs for it (each disc only had two 10-minute episodes and a bunch of Nick commercials at the end). My player was the Spongebob Movie edition that came with a case to hold the discs, a free Spongebob disc, a carrying case, and, I believe, headphones. That was MY portable DVD player. I need to bust that thing out again soon for old times sake.
Last edited by PurpleWarrior13 on Fri Mar 07, 2014 2:39 pm; edited 4 times in total |
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Emma Iveli
Posts: 679 Location: Hobo with internet |
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My horror story is minor but more of a sucky one.
Back in 2003 I bought a cheap DVD player for my room. You'd expect something like that to like a year or something... but nope! It lasted 10 years! It even outlasted the family DVD player which I heard was much more expensive. Unfortunately last year my family had a fire. While my room was relatively untouched (only water on the floor), everything in the house had to be cleaned. When everything came back my DVD player no longer worked the same. It would randomly freeze up, the sound would cut out or a combination of both... Something happened to the circuits or something in the cleaning (turns out the cleaning company was really bad)... Thankfully for Christmas my friend got me a Sony Blu-ray which has been awesome. |
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Chagen46
 Posts: 4377 |
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Only electronics horror story I've had recently is a failing CPU heatsink on my homebuilt gaming PC.
Now:
Why do English dubs do this? The Japanese can get the actors in the booth at the same time. How the hell can you expect someone to act well if they have no interaction with everyone else? I like dubs, but they seem to constantly obstruct the actors' abilities to do well. I remember the Strike Witches dub commentary mentioning that Funi actually brought all the actress' in and had them watch the show with scripts in hand. No wonder that one sounded better than most. |
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machetecat
 Posts: 396 |
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The never seeing other actors while dubbing applies to animated movies, too.
Ty Burell was on the Daily Show for Peabody and Sherman, and when Jon Stewart asked him about working with Stephen Colbert, he joked around a bit and then confessed he actually still hasn't met Colbert and only saw him in passing as one was coming in/leaving |
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Levitz9
 Posts: 1022 Location: Puerto Rico |
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Many voice actors have day jobs, and it can be hard to schedule a session where everyone is together. It does sound better when everyone is in the same room together, but ultimately, it takes time--which is something that few companies that still bother with dubs have. |
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ParaChomp
 Posts: 1018 |
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I acted for a school play once, it was good fun. Honestly, I'd rather being at the helm of a show and get a minor role like Pendleton Ward, the creator of Adventure Time who also voices Lumpy Space Princess. Still getting there is even harder. On topic, casting in general is always played super safe and for good reason.
Why do all these Answerman articles remind me of the fact that only money matters in life? EDIT: looked up "getting into voice acting" on YouTube, so much luck...so much LUCK. |
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lizardking461
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So, no different than the prospects of any other burgeoning non-celebrity creative professional? Shock horror! |
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Gilles Poitras
Posts: 476 Location: Oakland California |
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On Blu-ray players you should also consider calibrating your TV to maximize picture quality. When I got my TV I planned to do this and sure enough when I popped in the Crows Zero movie before doing so the opening scene on the docks was too dark to see. After using the Spears and Munsel calibration disc (http://www.spearsandmunsil.com/) I could actually see the scene and the rest of the movie looked great. There are other discs out there and you can probably find comparative reviews online.
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PurpleWarrior13
Posts: 2024 |
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Also, dubbing is far more technical than original animation. With original animation, there is no picture to match to. With dubbing, you have to be careful to match the lip flaps. This is extremely hard to do if it's group dubbing. Doing it with one person at a time makes it easier for the director to focus on one actor/character at a time, not just in performance, but also in timing/lip-flaps. Also, like you said, because it's so low-paying, it's expected that it will be done in actors' free-time from other jobs. With that said, there are a few exceptions to all of this: 1. According to both Petrea Burchard and Matt K. Miller, the first episode of Tenchi Muyo was recorded with both of them in the booth. It wasn't working out though, and production switched to the traditional one-at-a-time beginning with episode 2. 2. According to Barbara Radecki, her and Sarah Lafleur recorded their lines for Sailors Uranus and Neptune in the same booth for Sailor Moon S. 3. Ayu Sakata (or Apphia Yu) mentioned that her and Micah Solusod recorded their lines for Sorath and Tiriel together for season 2 of Shakugan no Shana. The fact that they're boyfriend and girlfriend in real life helps. I'm sure there's more, but those are the ones I can think of. 
Keep in mind that some original animation does it one-at-a-time too, or without a key cast member present. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic records with everyone present... except Tara Strong, who records by herself later in LA. |
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Sailor Cadia
Posts: 3 |
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With western animation I think it depends on the production studio or even varies. project to project depending of the preference of the production staff. I am sure I've seen behind the scenes features on some Disney movies where the voice actors act together whereas in others they're alone.
Of course in terms of smaller dubbing studios it may simply be the fact that they only have one dinky ADR booth to use anyway! |
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Yoda117
Posts: 406 |
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Well for ADR it's kind of hard to do, but an interesting little factoid that often gets overlooked is that back in the golden age of US animation, the same methodologies for recording the talent were used that are now being used for Japanese animation. It was an extension from techniques used to record radio dramas back in the day. This concludes your useless trivia moment (from me at least) for the day 
While it's not feasible anymore, I miss the use of some of the older reel-to-reel techniques that were used. There's just something about those old magnetic tapes, vacuum tubes, and ribbon mics that always made my ears smile. |
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luffypirate
 Posts: 3186 |
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I've just about given up on landing a job in the anime industry. Out of the countless applications I've filled, RightStuf/Nozomi was the ONLY place I made it to the second round at. I got rubbed pretty wrong by Aniplex in '11 (they offered me an intern spot only to yank it away at the last second...) but I still apply every time an opening pops up. I'd really love to help market their products, I haven't felt as strongly about a company since Bandai Visual ventured here. We will see what happens, I'm just not perusing it as persistently and passionate as I used to.
As for crazy BD players, I have a Sony S370 that has held out for quite a while now. There was a weird time that it stopped working for a week but then started again. I usually go with Sony for all of my players and discs (not once had a DVD-R dud by Sony), Pioneer for my audio, and Sharp for my televisions. |
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Echo_City
Posts: 1236 |
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Same here. I wish that they'd done more with that DVD line. The "TV" and "Games" sequels never came out, sadly. That DVD did open my eyes as to why most Bang/Zoom anime dubs are sub-par and sound so stilted. Subsequent B/Z dubbing extras, like the DVD bundled with the Sword Art Online blurays (which is shameful), remind me why it still is.
From what Sentai says, you should move down to TX and stalk Craigslist for their "now hiring" ads. You could have been Christian Lopez or the "new girl" that Sentai just hired, per their facebook page
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