Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Is Anime Dialogue Recorded After Animation Is Done?
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Sakagami Tomoyo
Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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Just because you can't, doesn't mean no-one can. Sure I can't watch mouth movements as closely as if subtitles weren't in the picture, but it's not the only vague awareness you seem to be suggesting.
True, but it's still animated with a given line in Japanese with a specific length of time in mind; an English line to mean the same thing might need to be worded strangely or spoken unnaturally fast or slow to fit. Actually less of a problem than most think, if there's a competent script writer and the production isn't in much of a rush.
You might want to scale back the nastiness of the comments you make about people who prefer subtitles; there are some equally nasty things one might say about those who prefer dubs, if one weren't interested in keeping things peaceful. |
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belvadeer
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Not really. It's perfectly fine if someone prefers subs and states that's their preference in a calm and civilized way; I don't have a problem with them. It's not fine when they preach their ignorance about the language or claim it's superior to all languages, and then think everything, including U.S. and European animation and games, should be in Japanese too (I'm referring to purists like these). I haven't seen many folks who love dubs and act like jerks about it, saying English is superior to everything or something. They're far more sensible, as far as I've witnessed. EDIT: In the future, I'm keeping my opinions to myself. I'm tired of being the only one called out on my thoughts on extreme sub purists. Last edited by belvadeer on Thu Jul 13, 2017 4:28 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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crosswithyou
Posts: 2892 Location: California |
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@belvadeer
The conversation thus far has been quite civilized and there's not much of a sub vs. dub debate going on, yet you've gone ahead and insulted the intelligence of "purists." Pretty sure that's the issue Tomoyo has with your comments. |
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Sakagami Tomoyo
Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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Then it might be an idea to make it clearer that you don't think all sub watchers are that kind of purist, and that you've got nothing against people watching stuff subtitled.
I have. Not many who are quite that bad about it, but still plenty who make horribly misinformed comments, gross generalisations, and dismiss other people's preferences and reasons for them. Often they make statements about sub watchers that are not unlike your comments about "purists", and seem to believe that all sub watchers are that kind of purist. From what I've witnessed, both sides are about as bad as each other all up. Crosswithyou is essentially right; up until now the conversation had been pretty civilised with little sub vs dub debate, until you made a very inflammatory comment about sub watchers. If a comment like that had been leveled at dub fans first, I'd have been similarly unimpressed, even if I am on that "side" of the debate. |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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Just so we're clear, I'm not saying this to mock or malign sub fans. I personally prefer to watch anime subbed for a variety of reasons. That said, it's simple science, your focus is either in one place or it is in another. I'm not saying you can't follow the action on screen at ALL and are near to reading a book. But I AM saying that your attention is at best split between characters and lines of text. In that sense, if some of the dialog is milliseconds off on timing you're less likely to either notice OR take issue with it then if your entire focus is on the character talking. I think, generally speaking that the animation staff/seiyuu do a great job of lining those two things up and if nothing else, I think computers have helped TREMENDOUSLY in this regard. I'm just saying people watching an English dub are more likely to notice flaws in the timing. |
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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Anime at least used to have specific ad lib slots present (the example here is KO Century Beast Warriors). I have a handful of real and reproduction scripts, but I must confess I've never searched through them to see if this is still the case and I don't know whether it is or was more common in OVAs and movies than TV anime.
In Japan these things are called Leica Reels for some reason. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Because it's much easier to improvise something, or otherwise deviate from the story, if you're a voice actor than an animator. Animation is a collaborative effort at every step of the way--unless you're a key animator or the animation director, you have to follow along with what your colleagues are doing. The other thing is that western animation, as mentioned earlier, prioritizes smoothness of animation whereas anime prioritizes detail. Lip-synching is a lot more important in western animation because it has a lot more frames that go into mouth movements and thus more chances for something to go wrong if it isn't tightly monitored and organized.
I can say it's been a huge problem with dubbing for video games with 3-D graphics. They're better at it now than it used to be, but be prepared for a laugh if you ever watch any cutscenes of Sonic Adventure.
It is the norm rather than the exception because it's what voice actors are used to and are trained to do. Obviously, there are plenty of English-language voice actors who are used to post-animation acting, but there aren't many who do both because it requires different lines of thinking and different training. Even bottom-budget stuff like the early episodes of South Park, still gets a much higher budget than your average anime. The viewership is much higher.
With a timing sheet, it's not. An animator simply has to follow it.
When you don't know a language too well, it's difficult to make good judgment on stuff in that language. I know I am way more critical of translations and acting in languages I know than language I don't.
Nah, I used to ask that to anime fans but I got a dismissive "You don't know the Japanese language, so you wouldn't understand" sort of responses. (It varied whether they actually knew a decent amount of Japanese or not.)
Nearly all western animated TV shows will have at least an "ah" mouth and an "ooh" mouth. South Park is included in that, but they go from one open mouth to another. In the case of South Park, that means lip flaps are sometimes done at an even lower framerate than anime, but they have an ah, ooh, uh, ee, oh, and an l-tongue. That being said, the framerate of lip flaps in South Park is highly variable and depends on the speed of delivery. Watch Pocket speak in "Pip 2000," for instance, and you'll see the framerate actually EXCEEDS most western animation because he speaks so fast. Then watch Cartman whine after Kyle slaps him in "Fat Butt & Pancake Head," where a single frame (the big scream mouth) is used for its entire duration. Adventure Time is a bit lower than stuff like Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers or The Simpsons, but it has in-between frames for mouth movements and has at least a few mouth shapes. Rick & Morty's lip flaps are animated traditionally for western TV animation.
Some of the stuff from Disney is incredible with matching lip-flaps. I saw the Mexican dub of Recess: School's Out in which Mikey sings "My Green Tambourine" (by The Lemon Pipers), and it matches up much better than I expected. |
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Sakagami Tomoyo
Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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I dunno... even with splitting my focus between the subtitles and everything else on the screen, I can see well enough how well-timed the mouth movements are to the voice work. In the "digital production" age, it's by and large pretty good, but is still a cycle of maybe 3 or 4 frames that look more-or-less right, rather than the focus Western animation has on making it look exactly like the syllable being voiced. There are exceptions, of course, but it tends to be in important shots that are in close, or scenes where lip-reading is expected to happen. Back in the olden days when they painted on sheets of plastic and shot it on film, it was considerably more haphazard. Again, sometimes the effort was made, but largely the attitude was "you can hear their voice, you can see their mouth moving, good enough". I think that sub watchers not caring about lip-syncing issues is less not noticing and more accepting that it's just traditionally not a priority in Japanese animation, whereas people who prefer dubs are more used to thinking in terms of other animation voiced in English; ie American cartoons where there's traditionally been more focus on mouth movement closely matching sound. |
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Alan45
Village Elder
Posts: 9844 Location: Virginia |
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I watch mostly subtitled anime and I can't say I've ever noticed a disparity between lip flaps and speech. I'm not suggesting it isn't there, just that it has never been so egregious that it attracted my attention. Of course, I don't spend time looking for things to complain about. Your mileage may vary.
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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It's as Sakagami Tomoyo pointed out: Someone like me, who grew up on lots of western animation, finds it much more jarring than someone who didn't. I grew very accustomed to lip movements so detailed that you can lip-read the characters that when even the Japanese audio didn't make much of an attempt to do so, it took me months to not draw attention to itself for me. |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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Remember that a series budget does not mean animation budget, in the west afaik writers get a big chunk of the the pie and from what I read after the recent union negotiations they will even more. So I bet even today they are paying peanuts for south park animation and I doubt other studios pay asian animation studios above average.
There was a time here in Mexico when if there was a song in a cartoon, it was not dubbed (i.e. The Chipmunks) because the song needs to be translated AND adapted and then the voice actor needs to sing (something some old voice actors were not good at because their careers were made on acting, not singing). Then came Disney's The Little Mermaid and it became the new normal to dub the songs, specially for any Disney cartoon and Recess: School's Out is one of them. It goes without saying that disney is top of the line for dubbing quality, a voice actor that works dubbing a disney movie or other properties is probably paid a lot more than the peanuts many other voice actors receive. Heck, over here the simpsons voice actors demanded a raise in their salary when their US counterparts got one and they were promptly fired. |
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Alan45
Village Elder
Posts: 9844 Location: Virginia |
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@leafy sea dragon
I've likely seen a fair amount of the same Western animation. I suspect the difference is that I don't think it ever occurred to me to pay attention to mouth movements. You may be looking at the shows from a technical basis. I think the only time I noticed lip movements in anime is in the odd opening or closing where the character on screen is actually singing the opening or closing song. Of course, they often provide more detailed animation for the openings and closings. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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It is still more expensive to do any sort of lip flap animation beyond "alternate between open frame and closed frame at regular intervals" though.
You might be right, considering when I read your second paragraph, it got me thinking about why they don't just rotoscope if they need to have characters dancing and singing at the same time, though I'm guessing that's an even more expensive process than normal. |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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If this is so, you're really in VERY small company. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many issues with texting-&-driving. |
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Sakagami Tomoyo
Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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Rotoscoping is actually cheaper. Tracing over an existing shape is faster and less skilled work than drawing a series of shapes with movement that looks right. The trouble is that rotoscoping just doesn't look very good, and for the creative touchup work that'd need to be done to make it look good, you might as well have just drawn it from scratch in the first place. Increase in cost for having someone animate rather than rotoscope is offset by not needing to pay the model(s).
There is a tremendous difference between texting while driving and reading subtitles while watching animation. To begin with, reading and watching are both passive activities, whereas driving is an active activity that requires constant attention, and texting is varying degrees of active, depending on whether you're sending or reading and how much you need to manipulate your phone's UI to look at a text. There's also the fact that with watching subtitled video, the "two things" you're splitting attention between are both on the same screen, and you're basically just slightly shifting your attention on the one thing. Driving, though, there's a great distance in focal length between the phone in front of your face and what you're supposed to be paying attention to ahead of you. Not to mention that it's already necessary to be paying attention to a number of things, all of which you need to be able to react to in a split second; adding something from a completely different context such as the phone is just too much. |
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