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MarshalBanana wrote:

I wonder if Crunchyroll will still have some of their dubs recorded in LA, or only use Funimation from now on. I guess given that Funimation no longer have a streaming service, it might be that everything CR gets, they dub.

With Crunchyroll now having control over like 90% of anime dubs, I doubt the Texas studios would be able to keep up with doing so many shows at once. And as already pointed out, Funimation was already outsourcing their dubs to LA and even did a few NYC dubs. Aniplex titles will almost certainly continue to use LA dubs as Aniplex has mostly used LA studios in the past.

Philmister978 wrote:

Blue Water's the only non-union studio out there in Canada. Though most, if not every, voice actor is unionized under ACTRA, so anime dubs outside of those by Blue Water (who have loopholes despite this) are considered union dubs by default. And I don't see Crunchy, Sony or Funi sparing the expense to do that, since not only are they Union, they're more expensive due to exchange rates being what they are. (unless that's all changed, I don't follow the Canadian dubbing scene all that much)

Blue Water isn't the only non-ACTRA studio in Canada. Those companies just don't land anything notable (usually) because the talent they get is obscure, the quality of their work is far from guaranteed and subsequently, most haven't made a name for themselves. The exchange rate has been in the favour of the U.S. dollar for about a decade straight now. Coupled with government subsidies and tax credits, Canada has gone through an explosion of media production work over the last decade. You haven't really seen that translated in the anime dub world because even with the exchange rate's discount (which has been 20-25%) non-union U.S. dubs were still cheaper. I think that was still true for union U.S. dubs, too.

With SAG updating their dubbing agreement and American actors pushing for higher rates, that might not be the case anymore, but I doubt you'll see any influx of Canadian dubs from Sony. They have their own production facilities in Texas. Yes, they've been outsourcing lots of stuff recently to make up for COVID's impact on their pipeline. However, it's telling that they've called up nearly every known (and some unknown) quantity in the anime dubbing world except Ocean. In fact, we've seen (non-Sony) companies subvert the need to hire them by contracting out some of their voice actors independently and filling the rest of the cast with cheaper U.S. actors. Ocean had nothing to do with Yashahime or Gintama: The Very Final. The first two seasons of Kingdom were dubbed in Vancouver (by one of those likely nonunion studios) and we've seen how eager Sony's been to say anything about the third season...

scowler wrote:

Any examples of current anime getting non-union dubs, that would otherwise stay sub-only if union talent was required? I'm thinking of shows like 86 or Don't Toy with me Nagatoro.

Those two are both notable. If there were to be a contraction, it would come from the titles most ignore. The kind of shows that Funimation viewed as not notable enough for a weekly, "simuldub" so they got put on the backburner before being released as a single batch.

Man, that Jujutsu Kaisen figure really puts the whole thing in perspective, doesn't it? Imagine getting paid $600 to play the lead in a movie that goes on to make $18 million in two days.

ATastySub wrote:

Kadmos1 wrote:

Article:

Quote:

Then there's the elephant in the room: FUNimation's dubs were produced largely in Texas, a “right-to-work” state, and will likely remain there under Crunchyroll management. Right-to-work laws, which exist in 27 mostly Republican-controlled U.S. states, allow workers to take a job at a company with a union contract without having to join the union or pay dues. This significantly reduces SAG's influence over studios by removing a source of funding and their biggest bargaining chip: access to top talent. That means far fewer union productions than states without right-to-work laws, like California and New York. And the union penalizes members for working non-union shows, driving some actors who work primarily with Texas-based companies — anime voice actors, for instance — to forego union membership entirely.

Republican here. How might right to work laws have been different if that say "27 mostly-Democrat-controlled U.S. states"?

What if everything was peanut butter?

Excuse me? It was a legit question. I'm curious to know the answer myself.

ZeArNkN wrote:

Excuse me? It was a legit question. I'm curious to know the answer myself.

Well first off, if everything was peanut butter everyone with a dog would lose their furniture real quick. And I bet the Bread and Jelly industries would be booming.

Quote:

Man, that Jujutsu Kaisen figure really puts the whole thing in perspective, doesn't it? Imagine getting paid $600 to play the lead in a movie that goes on to make $18 million in two days.

Yeah.. But let's not kid ourselves here, fans of JJK would have watched the movie dubbed with whatever actor, they are fans of the property, not the dub itself.

perroloco wrote:

Quote:

Man, that Jujutsu Kaisen figure really puts the whole thing in perspective, doesn't it? Imagine getting paid $600 to play the lead in a movie that goes on to make $18 million in two days.

Yeah.. But let's not kid ourselves here, fans of JJK would have watched the movie dubbed with whatever actor, they are fans of the property, not the dub itself.

That doesn't really change anything. Nobody's saying the dub actors for JJK0 were the immediate draw for the movie or the secret to its success. But they were an integral part of bringing it to theaters. You need English-language voice actors - and typically skilled and experienced ones - to make an English dub to release in theaters. You also need ADR directors and script writers and sound engineers and mixers. And you need translators and editors for the subtitled release.

These are all small, sometimes anonymous jobs, but they are necessary for the movie to be released and make that much money. Not to mention pretty much every part requires semi- to significantly specialized skills to perform at a professional level. A worker shouldn't have to be irreplaceable in order to be fairly compensated for their labor. Anime is now a massively profitable global industry run by some of the biggest media corporations on the planet - they can easily afford to compensate their on-the-ground employees, contractors, etc for doing essential work, rather than scraping by with wages that lag behind even independent video game projects.

Thank you to ANN for covering this. It's repulsive that Funimation's dub rate has been stuck at US$35 per hour for the past 10+ years. Now that Sony's in the picture, this needs to change. Voice actors deserve better.

If anybody here would like to learn even more about the union and their relationship with dubs, I highly recommend listening to these two Twitter spaces, which are hosted by Stephanie Sheh, Marin Miller, Ben Diskin and Luis Bermudez:

Part 2 (there is a part 1 but it's not important and everything discussed in part 1 is also in part 2 here)
https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1ypKdEXkkEyGW

Part 3
https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1OyKADoZMeWxb

It's a long listen (over 4 hours) but I learned so much. They also discuss a lot topics not covered by ANN, like how union dubs affect voice actors located outside the United States, and have longer discussions about the effects of right-to-work states, fi-core and much more.

One thing that ANN's article and the spaces don't talk about, and that I can't find more information about, is who CODA are. CODA's website shows a large list of dub actors that they say support them, but I can't find any info about who CODA themselves are. Who runs this organisation? It's a little strange to see so much support for them from other dub actors yet nobody knows who's in charge there.

ANN also don't state who they spoke with at CODA so I assume it's just some faceless PR person. All I can tell is that CODA are a kind of advocacy group for dub actors and apparently help negotiate(?) with the union. Anybody know more?

MFrontier wrote:

It means people like Reba Buhr have to lose roles (like in Miraculous Ladybug or Ascendance of a Bookworm) because she can't afford to be paid so little and companies won't negotiate for better pay for VA's (and probably translators too).

If you think what Reba Buhr said about Miraculous Ladybug sounds bad, wait till you hear this.

According to Marin Miller, who auditioned for the show, back when it was being recording at Iyuno SDI around 2013 it was marketed as a dub and paid US$75 per hour. But the original audio track is just a scratch track recorded at the French animation studio and is made up of non-actor randos (animators, storyboarders, etc.) reading the dialogue. The English voice actors were asked to read over the scratch track and make it sound convincing.

Why did Zag do that?

Because if they instead animated around the actors' performances, that would make it a pre-lay show, which would require a higher pay rate of US$250 per hour with a 2 hour minimum. And if it were a union show, they would have to pay each voice actor US$1000 per day. The English voice actors fought a long time against Zag to get the pay up from US$75 to US$110 per hour.

This year, because the dubbing union contract updated, the non-union contract is now US$125 per year. But Zag refuse to increase the pay from US$110 to US$125... a US$15 raise.

Miraculous Ladybug is one of the most popular children's shows on TV right now and makes hundreds of millions globally.

Here's the audio (3 minutes) where Marin's talking about all that:
https://v3.fastupload.co/file/15846

Cardcaptor Takato wrote:

MarshalBanana wrote:

I wonder if Crunchyroll will still have some of their dubs recorded in LA, or only use Funimation from now on. I guess given that Funimation no longer have a streaming service, it might be that everything CR gets, they dub.

With Crunchyroll now having control over like 90% of anime dubs, I doubt the Texas studios would be able to keep up with doing so many shows at once. And as already pointed out, Funimation was already outsourcing their dubs to LA and even did a few NYC dubs. Aniplex titles will almost certainly continue to use LA dubs as Aniplex has mostly used LA studios in the past.

Unlike Funimation, CR don't dub every show they stream. So they could very well have 90% of all currently airing Anime, but only dub 40%. That might change now, but we won't know until later. There is a difference between Funimation outsourcing their titles and CR sourcing out titles to Funimation. Unless it is a dub they produce for their Blu-Ray release, why would they outsource a dub that was outsourced tot hem, elsewhere.

lossthief wrote:

That doesn't really change anything. Nobody's saying the dub actors for JJK0 were the immediate draw for the movie or the secret to its success. But they were an integral part of bringing it to theaters. You need English-language voice actors - and typically skilled and experienced ones - to make an English dub to release in theaters. You also need ADR directors and script writers and sound engineers and mixers. And you need translators and editors for the subtitled release.

These are all small, sometimes anonymous jobs, but they are necessary for the movie to be released and make that much money. Not to mention pretty much every part requires semi- to significantly specialized skills to perform at a professional level. A worker shouldn't have to be irreplaceable in order to be fairly compensated for their labor. Anime is now a massively profitable global industry run by some of the biggest media corporations on the planet - they can easily afford to compensate their on-the-ground employees, contractors, etc for doing essential work, rather than scraping by with wages that lag behind even independent video game projects.

That's not the way to real world works, though. The key component here is those small, anonymous jobs are very replaceable which is why they don't pay very well. If a worker can finagle a company into paying them more, good for them. But a lot of companies know the people complaining are easy to replace so they have little incentive to do so. Pokemon and Dragonball Z, arguably the two biggest mainstream anime in America, have gone through numerous voice actors for their characters, some of them on their 7th actor for a character, and those franchises continue to do just fine with dub viewers.

The fact of the matter is most people here do not care about the voice acting industry. Cartoons or anime. Like it's been said Hollywood casting for animated films happens for a reason since they know Chris Pratt and Jack Black are going to pull in more viewers than Charles Martinet or Billy West. Maybe if there was a huge seiyuu worship culture like in Japan they'd have more power to negotiate with, but most people here don't care who voices the characters.

If actors truly think they're that important, a strike seems the most appropriate. Call the company's bluff.

Kendall TV wrote:

Miraculous Ladybug is one of the most popular children's shows on TV right now and makes hundreds of millions globally.

Kids don't really care about voice actors though. I've never heard of this show before but just because they're attached to a big title doesn't make them as vital as the writers, animators, and others who work on the show. Characters get recast all the time, especially in kids shows. How many voices did Hey Arnold go through? Arthur? Scooby Doo? Looney Tunes? Most kids aren't going to care enough to stop watching if the cast changes if they even notice at all.

To be honest I'm not sure I see the big deal. I think most people would find $35 to $75 dollars an hour a pretty good wage for a job. I make $39.75 an hour myself. The issue here seems to be voice actors only work for a few hours on a project and it's not always a recurring job. But that would just mean to voice more than one character. Reading some of these voice-actors tweets just leave me scratching my head. Michael Schwalbe complained that the dub cast of Jujutsu Kaisen 0 made less than 1/3 of a single average month’s rent in Los Angeles. Making 1/3rd of your monthly rent for a few hours of work doesn't sound that bad though. Ignoring the fact Los Angeles is very expensive to live in and one of the worst places to be if you're struggling financially, I'm not sure just how much money people are expecting to make and for how much work. How many hours did they spend recording their lines? I hope they're not expecting Hollywood actor levels of cash where they get paid 20 million dollars for a 1 hour and 45 minute movie.

Unless I'm missing something I don't really see it as a concerning issue that spending a few hours providing the English voice for a character in an anime movie wasn't enough to pay for an entire month's worth of expenses. Even at the bare minimum Funimation rate $35 an hour sounds completely livable as long as you're actually working 40 hours a week and not just hoping to only work an hour or two a day.

MFrontier wrote:

It sucks that people who continue to put such hard work into something (be it dubbing or translating the works for people to watch subbed) only to continue to make very little off of it because companies continue to be cheap.

It means people like Reba Buhr have to lose roles (like in Miraculous Ladybug or Ascendance of a Bookworm) because she can't afford to be paid so little and companies won't negotiate for better pay for VA's (and probably translators too).

It also sucks that it will probably take something this drastic to get the powers that be to at least consider it. Some tweets about having deeper pockets meaning they can pay better aren't going to be as effective as having to replace leads. And I think that is the type of thing it would take for most of the audience to notice/care since most won't be aware until they notice that Myne in season 3 of Bookworm sounds different, and then get curious why that is.

vampiyan wrote:

To be honest I'm not sure I see the big deal. I think most people would find $35 to $75 dollars an hour a pretty good wage for a job. I make $39.75 an hour myself. The issue here seems to be voice actors only work for a few hours on a project and it's not always a recurring job. But that would just mean to voice more than one character. Reading some of these voice-actors tweets just leave me scratching my head. Michael Schwalbe complained that the dub cast of Jujutsu Kaisen 0 made less than 1/3 of a single average month’s rent in Los Angeles. Making 1/3rd of your monthly rent for a few hours of work doesn't sound that bad though. Ignoring the fact Los Angeles is very expensive to live in and one of the worst places to be if you're struggling financially, I'm not sure just how much money people are expecting to make and for how much work. How many hours did they spend recording their lines? I hope they're not expecting Hollywood actor levels of cash where they get paid 20 million dollars for a 1 hour and 45 minute movie.

Unless I'm missing something I don't really see it as a concerning issue that spending a few hours providing the English voice for a character in an anime movie wasn't enough to pay for an entire month's worth of expenses. Even at the bare minimum Funimation rate $35 an hour sounds completely livable as long as you're actually working 40 hours a week and not just hoping to only work an hour or two a day.

There is at least a decent question to be asked here. I remember years ago, Kyle Hebert was on ANNcast and talked about how a $200 per hour union contract sounded great unless that 2 hour guarantee was the only thing you landed that month. I think he described it as treating acting like being in a perpetual state of unemployment because most of it was short-lived and very little of it was enough to be the only income source.

Personally, I think this is where the royalties could help a bit. Maybe it isn't feasible to pay enough to make LA rent for every single dub, but where something does gangbusters, they get more for that success.
Of course, the flip side of that is most stuff that is dubbed is primarily for streaming, and it's harder to quantify what those royalties would would look like. Streaming services only share numbers when they are especially good, and if somebody happens to have a monthly subscription, is that money divided among everything they watch or more concentrated on the big, expensive license of the season?

vampiyan wrote:

To be honest I'm not sure I see the big deal. I think most people would find $35 to $75 dollars an hour a pretty good wage for a job. I make $39.75 an hour myself. The issue here seems to be voice actors only work for a few hours on a project and it's not always a recurring job. But that would just mean to voice more than one character. Reading some of these voice-actors tweets just leave me scratching my head. Michael Schwalbe complained that the dub cast of Jujutsu Kaisen 0 made less than 1/3 of a single average month’s rent in Los Angeles. Making 1/3rd of your monthly rent for a few hours of work doesn't sound that bad though. Ignoring the fact Los Angeles is very expensive to live in and one of the worst places to be if you're struggling financially, I'm not sure just how much money people are expecting to make and for how much work. How many hours did they spend recording their lines? I hope they're not expecting Hollywood actor levels of cash where they get paid 20 million dollars for a 1 hour and 45 minute movie.

Unless I'm missing something I don't really see it as a concerning issue that spending a few hours providing the English voice for a character in an anime movie wasn't enough to pay for an entire month's worth of expenses. Even at the bare minimum Funimation rate $35 an hour sounds completely livable as long as you're actually working 40 hours a week and not just hoping to only work an hour or two a day.

At face value, that the $35 for Eng. dubs is a lot of money. However, you have to factor things like the following: the freq. of how often you will work, how a base pay is compared to more experience earnings/working wages, cost of living, etc.

On the topic of Miraculous, Jeremy Zag responded yesterday.

https://twitter.com/zagtoon/status/1508385688894464000

Quote:

Dear miraculers,
Thank you very much for letting me know about the dubbing situation in the USA.
We have many partners who are in charge of voice recording all over the world.
I'll take care of it and I'll do my best to fix the problem urgently!
Merci
Jeremy Zag

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