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Sunday, 06-Jul-2008 21:32:45 CDT
3/26/02
It occurs to me that in all the confusion, I never posted the cast list for KKnJ. Here you go (at least through volume 3):
Yukino Miyazawa Veronica Taylor
Tsukino Miyazawa Jessica Calvello
Kano Miyazawa Megan Hollingshead
Miyako Miyazawa Rachael Lillis
Hiroyuki Miyazawa Pete Zarustica
Soichiro Arima Christopher Nicholas
Hideaki Asaba Liam O'Brien
Mr. Arima Bill Rogers
Mrs. Arima Kristen Nelson
Maho Isawa Carol Jacobanis
Sakura Tsubaki Lea Lane
Sena Rika Angora Deb
Sawada Aya Rachael Lillis
Tsubasa Shibahime Lisa Ortiz
Toshiharu Shibahime Ed Paul
Hiromi Ikeda Kelli Shane Butler
Sorry about that ... 3/24/02
Volume 3 is now history ... and on the drive back to the office today, I was struck with the irony that although I've finished more than half the series few have actually seen any of it yet. Naturally, my completion of records is only one section of what needs to be done before the release of any volume but it's kind of a milestone in any case. The good part is that I have a few days (yes, days) before I have to think about driving down again, and that will only be a short trip to shoot the rest of the video segments (with any luck, that is). Did come up with one idea for a little bonus item on the DVD, but I don't know how practical it is: the budget and some external factors will decide if it comes to pass or not.
Before I leave this volume, though, I thought I'd mention one odd thing about it: I think that E16 is the first one where there is any real deviation from the pacing of the Japanese voice actor and the US one. E16 (as I might have mentioned before) is the one that deals with the problem child that Hiroyuki Miyazawa was while in school, and how an important event causes him to become an adult very suddenly. Much of this epiphany is revealed in a few voiceovers, as might be expected. Now, here's where the technical part enters.
Each "cue" is numbered and has a timecode stamped on it in the way we do things (many do it the same, but some do not). Depending on the actor's preference, they are either read singly (surprisingly, if the actor / director combination works well the results would never reveal this fact) or as a group. With these Hiroyuki combinations, the actor and I elected to do many of them in one batch ... and after perhaps ten or fifteen of them we go back and tweak / move / punch in [replace fractions or whole cues] what is required. Now, what we had in these parts of the session was interesting: although it ended and started at the same times, the pacing was subtley but noticably different than the original Japanese. Nevertheless, the actor was able to "sell" the whole thing very convincingly and (at least at first blush) it works very well. It's different, though. The words are there and the feeling is certainly there ... but it's different. I can't help wonder if the Japanese voice actors do takes differently each time, too.
This leads to another thing: many actors will continue to quietly read a cue while the engineer will trim and move cues on the Protools timeline, adapting and revising as they go along. The editing process is sometimes suddenly halted as the actor comes up with an interesting idea that makes a read work much better than the previous idea. The whole thing is kind of an organic process, and the finished product is very often an evolutionary idea.
Because, in any session that I work at, anyone is allowed to have an idea. 3/22/02
Words alone cannot describe the kind of stuff that's going down right now. The important part, though, is that none of it should actually affect the current recording schedule and that records for volume 3 are just about done. In fact, there's only one day left in this batch, but it's a busy day with both of Yukino's parents scheduled ... and this disc includes E16 so you know it's going to be hectic. Fortunately, everyone else is done here so I'll know immediately if anything is wrong in this.
The other good thing is that I was able to review and approve the last episodes of the volume 2 mix ... and the things that I really liked in E10 still seem just as funny to me as they did when we recorded them. The audio files are being ripped tonight and sent off to DVD authoring (actually, probably sent out already as I'm keying this at 11:56PM) so that one's far advanced.
The other interesting thing that happened regards the release schedule on V4 ... the record schedule is being disrupted by the fact that two of the actors are unavailable during the time that we'd planned to resume sessions. This means that what we'd penciled in for that one is going to be late ... at least by a little. Who knows, though ... it's possible that the delay could actually be absorbed without it showing up in the final. 03/04/02
Well, volume 2 is now history (as far as records go, that is). When the mix comes in, we'll see how well it turned out. 03/03/02
Know how I say sometimes that I'm not sure how good this is because I'm WAY too close to it?
Today, we were between actors and I sat at the controller going though E14. For those of you who haven't seen that far yet, E14 is a catchup episode that uses clips from E1 ~ E8 to tell someone coming in late what has happened so far. So, I sat with the whole thing in memory and scrubbed through the episode finding which section comes from where. When I finished that, I went through the coming attractions segments and timed out what I need to shoot on Wednesday. Still, at the end I had a little more time, so I played through some scenes in Japanese that I watched in English at Katsu (only one other person was there at the time, BTW). So, with that pretty fresh in my head I sat and listened ...
Approaching the project, I felt that if I was almost as good as the Japanese I would be happy as that was all that I could reasonably expect (particularly with this show). Today .... for the first time ... I think I may have actually gotten to the point where at least ONE scene in KKnJ is indeed ... as good ... as the Japanese. It's all I can hope for.
Hopefully, some others out there will agree when it comes out.
I can dream, can't I? 3/2/02
The first week of records on Volume 2 is now complete, and the second (abbreviated) week begins today. Actually, most of the records are actually done at this point (Yukino, Asaba and Arima were done fairly early last week): about all that are left now are Maho, Kano, Tsukino and a handful of small secondary characters, but that doesn't mean that this week is going to be a simple or easy one. On Wednesday, I do the first video shoot ... and just based on the things that have already gone on with this one I know there's going to be all kinds of fun when I get there. There has already been one call to Sony that lasted more than two hours.
Fortunately, I think the problems will mostly be technical ones (which can be solved). Time will tell, though. One things's for sure, though ... I'd rather be sleeping in my own bed instead of this hotel bed. Twice this week I was woken (7:18 AM and then the next day a few minutes after 5:00 AM) by fire alarms that caused everyone to evacuate the building while in various states of sleep. Doesn't make for happy directors ...
Still, we did had Yukino singing ... 2/23/02 9:15am
Chuck Jones 1912 - 2002.
I think that says it all. It's a sad day for all of us.
I was here in the hotel room, more or less ready to start records on volume 2 (I have one nasty case of Katsu Flu) and turned on the TV this morning ... that's what I saw. You know what they say, though ... the show must go on. |
