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NEWS: Pioneer Changes Name

My point is that your generalization of "Pioneer's" dubs is rather misguided and needs to be relooked at.

They did back in the early to mid 90's, but not recently...

Godaistudios wrote:

My point is that your generalization of "Pioneer's" dubs is rather misguided and needs to be relooked at.

Yes and no. While the studios definitively vary in strength of their talent pool and skill level, the dubbing is ultimately a colaborative process between the studio and the company paying for the dub. The latter's producers aren't in the credits just for fun, you know. It's them who pick the main cast, tell the studio how to aproach the dubbing (energetic or relistic acting, accurate or punched up script, etc.), and it's them who ultimately decide if the dub is turninig out like they wanted. If they're not, they can ask of changes and to go back and redo the problem lines (though of course, on some projects the producers are more interested getting it done quickly/cheaply rather then getting the best quality out of the studio).

For those involved in the production work, they may certainly pick the studio who will do the work for them, but it seems that more and more frequently, they will hand the studio the project and ask them to "go with it" and allow the ADR director to do the casting as well. Especially on the rush jobs that you mentioned in your latter point.

More of the dubs coming out of Bang! Zoom studios to me have sounded like bad rehearsals than good dubbing to me lately.

To me, Animaze has had the most consistent quality in the dubbing as of late.

Athough with the number of series picked up by Pioneer, I can still at least say that they don't use Ocean very often. That's still less than one dub per year going Ocean's way from Pioneer.

Godaistudios wrote:

For those involved in the production work, they may certainly pick the studio who will do the work for them, but it seems that more and more frequently, they will hand the studio the project and ask them to "go with it" and allow the ADR director to do the casting as well. Especially on the rush jobs that you mentioned in your latter point.

Interesting. I've talked a bit to someone at Ocean, and got the impression that most of their clients were pretty hands on, wanting to approve scripts, actors, mixing, etc. before things went on to the next stage of production. "Call me when it's done" jobs were nice, but very rare.

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More of the dubs coming out of Bang! Zoom studios to me have sounded like bad rehearsals than good dubbing to me lately.

That's an unusual opinion. Most dub fans seem to be going gaga over BZ! at the moment. I haven't really heard enough of their recent work to formulate a firm opinion, but Please Teacher certainly had a nasty problem with everyone delivering their lines with painfully constant pace, volume and syllable stress. It felt very bland.

They certainly must be doing something different then Animaze, given that they now are pretty much the biggest major dub provider for the major anime distibutors, handling most of the major titles for Media Blasters, Pioneer and lately Bandai.

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To me, Animaze has had the most consistent quality in the dubbing as of late.

Yeah, I still think they're the best LA dubbing studio by quite a margin.

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Athough with the number of series picked up by Pioneer, I can still at least say that they don't use Ocean very often. That's still less than one dub per year going Ocean's way from Pioneer.

I've heard that they're working on another series for Pioneer, though it looks like it's none of the series coming out this year.

Also, I suppose it depends on the Client, and more of the work they do seems to be, of course, with Viz and Bandai.

On the other hand, I think they've done very well on the X and Chobits dubs.

Maybe they're cheaper?

Still, even if they had an average of one dub per year on Pioneer, there are at least 4-5 per studio per year for others. Since they fall in such a small percentage of the dubs done for Pioneer, I still stand behind my first statement that they don't use Ocean that often.

Godaistudios wrote:

Also, I suppose it depends on the Client, and more of the work they do seems to be, of course, with Viz and Bandai.

Definitively. I do get the impression that many of the studios and distributors have very different work habits. Animaze for example, is completely paranoid about linking non-union casts with their character (often misspelling names), while BZ! does it gladly. New Generation Pictures will happily announce what they're working on as long as the title has been announced, while Ocean refuses to comment until the discs are out.

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On the other hand, I think they've done very well on the X and Chobits dubs.

Well, you see, part of why I objected to your statement that it was all about the dubbing studio is that someone I know has been telling me that BZ's stuff for Pioneer is generally superior to that for Bandai. And there was a Pioneer producer over on AnimeOnDVD who noted that while he was a sub fan originally, it was a lot easier to like dubs when he could have lines he didn't like redone and give the voice director "his insights". As I said previously though, I haven't seen enough to have an opinion.

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Maybe they're cheaper?

Or faster. Well, faster is generally cheaper. Though all studios can cut costs by using smaller casts and increasing their work speed if the client tells them to. Ocean's done this numerous times on low profile Bandai titles, and even Animaze has a couple of ones that didn't seem to have much care put into them (mainly Manga's bottom-barrel titles). This shouldn't be the case on shiny, new high-profile releases though.

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Still, even if they had an average of one dub per year on Pioneer, there are at least 4-5 per studio per year for others. Since they fall in such a small percentage of the dubs done for Pioneer, I still stand behind my first statement that they don't use Ocean that often.

Oh, I'm not really arguing :). It seems more the case of Pioneer deciding at one point that Animaze could cover their their dubbing needs, and then only recently starting to look elsewhere. I'm not sure how many more shows they could theoretically give Ocean though, since they're very busy at the moment.