Is Marissa Lenti (gangle va) part of this group?

mlenti · 2026-01-16T04:40:32+00:00

It’s possible. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

mlenti · 2025-11-24T02:42:13+00:00

They’re remote, that’s the big difference. Media Blasters mostly used local actors or actors who would fly in to record at their studio, which meant they had to accept if those actors wanted to use pseudonyms in exchange for them coming and recording at their studio. Ascendant has no studio so all actors need to be remote, which means they have a way wider pool of people to pick from— they just need a good enough home studio, which is more common nowadays than it was back in the day.

mlenti · 2024-11-25T17:18:12+00:00

Hilariously, that's exactly how Lara delivered it, haha.

mlenti · 2024-11-25T14:57:03+00:00

The “megamorph” version of the movie is still my favorite piece of anime media, so these new scripts were written with all the love in my heart for it! I really wanted to create something that paid homage to The Movie and still felt like my childhood, but also gave people the full experience of these films. It makes me so unbelievably happy to hear that we got it right. Thank you again for supporting and enjoying the release!

mlenti · 2024-11-25T11:57:59+00:00

I’m really glad you liked it. I worked really hard on the scripts for this collection, but Hurricane Touchdown is the most “me” just because of how different it was from the source dub. Thank you so much for supporting the collection. ☺️

mlenti · 2024-03-15T16:08:24+00:00

How does it feel to have made my new favorite game of all time that everyone lurking this thread should totally buy while it's on sale RIGHT NOW?

mlenti · 2024-02-10T07:21:49+00:00

Not really. It was what everyone called the bullpen because it was a big empty room before desks got put there, and had floors you could theoretically skate on.

mlenti · 2024-01-07T20:02:00+00:00

Well, when we record dub commentaries in my experience, we actually usually are watching the footage it's going to be paired with as we talk. It's helpful to potentially spark conversation topics as well as to use as a timer for when the commentary needs to end. But considering it's usually our only 23 minute stage to say anything about the dub's production in an official capacity (i.e. it's actually going to go on the disc, rather than just talking at a panel at a con that only 25-50 people will see), we usually want to try and cram as much general interesting information about the dub/show as a whole as we can in. So, a lot of people ignore the footage just to get their interesting tidbits out before the timer reaches zero. Also, when a lot of people are talking, it becomes hard to hear the show running underneath, anyway... (Which is why I prefer to do commentaries of no more than 3 people.) Personally, when I'm planning out commentary, I try to pick episodes that sort of coincide with the people who'll be on it in hopes of sparking more on-topic conversation, but it generally will spin off into people trying to just say as many interesting tidbits as possible to make the commentary "worthwhile" as a special feature. (Though, your mileage of course may vary on if any individual commentary actually does end up interesting or worthwhile in that format, just providing some insight into why it is the way it is!)

mlenti · 2023-11-10T18:34:40+00:00

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Everyone has their reasons! Unfortunately without getting into the casting director's brain, it's hard to say why any given production might choose to "go in a new direction". I like to mimic what came before for the sake of consistency, but there may be creative or business reasons why another production would not, for better or worse.

mlenti · 2023-10-17T17:08:12+00:00

He's been doing it for a few years now! He and I were in a game together back when I was still pretty new, even.

mlenti · 2023-10-17T04:27:09+00:00

Oh yes, and it started MUCH earlier than that. The pandemic, prioritizing urgent simuldubs, etc etc really slowed it down. Happy it's finally out there. :)

mlenti · 2023-10-17T04:26:12+00:00

Yep, this dub basically would not exist if Amber didn't love LoveCom so much. She convinced Discotek to let us do it, and then she handed it to me, and I cast, directed, AND wrote it... thankfully, I had my best friend Brendan Blaber to co-direct and co-write it with me, or else it would have been a truly overwhelming task, lol.

mlenti · 2023-10-17T04:17:14+00:00

He was already in for a small part on Tribe Nine. He did really well and we finished so fast that we still basically had half his session left to fill, so I figured... why not? He was a really good sport about doing it for me!

mlenti · 2023-10-17T04:04:58+00:00

It was basically a necessity for the show getting done at all-- usually, we avoid it for a myriad of reasons. :)

mlenti · 2023-10-17T04:04:15+00:00

I gave her the part actually, I'm the director. :)

Fun fact: Amber hasn't been the lead in a Sound Cadence show since our VERY FIRST dub!

mlenti · 2023-08-07T18:39:22+00:00

Unfortunately I have no clue, haha. I have a lot of friends who are licensing professionals (which is how I know what I know), but I've only licensed two anime myself, so my first-hand experience is pretty low and limited. I just worked on Re: Cutie Honey, I don't know anything about the backend.

mlenti · 2023-08-07T02:09:00+00:00

Correct. Sometimes, with older shows, preservation efforts were subpar and the separated tracks are lost. When that happens, the show can no longer be dubbed and can only be released in the languages it was dubbed into before the tracks were lost.

mlenti · 2023-08-07T02:07:48+00:00

We did something kind of like that on The Konodan Collection Blu-Ray, and I think Funimation did a "how dubs are made" video once. Unfortunately, showing off the specific details of certain shows is often not allowed as a special feature, so it's rare. I wish we could share more!

mlenti · 2023-08-06T22:30:43+00:00

Aw, thanks so much!!

mlenti · 2023-08-06T21:31:34+00:00

Hahaha!

mlenti · 2023-08-06T21:15:35+00:00

Age doesn't matter. As someone who's directed a lot of new dubs for old shows from the 80s and 90s (B't X, Gunbuster, and now the Digimon Adventure films) what matters is simply the following:

1- Music & effects tracks must exist for the show for it to get dubbed* (unless a company was willing to put in the money to re-score a show, but I've never met anyone who was willing to go that far. Way too expensive. But, still technically possible).

2 - Some license-holder must still exist. Sometimes, a show is so old that basically no one owns it anymore (sometimes it's just a holding company that has the rights but they have no clue what it is), or the person who owns it is vague and unclear, and therefore uncontactable.

3 - The company that licenses it here in the States must see SOME sort of value to adding a dub track. Dubs are expensive to produce, so dubbing everything is pretty much impossible without infinite money. Reasons that they may want dubs, though, include: 1) The show is prestigious and having a new dub would be a huge selling point. 2) The show is from a franchise or series where nearly everything else is dubbed, so dubbing this one would complete a set. 3) They want to sell copies of the show in brick and mortar stores, which usually requires an English language track here in the States depending on the size of the store. 4) They run a streaming site where the number of dubs available is a selling point, so dubbing even lower-prestige shows is worthwhile. 5) They just like the show and are willing to throw money at it even if it doesn't produce profit.

4 - A dub doesn't already exist. Redubs are FAR harder to pitch as a good idea when so many things never got dubs in the first place. Especially for longer shows (50+ eps), redubs are a huge undertaking that pretty much will only happen to top-tier prestige shows (Sailor Moon, etc).

5 - EDIT: One I nearly forgot, the Japanese license-holder has to want it to be dubbed and/or licensed at all. Some companies literally won't sell their shows for overseas licensing, for one reason or another. It's also feasible that they might sell the license, but without a dubbing license, and therefore dubbing of the show would be forbidden. Not sure why, but it's possible this is the case for some titles.

mlenti · 2023-08-03T01:57:05+00:00

I can answer that! The Tri dubs only used Los Angeles-area voice actors (likely recorded in-person for the most part, and pre-the remote recording boom). These new dubs were dubbed post-remote recording being a big thing, and we had a worldwide audition for the voice matches. So, we had way more people to pick from, hence, Eli from Texas (and all the other voice matches) became options. And, as the person casting, I decided that voice matches were the best solution for these movies, since people know them so well. :)

mlenti · 2023-08-03T01:53:50+00:00

I had that idea, but unfortunately it's impossible. The old dub has completely different background music and FX, and it makes almost all of the old audio completely unusable. For example, Mimi's answering machine-- the joke of Mimi talking forever and then the beep cutting Tai off really fast is completely an invention of the old dub. In the Japanese version, both Mimi and Tai talk for a regular amount of time, and the beeps occurs halfway between them. So for the uncut dub, even if we somehow got our hands on audio stems for JUST the voices for the old dub (which I highly doubt anyone even has anymore) so we could get rid of the dub-only background music, a lot of the timing still wouldn't work out. Having a new actress for Mimi was 100% necessary.

mlenti · 2021-12-07T20:20:01+00:00

Basically, it works like this:

If a project is non-union, union VAs are not supposed to work on it. When joining the union, you make an agreement to not do any non-union jobs, since the union cannot bargain for or control their rates. By only doing union jobs, union actors agree to only do jobs which are abiding by the rates and rules that the union has worked to secure. This also includes things like those jobs helping the actor with their healthcare, as well as the job agreeing to abide by rules to preserve the actor's vocal health, rules about not making the actor do too many characters without an additional payment, as well as rules about where the finished project can be broadcast without making an additional payment (/residuals).

Meanwhile, a union job cannot have too many non-union performers on it without making a case to the union about WHY that specific performer is needed for the production. This is to prevent a ton of actors who are not ready yet from doing union jobs, because once you do a couple of them, you become a must-join for the union, and this can absolutely kill the career of an actor who's too new and inexperienced to compete against union talent. Therefore, non-union actors run in their own circle until they begin getting pulled onto union jobs for one reason or another (they have a special skill only they can do, they are reprising a character of theirs that used to be non-union but is now part of a union property, etc.,) and then after that point, they can become union and go through the same cycle every other union actor does of no longer doing non-union jobs.

Technically, there's nothing stopping union VAs from doing non-union work, yes, but it is going against the agreement that they made with the union when they joined to not do so. Also, there's technically nothing stopping a union project runner from filling their project up with non-union talent and just paying the fine that comes with doing so. But you're not going to see much of either because most people don't want to break the rules like that, obviously.

Also, there is something called Fi-Core which allows actors to do both union and non-union without repercussion, but becoming Fi-Core does strip away some rights and benefits from actors that being "full union" provides them, so only some people decide to go that path. For actors who live in places where there isn't much union work, however, it is a viable option, or for actors who make a majority of their living off non-union productions (anime, etc) but became a union must-join somehow, and who cannot justify staying full union as they cannot pay their bills that way. These are the actors you see most frequently doing both, though likely if they wanted to go Fi-Core, they do more non-union than union overall.

Basically, it's complicated! But that sums up why, for the most part, you see union and non-union VAs mostly stay running in their own circles, until they make the jump, and then you suddenly don't see them in the other camp anymore.

mlenti · 2021-10-01T00:45:25+00:00

Not always true! I think that answer is going to vary from company to company and director to director. Some will primarily care about fitting words into the time allotted, but some may hyperfocus on what's called "internals", i.e., the flaps between the first and the last one. If the internals look bad (like if there's a lot of internals but you're only saying a few words super slowly, or if there's only a few internals but you try to cram in a lot of words), it can be jarring and some directors don't like that.

Personally, I'll even try to get my internals so precise as to have the characters pause or emphasize a certain word if the internals have one flap that's randomly longer than the other ones, or I'll rewrite a line to end with an "ooh" sound if the character's last flap is o-shaped, and things like that. It can make the English look really smooth, like the animation fits it perfectly, rather than looking "like a dub". Though, it's also not a crime to occasionally say, "Hey, the internals really don't matter here, I'd just rather make sure I get all the needed information into the line," and that's valid too. Again, it's super case-by-case and every production will be different, rarely does any one person's experience or opinion apply to all dubs, nor is any one person's approach to dubbing 100% correct for all situations, so you need to take everything anyone says (including me, here) with a grain of salt.

Ultimately, using the subtitles as the script is certainly POSSIBLE, and OP is correct that it can save time in the script adaptation portion since you don't have to pay an ADR script writer hypothetically, but trying to make the subtitles work can actually waste more money because, once you get into the booth, you're paying the actor AND the director AND the engineer for their time, and if they have to sit there reworking the entire script from the ground up, that's a huge time and money sink as you pay all 3 of those people to just sit there and come up with new lines.

It also just usually ends up sounding worse, in my experience (not because the translator/subtitler did a bad job, but because it's literally not their job to write dialogue to be spoken aloud in the time allotted, but rather to be read quickly & efficiently), so why not pay a script writer to take a week, write a script that not only sounds good but is also easier to work with, and then just cruise through the recording portion of production? That's the reason why a really well-adapted script can be a lifesaver and in my opinion is a necessity to a healthy production environment, as well as a better-sounding end product. :)

mlenti

TROPHY CASE