Final Fantasy XI Movie announced! (fan movie)

[Yugl]

Because in anime, most dubbed ones sucked so bad that watching the original JP version with subtitles is 100x better. This is especially so for scenes which requires emotion.

Their voice acting industry is cutthroat and as a result the quality is a lot better.

Araelus has linked to a JP fake movie trailer with voice acting on Youtube. Go watch that.

Still we must applaud Araelus for spending so much time on this. Might even want to liaise with that team who made that fake JP trailer to create a JP version

I tend to disagree with that opinion. Every time I listen to JP dialogue, it's either spoken by someone who sounds like a 30yr old male or a five yr old girl (Stupid high pitched crap). When I've asked for reasons as to why the voicing of certain characters is better, I tend to get lame responses such as "he sounds more evil" (Reference to JP Death Note).

I find that dubbing for English is sometimes better because the voicing actually fits the role of the character (They actually sound like high school kids instead of people with a terrible cold). When you actually learn JP beyond the stupid one liners (Hisashiburi desune), you'll understand that most JP dubbed anime either repeat the same lines constantly or just sound lame when converted to English. If that's the case though, it's not the dubbing that makes it sound bad, it's the dialogue itself that's bad.

Edit: The movie should have more spanish speaking beastmen. That was hilarious.

[Seibar]

pretty snazzy stuff. voices take some getting used too, but I had ideas of what they would sound like so thats not surprising.

and i generally like anime with JP talking with english subtitles, rather then using the english-dub. the voice acting for english people always sounds so off, or changes the lines... so i usually just read my anime

[Cantih]

This is awesome. Flat out. Nothing can take that away, you've done good work. I just came off my first semester of learning Adobe Premier & After effects. This does not look like self-taught work, you've got a gift Araelus.


Like others, the only complaint I have is the voice acting. Part of it is being non-professional volunteer work, but consider this video from the first FanFest back in 2006.

YouTube - FFXI CoP
It's fan done, but in my opinion it's Eald'narche, Lion, Prishe, Nag'molada, & the voice at 1:34 are perfect. (Jabbos: Its well done, but that's not HIS speech pattern. However to me, that's what a galka SOUNDS like).
The Aldo, Ulmia, Tenzen, & the growl at 1:30 are pure shit however.

If SE doesn't come down on your ass, what you may be an option is using BG, some scheduling system, and a VOIP chatroom (Vent, TS, w/e.) to do auditions.
No offense to the actors you already have.

But, like swapping soft-subs, if I could swap out specific voice actors/tracks...
Holy shit that would be revolutionary! Fan-dubbing to complement fan-subbing. Pick and choose the best performance you can find.

[tymora]

I tend to disagree with that opinion. Every time I listen to JP dialogue, it's either spoken by someone who sounds like a 30yr old male or a five yr old girl (Stupid high pitched crap). When I've asked for reasons as to why the voicing of certain characters is better, I tend to get lame responses such as "he sounds more evil" (Reference to JP Death Note).

I find that dubbing for English is sometimes better because the voicing actually fits the role of the character (They actually sound like high school kids instead of people with a terrible cold). When you actually learn JP beyond the stupid one liners (Hisashiburi desune), you'll understand that most JP dubbed anime either repeat the same lines constantly or just sound lame when converted to English. If that's the case though, it's not the dubbing that makes it sound bad, it's the dialogue itself that's bad.

Edit: The movie should have more spanish speaking beastmen. That was hilarious.

Won't deny that some shows do have bad JP casting. The most memorable one would be Misaki from Angelic Layer. That was plain bad, the voice actress was trying too hard.

And actually I am decently fluent in JP, having taken and passed JLPT 1, though far from the level of Elmer, since there is an undeniable gap between people who learn JP and stays in Japan and those who just learn it elsewhere.

Most of the dubs I hear, I find it sorely lacking in the emotion department. Be it the familiar female voiced "ohohohohoho" or the cynical evil laugh, these things just don't get dubbed well. Parts of some conversations get lost in translation too. Having watched around 300+ series, I agree that some dialogue are cliched though.

Anime is made in Japan, and in my opinion, it is generally better to watch it as the way the original anime is meant to. Dubbing changes the flavor of anime (or any show for that matter) and I would think few like that. This is the same as watching US made movies, JP dubbed. Have you watched the Matrix in JP? That just sounded wrong (lol). As a matter of fact, it is not limited to what language it is being dubbed in. Watch Korean drama in Korean, JP anime in JP, English movies in English...etc etc. It just feels more natural~ (don't forget lip syncs too - I get uncomfortable when the lips don't pronounce the words being said.)

There ARE anime that are better dubbed though. "Romance of the 3 kingdoms" had a chinese-dubbed version and that rocked, partly because the voices were convincing and partly because the story is a chinese-one. It didn't sound right in JP for that one.

---------------------------------

Now this is not to say the US have bad voice actors. Animation features like those yearly releases from Disney and Pixar are fantastic but you can't really compare the two due to budget differences.

---------------------------------
And to Araelus, I didn't realize that fake JP trailer took dialogue from FMA They did a good job to mask it though, I was convinced those dialogue were custom made.

[Ayr]

Reminds me of this
YouTube - FFXI CoP Trailer Fan Fest 2006

[Altanass]

watched the trailiers, done a great job, it wouldnt be BG without ripping people to shreads. i remember when i started work on a cutscene compilation run through a filter to make it -somewhat- 1950's comic book style, not one positive comment (lol BG is harsh D:~) so i just discontinued it took up too much of my free time to do, still have it backed up on DVD in case i feel like working on it again. The voice acting in the trailiers was fine for the most part, it does sound like some of the dudes are reading their lines instead of speaking them but i'd rather have average joe voice actors than having to read subtitles (and if u do a COP videoe then the subtitles would be endless x.x). All in all a pretty good idea, I hope you do videos for each expansion, be something nice to save to DVD and watch in 5 or 10 years time when we all go our own ways ^^;

[Wakabo]

Trailer looks good, but when I watched it, it seemed a little off of being a movie by SE. [This was before the title change] I went back and actually read the post and was a little disappointed but I am still interested to see how this will turn out :3

[gamez]

I think where you went wrong with voice actors was not asking a community at large way earlier in the project (if you didn't), voice acting is really your selling point as the only thing seperating this, from any other FFXI cutscene rip with the reading and its not really doing its job. You could have got international accents and different articulation of vocal work for each race, nation, to give it a varying feeling from nation to nation.

I can't really criticize this too much from trailers but it was a bit harsh to watch because of lack of accent and speech acting, and I don't know if I'd sit through the DVD of it, though its a project style I'd love to see every expansion and story converted into. Star Sibyl shouldn't sound 40, Lion shouldn't have the same accent as a hume from Bastok, or an Elvaan from San D'oria, and a Galka shouldn't speak the same way as a Hume.

Voices just sounds like higher quality recording of people off ventrilo reading lines, and kept me waiting for the thick-manly mithra voice, but most the male voices didn't carry enough depth or testosterone for the bulk of a galka, or hume, when you're using the same voices for taru, and it shamingly felt like sitting at a D&D table listening to your 115 lb. friend talk about his barbarian in a nasally lisped tone.

At best, if the video is edited well, perhaps a re-record of the audio by FFXI's community at large, and in general ANY final fantasy fans who missed out on the online adaptation would be charitably willing to voice act for you, and make a higher quality version of your project.

p.s. Somebody hunt Vistani down and make him voice Zeid so you actually believe he's going to cut you.

[Sumiko]

Okay.. your thread caught my attention! And this is just all my opinions... Voice acting has been mentioned a ton but... ... well, I work in the entertainment industry, kind of, so I just want to offer some advice ^^;

I think your video is off to a good start. But if you want to imitate a movie trailer, you have to think about them being geared toward one thing: Selling the movie.

I don't think you do enough of that here. There's not enough dynamics, there's not enough eye candy... there's not really a clear, focused plot point. There's a lot of talk that could be condensed (general writing style rules)-- the shorter to the point you are, the better it is.

*shiftyeyes and tries to condense this post* '_';

To me, it felt like the main focus of the movie was toward adventuring, and then saving the world, and then the world in crisis. Too much at once. Not everything has to be revealed in the trailer.

Someone mentioned this trailer: YouTube - FFXI CoP Trailer Fan Fest 2006

I might be biased, I've seen that when it first got released to the community and I fell in love with it, mostly because it's successful in many ways (again, my personal opinion)... and videos often shouldn't be compared to one another due to style reasons, but see how the author threw in the entire focus of the trailer in the first few seconds, and it stayed consistent throughout the whole thing?

I'm not saying that everything has to be done in the same style, nor am I saying that everything has to be "In your face, loud music and flashy" (like the Anime trailer that was mentioned again, earlier in the thread-- but that wasn't trying to imitate a movie trailer) but in entertainment, in this day and age, if something isn't pushed to the extreme, it's going to be hard to make it stand out.

[The Stig]

No voices but ages ago someone released that "Recollections (Dynamis Mix)" track which is some 8min track (you can find it on Overlocked Remix) and a person took it and put in a load of cutscenes and gameplay scenes in it. That "trailer" done very well in trying to "sell" FFXI.

Recollections (Dynamis Mix) is basically the Recollections track from the OST but remixed into a trance/dance style tune (fast paced, slow, then fast, slow again).

EDIT: it's not on overclocked remix anymore =(

Also, regarding the JP/English voices issue, I think it's a bit unfair to compare it here since there's no true original to compare it with. But with anime, I think we all prefer JP voices because somewhere or elsewhere we have heard it before and in a lot (not all) of cases the English voices do not truely match the original, forcing us to dislike it and go back to the JP voices.

The worst offender that stick out in my mind for English voices:

YuYu Hakusho = Kuwabara

Anyway, as for FFXI, I mentally imagine that:

Mithras = should sound like hot sluts
Galkas = Deep voice (make or female)
Hume = Normal
Elvaan = Pride/Arrogant/anal
Taru = Squeaky/High Pitched with a few exceptions (reserved for the "cool" ones)





I done a rip at home of the "over 9000" scene of it in Japanese, Cantonese and English ... if anyone is interested.... (It's just a 16~ second sound clip that plays "over 9000" in Japanese, Cantonese, English)

[BRP]

The worst offender that stick out in my mind for English voices:

YuYu Hakusho = Kuwabara

You are out of your mind, the dub voice made the character twice more enjoyable.

EDIT: Also your list sounds like intentionally bad voice acting. Isn't hamfisting stereotypes into characters the biggest pet peeve of weeaboos?

[The Stig]

You are out of your mind, the dub voice made the character twice more enjoyable.

EDIT: Also your list sounds like intentionally bad voice acting. Isn't hamfisting stereotypes into characters the biggest pet peeve of weeaboos?

That dub voice was a bit fresh but after sitting through 200+ episodes of DBZ and moving straight onto YYH I guess was the flaw there for me. It's not that bad but just one that sticks out in my mind as it's what I'm currently watching on my daily 2 hour commuites. =)

I don't care about weeaboos . But that list is what I mentally think overall.

[Sonomaa]

Ive been told by some good sources that at one point gulool ja ja and genbu had recorded audio for the trailer but it didnt make the cut. If I can get their version up there, Ill share it with you guys.

[Dohorehn]

would gulool ja ja have two voice actors? It would be a shame if he didn't.

[millionsknives]

I cant wait to watch this, should be fun XD

I think the voice acting was pretty good too, all the people bitching here obviously dont know how hard it is to be good at it.

[tymora]

I am thinking...hold an audition

Now that you have a finished video, it is actually possible to hold an audition for good voices out there from the community.

[Nartosar]

Does the author have real hopes of being greeted with and offer by Square Enix with this video?
Or is considering this a "product" just part of the movie's theme?

Wat?

[Araelus]

Edit: The movie should have more spanish speaking beastmen. That was hilarious.

That's actually the Slovak language, not Spanish.

This is awesome. Flat out. Nothing can take that away, you've done good work. I just came off my first semester of learning Adobe Premier & After effects. This does not look like self-taught work, you've got a gift Araelus.

Thanks! I was vaguely aware that CS3 is supposed to be difficult to use, but I don't have any external reference point for what I know or don't know about it. I just kind of pick up on things like that. It is "intuitive" for some reason, if that makes sense.

YouTube - FFXI CoP

Indeed, whatever the 1:34 voice is sounds excellent. I was kind of "ehh" on the Prishe voice, though, since I know someone in the real world who has the same kind of personality as her and so I always heard Prishe speaking in her voice. Nag'molada was fantastic, I'd like to see him help out with a complete CoP dub.

If SE doesn't come down on your ass, what you may be an option is using BG, some scheduling system, and a VOIP chatroom (Vent, TS, w/e.) to do auditions.
No offense to the actors you already have.

I think where you went wrong with voice actors was not asking a community at large way earlier in the project (if you didn't), voice acting is really your selling point as the only thing seperating this, from any other FFXI cutscene rip with the reading and its not really doing its job. You could have got international accents and different articulation of vocal work for each race, nation, to give it a varying feeling from nation to nation.

...

At best, if the video is edited well, perhaps a re-record of the audio by FFXI's community at large, and in general ANY final fantasy fans who missed out on the online adaptation would be charitably willing to voice act for you, and make a higher quality version of your project.

...

p.s. Somebody hunt Vistani down and make him voice Zeid so you actually believe he's going to cut you.

The reason this entire thing was developed in secret was, as Cantih said, because I supposed that it was safer to talk to SquareEnix after the movie was complete instead of asking them if it was OK to make it in the first place. That was one amongst many huge mistakes. I'm sorry I went about it that way. It would have been much better to ask for permission than forgiveness.

This brings up the next point that I can't say enough...

is considering this a "product" just part of the movie's theme?

Wat?

When working on anything that will take more than a month, with eighty-four actors, the only way it is going to get done is if you consider it a "product". You are producing some thing. Call it a "product" and people understand you're serious about finishing it. Amateurs, by definition, should happily contribute, but the reality of the situation was more complex. I don't need to complain, though.

But, like swapping soft-subs, if I could swap out specific voice actors/tracks...
Holy shit that would be revolutionary! Fan-dubbing to complement fan-subbing. Pick and choose the best performance you can find.

That would be really amazing, but even if you only do this for the 25 main characters, with say as few as two voices per role, it quickly becomes a combinatorial explosion. What would be more realistic is having multiple dub tracks and people can just be unhappy with some of the voices in each dub instead of unhappy with all of the voices in the single available dub... or something.

...All in all a pretty good idea, I hope you do videos for each expansion, be something nice to save to DVD and watch in 5 or 10 years time when we all go our own ways ^^;

If I did CoP, which I have the full scripts for, I want full SquareEnix support, a real recording studio, a budget of more than $200, and so on.

That would be so much fun, though! LOL RITE

Okay.. your thread caught my attention! And this is just all my opinions... Voice acting has been mentioned a ton but... ... well, I work in the entertainment industry, kind of, so I just want to offer some advice ^^;

I think your video is off to a good start. But if you want to imitate a movie trailer, you have to think about them being geared toward one thing: Selling the movie.

I don't think you do enough of that here. There's not enough dynamics, there's not enough eye candy... there's not really a clear, focused plot point. There's a lot of talk that could be condensed (general writing style rules)-- the shorter to the point you are, the better it is.

*shiftyeyes and tries to condense this post* '_';

To me, it felt like the main focus of the movie was toward adventuring, and then saving the world, and then the world in crisis. Too much at once. Not everything has to be revealed in the trailer.

Someone mentioned this trailer: YouTube - FFXI CoP Trailer Fan Fest 2006

I might be biased, I've seen that when it first got released to the community and I fell in love with it, mostly because it's successful in many ways (again, my personal opinion)... and videos often shouldn't be compared to one another due to style reasons, but see how the author threw in the entire focus of the trailer in the first few seconds, and it stayed consistent throughout the whole thing?

I'm not saying that everything has to be done in the same style, nor am I saying that everything has to be "In your face, loud music and flashy" (like the Anime trailer that was mentioned again, earlier in the thread-- but that wasn't trying to imitate a movie trailer) but in entertainment, in this day and age, if something isn't pushed to the extreme, it's going to be hard to make it stand out.

You make a solid point about the trailer - it was kind of slapdash after the movie was done and I was running out the door thinking, "uh, let me actually tell people this exists."

While I would like to work more in the future with industry experts, in terms of using SquareEnix's intellectual property, The data has been voluntarily removed. My "toe-the-line" methodology regarding copyright infringement didn't make it OK. Do you remember what happened to the re-make of Chrono Trigger?

I am thinking...hold an audition

Now that you have a finished video, it is actually possible to hold an audition for good voices out there from the community.

It would be possible to replace all the actors, I suppose. Please keep in mind that during the project, I did take auditions from people off-site. Although this was not from the FFXI fanbase or public at large, it did include quite a few people.

...

Not that it's impossible, but casting about 35 main characters (this includes Bastok rank 1 through 10 and Zilart) and 90 cameo roles all over the internet to strangers has a low feasibility to me.

Ive been told by some good sources that at one point gulool ja ja and genbu had recorded audio for the trailer but it didnt make the cut. If I can get their version up there, Ill share it with you guys.

[Nicholette]

Sorry we stopped doing Nyzul, Nicho.

NP, we miss you Ara. Great work on the video Can't wait for the whole thing!

[Linktri]

Needs moar tacos.