Roles in a Production

[DiaRiles]

Okay, don't laugh at the newbie...

I keep hearing about all of the different roles involved in creating a fandub/radio play/etc. I've only ever been involved in the acting side of things and I'm beginning to take an interest in the production aspect, but I don't know how many of the different roles there are and what each of them do. I'm familiar with the voice actors, of course, and scripters (who obviously write the scripts), but how do all of the other roles get categorized and do they overlap? SFX technicians, mixers, editors, etc.?

I'd appreciate anyone who can shed some light on this!

[Monotori]

... maybe this is just me, but I always assumed most amateur work was done by one person (besides the voice actors, of course). Everything I've worked on, I did the script, I collected the SFX, I put them together, I managed the cast, and produced the project.

If you want a complete list, though, I suppose a very basic one would look like this:

Scripter
Mixer-- Puts together all the SFX/BGM/voices, and in the case of fandubs they sync it up to the video.
Editors-- I find them optional but useful; script editors are obvious, but in the sound editing sense they would really be the same as the mixer. Some people like having a second opinion, though, so they recruit editors to look over it and spot any rough parts. Between mixers and editors I think there are different definitions but I always lump them together because I normally do the job of both. (In the professional world, however, editors would be the ones to splice together the footage and the audio into different shots for movies; not sure how it is for anime.)
Producer-- Again, this is usually the same person, but they would get together the cast, make a schedule, and contact everyone about the project and its progress.
Director-- For smaller projects, this should really be the same as the producer: otherwise, they choose the project and how they want it delivered and hire all the rest of the crew to fulfill their intended purpose.

It's a little difficult defining the roles for amateur work because they tend to be at least slightly altered from the norm, but overall the main idea is that you should NOT be recruiting dozens of people for work you can do yourself. If you're handling the mixing side, you can recruit a scripter, but if you just want to see a fandub don't hire a producer, mixer, and scripter and do nothing yourself.
Hopefully that helps! (And anyone is welcome to disagree with my definitions, I don't think they're so well-defined anyway.)

[DiaRiles]

Eek, I forgot about this until I started wondering about it again just now, haha! Thank you so much for answering, that does shed some light on the situation for me. =] I appreciate it!