Wakfu: Miss Ugly Clip 4!

[Monotori]

Wakfu is the story of an Eliatrope searching for his family while a mysterious Xelor named Nox slowly gains power. It all culminates in an emotional season finale, but I decided to dub one of the first episodes in which Tristepin- the dumb, heroic Iop- gets seduced by some princesses in a tower, to the frustration of his party (Yugo, the Eliatrope, Evangelyne, the Cra, Amalia, the Sadida, and Ruel, the Enutrof). It's a bunch of fun, I promise.

Clip 1: Meet the characters...

Stay tuned...

CAST:

Amalia ... kage-ichihashi
Yugo ... Aziral (ep1)/Kamuro (ep2)
Evangelyne ... Scarlotte (ep1)/Andieluca (ep2)
Ruel ... Menchi
Tristepin ... Ryusuke
Ydalipe ... pickle131
Lela ... HandsomeZelos
Lela (female) ... Jordan
Erpel ... Andieluca
Eenca ... Mizura
Blue/Frog Monsters ... Monotori

SFX/MUSIC
freesound.org: ecodios, stomachache, smargroth, daveincamas, joedeshon, tictacshutup, j1987, soundscalpel-com, cjosephwalker, teleport8, ramjac, atnon, redjim, lmbubec, jasonelrod, scola, benboncan, qubodup, scarbelly25, jobro, DalomarGrimm, man, martian, FreqMan, q-k, hello-flowers, simon-rue, jppi-stu, robinhood76, cgeffex, glaneur-de-sons, traveler, bristolstories, nthompson, pushtobreak, soundstack, blue2107, corsica-s, tc630, dobroide, sanitysource, KGJones, ttiimm54, bevangoldswain
VAA SFX library
Wakfu OST (Main Theme 'Sur Tes Pas')
Jamendo artists: zero-project, Arnaud Condé, Renald de Matrexasse, Greendjohn, J.C. Vogt, Scabeater, Mattias Westlund, Celestial Aeon Project, Eracilon, fri.events Orchestra, Ludwig Thuille, Fabio Confalone, NICOCO, Spiky, ARTSomerville
Created with Videopad, Wavepad and Audacity

[Jordan]

Alrighty~ I'll give a critique. Keep in mind that I know pretty much nothing about Wakfu or the characters. Sorry. ^^;

Amalia || Kage-Ichihashi - Not a whole lot of lines, but I think you sounded appropriately..."princess-y," for lack of a better word. It was sort of childish and at times whiny, yet had this sort of refined way of speaking, like a sophisticated texture, I suppose. So I liked your performance for the character.

Yugo || Aziral - Personally, I am not a huge fan of the gravelly/roughly textured boy voices. You sounded the right age for Yugo, and I did like your delivery for him, but I would kind of like to hear it without so much of the scratchy texture. But that's just me.

Evangelyne || Scarlotte - I don't have much to say here except I really liked your voice for Evangelyne, though the line "Men; a cute girl walks by and they lose it" could've sounded a little more annoyed in my opinion. Great job, though.

Ruel || Menchi - I love the old man voice, but sometimes you were a little difficult to understand, though that may be a mixing thing.

Tristepin || Ryusuke - I like how you made him say such boastful lines without sounding too cocky. I thought you could've added a touch more energy to your performance, but I liked it overall anyway. Also, maybe be a little more careful about your words meshing together too much. In the line, "I'm here to rescue you!" sounded a little more like "I'm hereda rescue you!"

Ydalipe || pickle131 - Adorable. I don't know what more to say than that.

Lela || HandsomeZelos - My, what a deep voice you have! It's kinda odd to hear a man's voice coming from a female character, but hey, she's a beast right now. So it works.

Erpel || Andieluca - Didn't hear much from you, so I'm not sure what to say. I wish I had more to comment on, but from what I heard it sounds interesting and creepy~

Eenca || Mizura - I don't think I heard you in this clip, aside from the laughter at the end. But I am looking forward to hearing you in the future!

Mixing - I really liked the echo effects you used, and how you lowered the volume for the characters that were far away or off screen. Those are some little technical things that really shows you put a lot of thought into this clip. Though some of the levels might've been a little off, because a couple of the characters were a bit difficult to hear. But still, nice job and I look forward to seeing more!

[Aziral]

Jordan pretty much covered what I felt needed to be said.
I actually really liked the mixing for this. The changing of which side the voices came from depending on their location really added to the overall project, but as Jordan mentioned, the levels did seem to go off at some bits, and it was difficult to hear characters sometimes. This is a very exciting project and now I'm hyped to see the rest. ;_;

[Ryusuke]

Tristepin || Ryusuke - I like how you made him say such boastful lines without sounding too cocky. I thought you could've added a touch more energy to your performance, but I liked it overall anyway. Also, maybe be a little more careful about your words meshing together too much. In the line, "I'm here to rescue you!" sounded a little more like "I'm hereda rescue you!"

Thanks, I'm still trying to get the hang of energetic characters like these. I'll do my best to pump up the energy, and I'll watch out for meshing together words next time around, too.

I'll lay down my own critique tonight, but I enjoyed it overall.

[Menchi]

Ruel || Menchi - I love the old man voice, but sometimes you were a little difficult to understand, though that may be a mixing thing.

Thanks very much,

though yeah maybe a couple of the lines were quieter than others, {think I recorded it fine} but Myself or Monotori could of raised the volume a bit, but it'll be better next time

[pickle131]

Finally got to see this! XD Loved it!! You guys in the cast were so awesome, pleasure working with you all xD And the mixing was really good as well! Only thing is I found the music was a TAD too loud at a few points, but other than that it was really nice!

[Ryusuke]

Bump it up for more feedback

[Monotori]

Clip 2's up.

[Kage-Ichihashi]

Yay~ I've been waiting for this a while.

Some general things to note, really. Levels worked much better this time around, though some of the music could stand to have just a teensy bit more volume. Finding that balance between underscore and dialogue is very, very difficult, and it can take forever to be able to strike that balance 80% of the time for one production sometimes. Kudos on the improvement, though. Something you've already noticed is how very difficult it is to match lipflaps when scripting a fandub. You have an even harder task here because unlike Japanese anime, which often generalizes lip movement to simple opening and closing of the mouth, French (and most Western) animation puts the movements of the lips to the language. For some lines you managed to find that place where it fit just enough to pass off as proper dubbed dialogue, but just like finding the right balance between dialogue and underscore, you've got to find that balance here with your scripting. From what I know about you as a producer, you work hard to make sure the delivery of the lines becomes the focus, which is great, but with your new ventures into fandubbing, I definitely suggest you take on the challenge of writing dialogue that keeps to the integrity of the original just as much as it fits the visual images you are trying to match.

One little more nitpick as far as production goes, and then I'll move on to my fellow actors. Some of the mixing with the underscore is sort of...underplayed. In particular, the Tristepin scene with the frog-things. Now unfortunately, I no longer have the original scene to reference, but judging by the animation, I can only assume there was a lot more going on in the music of the original than the piece you chose. The reaction of the frogs, the camera shake, the shot of them hopping away in semi-still-slow-motion, and the speed lines as Tristepin laughs maniacally are all very dramatic images, and in the background, the music isn't even a contrast to the visuals we are seeing. While I can definitely hear what you were getting at with this piece (it swells in JUST the right place and would otherwise work) it just falls flat. Perhaps this is just a matter of my own opinion, and really, don't take it to heart or anything. This has a lot to do with my above suggestion of taking on the challenge of matching audio with visual as you venture into fandubbing.

Also another tiny little note about that scene...the cut as that piece runs into the reveal of Eenca music is far too abrupt. A simple fade out will solve little things like that.

Now the actors. I think as an overall note, I would just like to encourage one thing: enunciation, especially with Andieluca, Menchi, and Ryusuke. While I know mic quality does play some part in my ability to not completely understand you, it can't take all the blame. For Menchi, when doing a character voice as outrageous as the one you've got going for Ruel, you definitely have to make sure you're hitting your consonants. Even if you're trying to go with some kind of accent for him or make the lack of enunciation a part of his character, "that's" should not sound like "sssdat's." Make clear choices with how he should speak rather than attempting to make a sound for him. It will help not only in regards to your deliveries but also help the audience to understand what is being said.

While Ryusuke and Andieluca don't have to worry as much about how character-y their voices become, I still pass on the note of enunciation. I find myself saying it all the time. Consonants, consonants, consonants. Articulate. You'll find that you can not only do a lot more with your voice when you use every muscle in your mouth but also that it's a huge performance enhancer. If you want to see how articulation can help solidify your performance, just watch David Tennant as the Doctor. His vocal life is phenomenal not just because of his voice but because of the way he uses his words. I'm not saying you've got to go about talking about the moon of Poosh every twelve seconds, but seriously, take this note to heart. You will find yourself enjoying voice acting a hell of a lot more once you learn how to use your articulators.

Overall, though, I think everyone did a nice job. Ryusuke could still use some more energy, especially with the laughter, but hell, laughing is the HARDEST thing to do naturally with voice acting, and here he had to do it to lip flaps, so props for giving it a damn good try. There wasn't very much to hear of Andieluca since she only had two lines in this clip, but I liked what I heard so far. Kamuro sounds maybe just a bit too old for Yugo in my opinion, and that first line felt a little weak if only for the fact that the mischievous nature didn't come through. Even still, I can hear the bold, ready-to-fight nature clearly, and I liked that. The performance stealer was obviously Mizura, who sounded mature and tragic, so awesome work.

Nice job for the second clip, everyone. I'm looking forward to more.

[Monotori]

Wow! I'm really flattered you wrote such an in-depth response!

And now that you mention it, I realize how empty that one area of the clip really sounds. There are a couple of things I should've added there- the squish of the frogs as they leapt and leanded, the enhancement during his laugh- and I'll amend it as soon as I get the chance (good call on the fade out, just tweaked it a bit and it sounds much better). I also have to apologize to my cast- including you!- for changing up the script so much, unfortunately as you said it's a learning curve and I'm figuring it out as I go but I'm amazed at the level of patience you guys are showing me. Kudos to Ankama's English dubbing team-- when they finally release something, that is!