The Legend of Xanadu Dub Project - Auditions Wanted

[NightWolve]

Apart from that, thanks for posting there, we really appreciate you helping out and keeping the thread there alive! 

Yeah, and thanks to that voice actor, the thread got back on its intended purpose. A tangent was taken well before I got there after someone voiced an opinion that they felt betrayed by Falcom when they were forced to focus on development for consoles/portables starting with Ys 7 (after Ys Origin) given market conditions in Japan cost them their PC distributor, etc. He wants "Falcom to fail" although he has somewhat walked back this bitterness, which ironically is what I have been hoping for when it comes to XXXSEED Games (THANK YOU NIS AMERICA, INC.!!!)... But let's not derail this thread with that stuff either!

That voice actor would have seen my PM and post by now, and as of a second ago, nobody else posted in that thread pertaining to tryouts, but that guy does seem like somebody you could use at least for one of the roles, definitely! Really is a shame about Voice Acting Alliance too, about the only thing I could've recommended, and how unlucky is it that it went down recently... :/

EDIT: I'd get in touch with BurntLasagna, his brother is in this thread, LentFilms, and ask for his contacts, like the female actresses he found for Ys IV (with VAA at the time) since you're indicating there's a shortage there (understandable).

[LentFilms]

EDIT: I'd get in touch with BurntLasagna, his brother is in this thread, LentFilms, and ask for his contacts, like the female actresses he found for Ys IV (with VAA at the time) since you're indicating there's a shortage there (understandable).

I actually already directly contacted a small number of the actors/actresses that worked on Ys IV as well as some new people that I've heard in random fan projects over the years. I haven't heard back from anyone but that is understandable since I made it clear that I wasn't involved in the Xanadu dub and was just making them aware of the project, so they may have just sent some stuff to Sam or are just not interested. The thing is that a lot of people seem to have moved on to other things, are not that active online anymore or I have no way of contacting them since VAA is no more. My brother may be able to send some emails but those addresses are almost 5 years old at this point and may not be used anymore.

Not exactly sure how the auditions have been doing lately but last I heard Sam was getting swamped with auditions so hopefully trying to get old actors/actresses to return from Ys IV will be unnecessary.

[elmer]

Not exactly sure how the auditions have been doing lately but last I heard Sam was getting swamped with auditions so hopefully trying to get old actors/actresses to return from Ys IV will be unnecessary.

The auditions are definitely going well, but as-always, the more, the merrier!

We've had a couple of great older-actors audition, but I think that we're going to need more of both sexes in order to fill the cast.

I'm absolutely amazed that we're getting mentioned in some very-unusual places ...

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/04/casting_call_-_fan_translation_of_legend_of_xanadu_now_holding_auditions

That's wonderful in terms of getting people's attention, but the worry-wart in me is starting to get concerned that we might eventually attract the wrong attention! 

[esadajr]

Mondo tubuloso compadres! I can only send my positive vibes from here. Best of lucks with this.

[LentFilms]

I'm absolutely amazed that we're getting mentioned in some very-unusual places ...

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/04/casting_call_-_fan_translation_of_legend_of_xanadu_now_holding_auditions

That's wonderful in terms of getting people's attention, but the worry-wart in me is starting to get concerned that we might eventually attract the wrong attention! 

If you're thinking that all this attention might attract a C&D from Falcom I honestly don't think there is a chance of that happening. This almost never happens to fan translation projects and the two most recent examples I can think of were because the patches had copyrighted material in them, the Type-0 translation having the entire game in its patch and the Dragon Quest VII 3DS patch re-using the script from the PS1 game. These two examples were also cases where the copyright holder, Square Enix, was planning to officially localize the games around the same time the fan translations were being worked on.

With Legend of Xanadu I & II being such old titles at this point, over 20 years-old, I don't think Falcom would pay much attention to a fan translation being released. Plus they don't have a history of shutting down fan projects like Square or Nintendo.

[Dicer]

I've been hit hard with allergy season, did some recording but I wasn't happy with em, soon as this clears I'll have my goods submitted.

[SamIAm]

Good call on registering and making our intentions clear in the comments. 

As for the potential for a negative response from Falcom, while I'd just as soon not have them know about the project until it's done, two interviews with the company president always make me feel better.

The first is this.

JS: English speaking fans are so passionate they've made unofficial translations of Ys - what does Falcom think of this?

TK: We're really honored that people are interested in the Ys world so much. However, at the same time we always felt guilty for not being able to bring an official product to their hands. We're very pleased that after a long time we were finally able to bring over an official English version for this audience.

The second is this.

You might be the only hardcore gamer who started with a fan website and then became president of the company you were championing! Can you tell us how that came to be, how you met Falcom founder Masayuki Kato, and how you managed to take over his position?

TK: I had a school assignment to create an introductory website for something, which became the fansite for "Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch" (Known as "White Witch" in Japan - EG). There was an offline gathering and I was able to meet many passionate Falcom fans. Within the group, there were some people who worked in the game industry and by talking to them, after graduation, I thought about applying at Falcom. However, I was an economics student, so I applied for a position in the finance department. Once I entered the company, because I had some experience with the internet, I was placed in a position that dealt with the web. In order to create things like game introductions and manuals, I started test playing the games. This lead me to be closer to the development team and I was able to offer my input. Afterwards, I actually was able to take a position within the development team and after some time doing project and product management I found myself as the president - the position I occupy today. Apparently, the founder of Falcom, Mr. Kato, took a look at my fansite after I joined the company and wanted to teach me many things about the company philosophy and game development.

So the president of the company got his start as "one of us" and he didn't condemn fan translations when he had the clearest possible opening to do so.

I'm trying to find it right now and can't, but one of Square's lawyers said some really nasty things about fan translators, including the people who did Seiken Denestsu 3.

We are probably OK.

[esteban]

Falcom

Also, I am glad Nintendolife (and hopefully more) websites have been spreading the word.

[NightWolve]

Interesting, I didn't know that about Falcom's president, genuinely inspiring. What he said about the Ys fan translations has been around for a while though and obviously they wound up profiting from them given what XXXSEED did, so it'd be pretty hard to walk that back all of a sudden.

It does remind me however that Falcom deserves to know the whole truth about what XXXSEED did in their name so it never again happens to another fan team... I need to write a summary, get it translated to Japanese, and send it along to Falcom emails so it hopefully reaches him and/or those responsible for licensing... At least something in my favor has happened in 2017 with Falcom handing off Ys to a new US partner, NIS America, Inc. instead of XXXSEED!

For the next 4 years, every day that Tom Lipschultz wakes up, he has to wrestle with accepting the reality that Donald Trump is the president of the United States and that his despicable company lost the licensing rights to Falcom's flagship Ys series given an aggressive competitor... May I humbly gloat just a little bit, do you guys mind

[elmer]

I've been hit hard with allergy season, did some recording but I wasn't happy with em, soon as this clears I'll have my goods submitted.

Don't worry, you've still got plenty of time until May 19th! 

[in99flames]

Im definitely going to do an audtition. This is exciting stuff!!

[NightWolve]

Back in the Ys IV dub period, I wondered if I should try out myself, if not to add some novelty to the project, but I don't have any acting experience, didn't wanna embarrass myself with a Last Alert-esque performance and like most, I kinda hate my voice, heh, so I figured I should just let the best willing members of the public take on all the roles, preferably those with some experience, etc. hence I didn't raise the idea with BurntLasagna.

So, will elmer and/or SamIAm be heard in this dub by chance ? Don't be shy like me!

So the president of the company got his start as "one of us" and he didn't condemn fan translations when he had the clearest possible opening to do so.

I'm trying to find it right now and can't, but one of Square's lawyers said some really nasty things about fan translators, including the people who did Seiken Denestsu 3.

We are probably OK.

If you're actually feeling nervous, even after something like the Ys IV project being fully completed (and I shared a translated screencap on Falcom's Twitter once) and how their US partner XSEED hijacked the PC Ys translations, I can understand as I went through that period myself many years ago, but it's really rather silly now letting a little paranoia get the better of you...

At worst it'd result in a C&D, which may have happened in S. Korea by a localizing partner for Ys VI in 2003/4-ish. But in that circumstance you had a competing Korean fan team trying to localize the same game on the same platform against a legit publisher (the publisher caused it!). It was always high risk in my case to take on modern PC games that could get localized by pros, but very low risk for other fan translators taking on defunct/dead console games/systems no longer manufactured like NES/SNES/PC Engine/etc.

Interesting if what you say about Seiken Denestsu 3 is true. Neill Corlett was the main hacker for it who I had in my #rigg chatroom for a few years, and is the reason I was successful in my PC projects, not to mention he helped make the "Ys IV: Dawn of Ys" PC Engine fan project possible - we dumped the Ys IV script together after partnering up and sharing experience/info/etc. We have him to also thank for the "Bahamut Lagoon" fan project. Incidentally, he wound up working at Sony for a while, but last I said hello to him 2 years ago, he was at Yahoo - the Yahoo Finance app for Android is partly coded by him. He mentioned he doesn't care about restoring his old website that had his Playstation Sound Format stuff hosted for a while which is too bad.

[LentFilms]

So, will elmer and/or SamIAm be heard in this dub by chance ?

I remember in the old Xanadu II dub, Sam did the voice for Daimos and I thought it sounded pretty alright, although a little monotone. It would be fun if Sam and Emler put their voices in the dub somewhere, even if they just played a minor role like Townsman #1 & 2 or a voice in the backround during a crowd scene.

[SamIAm]

Oh god, I'm embarrassed to even think about the fact that I tried Daimos right now.

Suffice to say, we have much better options this time than to use my voice. Thanks for the "pretty alright" though. 

I don't even know what elmer sounds like, and I don't think he's interested in being in the final product...unless he's been secretly submitting auditions under a pseudonym!? 

[LentFilms]

Honestly I'm pretty embarrassed by some of the stuff I recorded for that original dub too  :oops: