How Are Dubbed Animes Directed?

Many people have watched anime or at least know what it is. There is a lot of work that goes into dubbing and directing anime such as matching words with mouth movements and much more.

When directing anime, especially dubs, the experience can vary from other forms of directing. This begins in the writing process and carries on into the rest of the project. “When dubbing live-action, you have to be very aware of the shapes of the mouths,” said Kyle Jones when speaking on the differences between directing live-action and anime.

Kyle said, “Plosives, oohs, eehs, aahs - they all have different sounds.” explaining how when dubbing an anime, you have to pay attention to several small details in the mouth’s movement and the words you use to replace the original ones. This can be very important because “The more the writing strays from that, the more distracting it can be.”

Along with the focus on scriptwriting, when making films, the technology used is also quite important. The goal is to record the lines as quickly as possible which can be achieved with the current technology. In the past, however, technology was not as efficient.

In the past, they “were able to record at most about 20 lines per hour.” Now, they can get upwards of 60 making it much faster. Kyle Jones believes that along with the technology changing over time, his experience in the industry has improved.

He believes that finding a good relationship with his crew and understanding their skills is best. Kyle said he “learned early on to let the people involved do their thing. If [he] cast great actors and work[s] with great sound engineers, then why tell them how to do their jobs? Sometimes it’s best to just get out of the way.”

Kyle is also a voice actor for anime dubs and has had a lot of experience in relationships between directors and actors. He believes that “Once he has worked with a sound engineer long enough, [they] start reading each other’s thoughts - especially when it comes to placing the dialogue to the mouth movements.”

Kyle is more laid back when it comes to directing compared to other directors, saying “I’m also a big believer in keeping things loose. Some directors like to crack the whip. I’m more of a shepherd I guess.” It is important to have fun while also being productive as well as being collaborative and making an enjoyable atmosphere.

At the beginning of his career, Kyle was somewhat intimidated but mostly felt like he didn’t know where to fit in. He said, “While at first, that can seem intimidating, it also let me know that nobody has to do everything.”