The Legend of Xanadu Dub Project - Auditions Wanted

[SamIAm]

You might not know it if you haven't been hanging around the PCEFX forums, but following our translation of the PC-FX's Zeroigar, elmer and I have been hard at work over the past year on simultaneously translating two PC Engine CD ARPGs by Nihon Falcom, The Legend of Xanadu and The Legend of Xanadu II.

Well, there is exciting news: we're essentially finished. All of the hacking, translating, editing and graphical work is done, and it looks great. There is one more big task that remains, however, and that's making an English dub for the voiced parts (Japanese versions on youtube here and here).

Would you be interested in lending your voice to these fantastic games? Do you know anyone else who might be? Please have a look at our character list page, where you'll find everything you need to audition. There are roughly fifty parts to fill, some large, some small, and we're going to need a broad cast of actors to pull this off. When we do, though, it's going to be something really special.

Links:

The character list

An introduction to The Legend of Xanadu

Screenshots of the translations

A basic intro for non-gamers, to show to your Great Aunt Formaldehyde to convince her to audition

The dub-scripts are 100% finished, and the audio project files are completely set up with BGM, sound effects, and every clip-position marked. Literally the only thing left to do is copy and paste a few hundred clips after people get them recorded and sent to us.

The initial casting period will end May 19th. Feel free to ask any questions. We hope to hear from you soon!

(Oh, and subtitles are impossible due to hardware resource constraints, by the way. The tentative plan is to also release the scripts in case people don't want to use the dub.)

[Googie]

I shared this topic on Facebook for you, I have lots of friends on my side who are into voice acting. 

[elmer]

I shared this topic on Facebook for you, I have lots of friends on my side who are into voice acting. 

Thanks, we really appreciate that! 

We'd like to get the word out as wide-as-possible, in the hopes of finding folks that might not normally  play videogames, or hang out around translation sites.

I know that a lot of folks, particularly here, don't love the idea of a fan-dub, and I totally understand that.

It's only because Falcom released the entire ingame music on CD, and that I have access to a rather-large sound-effect library, that I think that we have a chance at doing a good job of this without embarassing both us and the original developers.

Now it's a case of finding the right voice-talent to do justice to Falcom's stories.

So ... the more places that the casting-call gets posted, the better.

[Spinner 8]

So ... the more places that the casting-call gets posted, the better.

Well you made it to Kotaku:
http://kotaku.com/1794124718

[SonicShadows]

Being among one of the few who's still been following this project since being cast in the Xanadu II dub years ago, I'll try to get an audition in and let a handful of my voice acting contacts know about this as well.

[SamIAm]

This is all fantastic. Auditions are already rolling in!

There are definitely a lot of parts to fill, though. If anyone is at all inclined to try out for this, please do so!

I shared this topic on Facebook for you, I have lots of friends on my side who are into voice acting. 

Thank you very much! 

Being among one of the few who's still been following this project since being cast in the Xanadu II dub years ago, I'll try to get an audition in and let a handful of my voice acting contacts know about this as well.

Wonderful!

[Lentfilms]

Just sent in an audition for one of the bosses a little while ago and will be sending in more auditions after my voice recovers. As someone who played a bit part in the original dub for Xanadu II back in 2011 it is really exciting to see this translation come together after all this time and that it is even being talked about on sites like Kotaku. Whether I get a part or not I wish you guys luck on this project!

Being among one of the few who's still been following this project since being cast in the Xanadu II dub years ago, I'll try to get an audition in and let a handful of my voice acting contacts know about this as well.

Very happy to hear that you are still following the project SonicShadows, I remember you doing a great job as Areios in the old dub.

[ArkthePieKing]

Making a mental note of this one! I'm about to embark on a 2 week trip to Japan in a few hours actually but I'll be sure audition once I'm back!

[Ishkabibble]

(Oh, and subtitles are impossible due to hardware resource constraints, by the way. The tentative plan is to also release the scripts in case people don't want to use the dub.)

I am one of those people and am fine with this.  Though this is in case I am not personally satisfied with the dub that happens.

Looking forward to playing these games and appreciate the hard work on this.

[IlDucci]

Let me give you a bit of an advice: You should always look for actors as well as asking them to come with you.

A few years ago there were some fandubbing communities, but it seems that groups like Voice Acting Club (No longer accepts fandubs) and Voice Acting Alliance (Dissappeared) are out of the question. There's another community called Casting Call Club, but I haven't seen too much. Take a good look at the fandubbing scene and post the advert at the websites/forums that you prefer.

[elmer]

Let me give you a bit of an advice: You should always look for actors as well as asking them to come with you.

A few years ago there were some fandubbing communities, but it seems that groups like Voice Acting Club (No longer accepts fandubs) and Voice Acting Alliance (Dissappeared) are out of the question. There's another community called Casting Call Club, but I haven't seen too much. Take a good look at the fandubbing scene and post the advert at the websites/forums that you prefer.

Thanks for the advice!

Yep, we've already contacted a bunch of voice-actor forums, and are waiting for accounts or approvals at some others.

Voice Acting Club doesn't allow most fandubs, but there seems to be an explicit exclusion to that policy allowing for game translations. We're checking with the admin staff there.

Casting Call Club only allows 30-day-or-less auditions, and at this busy time of year we want to give folks a little longer, so we're waiting for a couple of weeks to post there.

BTVA is another voice-actor site that we've contacted.

As you say, VAA has died.

Can you think of any others that we should be contacting?

[Burnt Lasagna]

Well, there is exciting news: we're essentially finished. All of the hacking, translating, editing and graphical work is done, and it looks great.

All 16 of my turbo-ed grafxs are firing on all cylinders.
Very cool stuff! I look forward to finally playing it; its been a long time coming.

[elmer]

I look forward to finally playing it; its been a long time coming.

I hope that you enjoy it!

It certainly feels like one heck of a long time to me, even though I've only been working on it since 2015.

I can only imagine how SamIAm feels after having worked on in since 2011, and having gone through the heartache of seeing it stall and fizzle-out in 2012-2013.

[Burnt Lasagna]

I can only imagine how SamIAm feels after having worked on in since 2011[...]

Yeah, WayBack Machine shows the old Xanadu fan dub thread on Voice Acting Alliance as March 17th, 2011.
So, almost 6 years since the initial announcement...

Super grateful you dragged this project out of the dust bin elmer! The screenshots look more legit than actually legit TG16 translations.

[SamIAm]

It's been 10 days, and we've had a lot of very good auditions. I only wish I had more time to write feedback for everyone a little more quickly!

I've actually been trying to give people additional direction through feedback, and encouraging them to do retakes. When they do it, the improvements are sometimes quite drastic, and more than a few people have bumped themselves from the pool of back-ups to the pool of prime candidates.

If anyone is thinking about submitting an audition, I'd encourage you to do it early in order to be able to go through this feedback process more fully. If I get a wave of auditions one day before the deadline, I'll very likely need to rush to make judgement so that people can start recording for the dub itself.

Anyway, it's all going great. Thanks to everyone who has auditioned so far!

[Kallisto]

You all worked hard, thank you for bringing this series out from the dust.

[Lentfilms]

Glad to hear the auditions are going well! Can't wait to see/hear the end result 

Edit (I don't want to double post so I'll just edit my previous comment):

Looks like Nintendo Life posted an article about the dub project just a short while ago and a lot of people on Twitter seem to be reblogging it. Check out the article here: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/04/casting_call_-_fan_translation_of_legend_of_xanadu_now_holding_auditions

[SamIAm]

Cool!

By the way, was anyone here interesting in trying out for Sophia but found the time limit impossible?

We just learned that we made a mistake on the webpage. The target time for her first audition line is 12.4 seconds, not 7.0 seconds. We'll be updating this as soon as possible. Sorry for the confusion!

[Asaki]

Man, this sounds like fun, but I doubt I have the time =(

[elmer]

OK, time for a bump!

There is a little less than 2 weeks left for anyone to get in their audition for the dub.

Even if you don't want to be a part of the dub yourself, please consider mentioning the project to anyone that you know who has an interest in voice-acting, especially middle-aged and older folks, of whatever gender.

We've had quite a few semi-pro or better actors/actresses send in auditions, and we have a decent *chance* of doing a good job on this ... but at-the-end-of-the-day, it really will depend upon the quality of the voice-talent that we can find to volunteer.