wjbraden wrote:
Before I start, I want to note something. I recently read an article on anime news network (I can't find the particular article now link now) that mentioned that it is not uncommon for Japanese production companies to request foreign distributors to send dubbed masters back to Japan. When they are sent dub, the masters, scripts and promotional materials become property of the studio (in DBZ's case, Toei, of course). This is evidenced on how the Dragon Boxes featured foreign dubbed clips from a bunch of different dubs, including the Texas Funimation dub. Toei already had these dubs in the vaults, and likely didn't just ask Funimation randomly in 2008ish for a clip from their dub to use for this extra, they already had the Funimation dub in their vaults since day one.
This was something I took note of as well, it's the main reason I believe Toei have access to non-HD copies of Ocean's Kai dub. However, I think you' go off the rails after this.
the fact that these YTV airings had the original Faulconer placement as Azelf89 linked to also further proves that Toei supplied the tapes. Funimation had probably given Toei the first version of the tapes to Toei, and didn't send them revised masters for just for a couple of music re-scoured, so Toei just gave Ocean what they had. So while a lot of us thought that Ocean had "borrowed", sub-licensed, or had Funimation send them tapes, now I'm thinking it was Toei who supplied these tapes to Ocean.
The Toei/Ocean relation is an interesting theory but what you describe here isn't believable for Z. First off, Funimation cast members have expressed in interviews that when making DBZ, they originally got their video from Toei for the initial seasons but they then had to resort to getting footage from Mexico afterwards as it was much faster and made it easier for them to keep up with the demand from Toonami. So in other words; Toei were very slow at sending footage to America, so with this in mind, how could we believe that Toei, Funimation and Ocean were all rapidly exchanging footage to and from Japan in such a short timespan whilst preparing the episodes? It doesn't match what we know. This wasn't like the current internet age where they could just send files over cloud storage, they had to send physical tapes each time which would have taken a while.
I think it's more likely that Ocean were still being contracted by Funimation to do some post-production work for the in-house dub and thus were given access to Funi's isolated voice and music tracks (which would later come in handy once they started producing their own dub). Remember that Ocean's services don't end at voice over and dubbing, they also do post-production and editing. Funimation at the time were still clearly a new (and frankly amateur) company in need of help, they didn't have the capability or facilities that they have now, that's why they went to Saban, Ocean and Pioneer for help in the first place - those were the people who knew the business and who had the expertise to get the job done properly.
The added sound effects present in the YTV broadcasts of the in-house dub do seem puzzling at first but it basically just reaffirms the idea that Ocean and Funi were still working together after the cast change - we already knew Terry Klassen was helping with scripts from season 3 (and evidently GT) and that the Westwood dub shared the same footage source (not to mention the editing work Ocean did for them on
Nicktoon's Kai) so it really shouldn't be too surprising that they also handled post-production for DBZ in Canada. With this in mind, the additional sound effects are just an added layer of polish that Ocean provided along with any additional edits or time cuts that YTV demanded.
As to why Ocean were (seemingly) tinkering with the music? I don't think it was them to be honest. They'd presumably need a library of Faulconer's individual tracks at hand to replace a missing one with and I don't find that very plausible. I think it's more believable that Faulconer productions simply made last-minute additions to the music placement (or needed more time to create a new track for one of the scenes) and Funimation failed to update Ocean with the latest version in time - thus the previous draft of music gets aired in Canada by default. I've been told that channels can actually fine production companies if they fail to deliver episodes on time so I don't think something as small as a music inconsistency would prevent them from submitting an episode for air.
wjbraden wrote:Also, just wanted to mention that I had a chance to look at all those clips Azelf posted with the added sound effects. While the added SFX in the movies were placed sparingly and rather "artisitcally" done, here they just sound really campy. It's like Ocean was just going out of it's way to say "hey look, we added tons of
Canadian sound effects to this show, so it's Canadian? Right?
Right CRTC, please give us Cancon points!!"
Just thought I'd add that Funimation most likely
wanted additional sound effects, they even tried
adding them to their own dub, but Ocean was a company that specialised in sound so they were able to do it far better.
Here's what I think happened. Once Funimation moved production of DBZ moved from Canada to the States in '98-'99, Ocean and Funimation had a falling out because the people at Corus Entertainment (shareholders of YTV and Teletoon, both which aired DBZ at one point) had a big problem with it, since their big prime-time program was no longer going to meet Cancon requirements (not to mention Ocean was losing a lot of work from a lucrative property due to outsourcing, which is always a point of contention in many companies).
You make it sound as if Ocean had no other work aside from Funimation's DB dubs. They were working on numerous dubs from larger companies at the time such as Geneon, Viz, Bandai and TMS (nevermind the western cartoons being outsourced to them at the time from the likes of Marvel, Hasbro and Mainframe/Rainmaker). DBZ was probably just seen as another low paying anime show to them and considering that Funi had to resort to in-house dubbing at that point, they likely weren't in a position to be paying Ocean lots of money for voicework. DBZ was on the rise for sure but clearly not Ocean's bread and butter.
wjbraden wrote:That point also adds to my "Tapes from Toei" theory. When Toonami UK was airing the series, they most likely weren't receiving tapes from Funimation and Ocean, they were receiving them directly from Toei (or by extension Toei Europe which handles properties over there). And just like Funimation was required to send their dubbing materials over to Toei for their archives, Ocean/Westwood was as well. When the Funimation dub of the Buu saga progressed further than its Westwood counterpart, Toonami UK wasn't calling up Ocean or Funimation for tapes, they were just getting whatever Toei had for distribution. Ocean hadn't yet submitted their tapes to Toei for those Buu episodes, but Funimation had, so when Toonami UK was looking for new episodes, Toei said "Here you go, by the way some of these episodes have different voices for now, we'll give you updated tapes later" and Toonami UK said "Sure, whatever".
Toei Animation Europe wasn't founded until 2004, so your theory falls apart right there. AB Groupe were the only ones handling distribution of Dragon Ball in Western Europe at that time. The AB Distribution logo was even seen at the end of the occasional Westwood and Blue Water dubbed episode which proves where Turner's source was. It's only in more recent years that a UK broadcaster (CSC/Kix) had to deal directly with Toei but that seems to be because rights reverted back to them sometime after DB stopped airing here.
wjbraden wrote:This also leads me to think it wasn't audience preferences so much that led to the dub airing in the UK/Netherlands or wherever, but the fact that the Westwood dub was cheaper to air than the Funimation version. The Westwood dub was done on the cheap in comparison to the Funimation version, and thus was probably cheaper to air than the Funimation version (royalties to use the Faulconer score were probably more expensive than the recycled Megaman music was).
The Westwood dub was paying their union actors more than what Funimation paid their non-union actors, Sabat has even admitted to resorting to asking random workers from the office next door to voice extras and do walla sound effects for their DBZ dub because they were desperate for new voices, hell, they couldn't even afford a voice director! Sabat was doing that work too. It was only later on in their DBZ and movie dubs that they expanded their cast to include more actors, but for most of their run, they flat out didn't have enough actors in the cast which is why you hear Sabat so often in the broadcast dub (it wasn't because he was a Mel Blanc 2.0 - as many deluded fans would have you believe). Dale Kelly has even confirmed this himself - he revealed in an interview that Funimation intended for certain characters to be played by other actors initially but decided to recast on the fly and cast Sabat either due to the convenience of using him or, in Dale Kelly's case, because he was asking for more money. It's well known by now that a major reason they even set up shop in Texas, to begin with, was because it was so much cheaper to hire local talent there.
In regards to music, Funi clearly hired Faulconer because he was a cheap local musician. It wouldn't surprise me if they only promised him royalties with the exposure of national TV to sweeten the deal as they were too broke to even afford decent actors. The royalties were presumably being paid by whoever aired the show and would most likely be a minuscule amount compared to what Funi ended up making in the deal. The fact that Faulconer tried to sue them at the end of it all doesn't point to a very healthy relationship between the two parties either. And while I'm on the subject of Funi's music, according to Dale Kelly; Funimation didn't even want to pay royalties to the many bands that featured on the soundtracks of the movie dubs. That says a lot about how stingy a company they were back then so to say they were producing a high budget dub at that point is laughable considering all the evidence against that. Funi might have been
selling it for a high price (likely the same price they charged for Ocean's eps 1-53 - which could've easily been what ruffled the feathers of broadcasters who took notice of the drop in quality once season 3 rolled around), but don't be confused into thinking the price tag of the dub made it any higher budget than Canada's dub. If Funi were charging extortionate amounts then it's their own fault that a revived Ocean dub became such an appealing option to international broadcasters and distributors.
Ocean might have been using recycled music, which could be viewed as a cheap practice on the surface level, but that was arguably more to do with time constraints and the abruptness of starting at episode 108 rather than just for the sake of being cheap. Ani-tunes were already producing music constantly for Ocean on other kids anime that was being adapted in the early 2000s, so Ocean were constantly paying for new music to be made and adding to their library of stock music. This wasn't comparable with Faulconer's situation, he only had DBZ to work on and could compose custom tracks for the show full time because he wasn't in demand from anyone else. Ani-tunes, on the other hand, would have been too busy with multiple projects to focus on an entirely new score for DBZ and come up with all the necessary tracks as soon as Ocean started dubbing Z again - in this case, stock music was the only workable option as Kikuchi's fixed score would prove problematic when it came to making edits for TV - not to mention it would be a jarring change from the rock soundtracks that kids were used to in Funi and Ocean's prior episodes.