This should be an exciting post for everyone. This has been something I've kinda been indirectly talking about for the past . . . month or so? It's been a while. And it's a neat story, I promise . . .
First off, I just wanna say thanks again to Red for making my banner in my new introduction (which still has work to be done). But the banner looks sweet, so thanks a bunch! That aside, there's still a ton of work to do for the site. I've got a couple e-mails fired off here and there asking about what to do next, so until those get here I'm just gonna chill a bit. Evidently, I'll be plenty busy as is anyway . . . so let's get on to the story, hey?
On The Road To Amazing Opportunities:
This starts back in late January, while I was still in that job finding club. That week was all about cold-calling employers, where you basically call a company, say "hey, I'm looking for work . . ." and hope for the best. To be frank, I sucked at it. I hated doing that, and was the least-enjoyable part of the program regardless of how useful and ultimately effective it is.
In any case, that week I cold-called Ocean Group.
Ocean, as those of you who read the anime ending credits knows, is a voice recording company in Vancouver. They produced the English dubs for Inuyasha, Ranma 1/2, most of the Gundam shows, The Vision of Escaflowne . . . Death Note . . . so yeah, they're pretty well known around here.
Anyway, I called them asking about technical writing with them, as that was the kind of work for which I was looking. Well, the receptionist heard me say "writing", and patched me through to the Head of Production over at Ocean. So I asked her about technical writing and what those kinds of writers do for them.
Her reply: "We don't really have those here..."
Eep. Turns out she only really works with scriptwriters for anime . . . nevertheless, we started talking about that more and more, about how it's quite hard to find good scriptwriters, and how it takes a lot of specific skills to get the work done. You need to be able to take a translation of a different language, turn it into natural-sounding English that fits the mouth flaps of the people on-screen, and it should be good enough that if you were to read the lines without the character name next to it, you can still figure out who's speaking.
But y'know, she had me very interested now, and she knew. So, she told me to e-mail her my resume and we'd work from there.
Needless to say, I hung up and kinda went "holy crap!". 'Cause how many of us really look into a career in anime? But here we are - well, here I am . . .
On The Road To Ocean:
Gotta say, writing the cover letter to go with the e-mail resume that night was scary. Just sayin', this is a writing job, and this cover letter was going to be the first piece of my writing she'd ever see! It had to be perfect!
Well, wrote the letter, wrote the e-mail . . . sent it in . . . and for the next three days I waited, trying to decide when to call back to follow-up. It was a Tuesday when I did; Adam tried to make people write fanfiction to guess about what I was making a phone call that night, too.
Well, made the call, asked her if she got my stuff . . . and then she asked if I wanted to come in for a meeting . . .
Holy crap.
The actual meeting was February 5th, and I spent the entire week prior to that getting prepared. I was frantically putting together a working portfolio of my writing, taking bits from school essays, theOtaku articles and features, and even blog posts. On the day before the interview, I even went out to finally buy a messenger bag so I wouldn't have to walk in with a backpack (something my peers in the job finding club would later tell me - the messenger bag was far more professional than my "schoolbag" I took to the club meetings every day).
When the day of the meeting came, it was pouring rain outside; I felt that was a bad omen. Then I needed to borrow a tie from my brother, 'cause all my ties suck (at least the ones that could go with a black shirt). Anyway, Ocean Productions is a long ways away from where I live, so I had a ways to drive through the bad rain . . .
That's when I got a call from the Head of Production on my cell phone. Turns out the rain was part of a storm that had actually knocked out the power at their office; I'd need to call her cell phone so she could let me in. Interesting, to say the least . . .
Well, I arrived at the office in Vancouver . . . and then the rain stopped. Alright, good omen. Came to the door, called the Head of Production to come down and get me, met her face to face finally (wonderful woman, might I add, very nice, very easy to talk to). She would later tell me that the dead power was a blessing for us, because that way the phone wasn't constantly ringing and interrupting us in her office.
In any case, I learned a lot about the anime industry that day . . . annnnd, I'll leave it at that because I signed a confidentiality clause. Hehe.
All I'll say is that the interview went really well, I felt. All that was left was to prove that I knew how to write - so she gave me a test to take home. It was half an episode of a series they had already worked on in Japanese, a translated script of the clip, and then I was to turn that into a useable ADR script.
Exciting, huh?
Scriptwriting and E-mails:
So for the next week I chop at it whenever I can . . . which is hard, because this was also right at the start of Chinese New Year and five thousand consecutive lion dance performances! But, after about a week of work (in constant e-mail contact with the Head of Production) I finally finished my test and e-mailed it in. The next day I brought the hard copy test bits back to the office - sadly, Head of Production was in a meeting at that exact moment, so I didn't get to see her again first. Dang. But, the test was done . . .
The next day I got an e-mail back from her thanking me for finishing quickly and that she'd need a few days before she'd have time to look over the test . . .
So I waited. And then started getting paranoid, even having freaky dreams about the thing . . . so yeah, that particular part wasn't quite as much fun. After a week I got an e-mail again. Turns out she had the flu all week and as such missed a lot of things . . . fair enough, back to waiting . . .
Another week passes, I'm getting a little worried again, so I e-mail back first asking what the status of everything is . . .
. . . literally half an hour later, she e-mails me back saying she had just finished reading my test . . .
Annnd . . .
. . . it was good! As soon as a new project comes in, she might be able to get me in on some work as a scriptwriter with them!
But that still means they need a new project first that requires new scriptwriters . . . so I am to keep in touch until that day.
Epilogue:
All in all, I'd have to say this is pretty awesome. I have a really cool opportunity here, and while immediately there's nothing yet, the potential for the next few months is exemplary. I can only hope that something comes their way sooner than later, 'cause I'm really eager to go.
So yes. Within the year I very well could be a scriptwriter for Ocean Group, writing ADR dialogue for anime. It really doesn't get much cooler than that.
