Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2013 October 8

= October 8 =

What's different between "director" and "supervisor" in video game production.
Hi! I'm a non-English native speaker, and I know "director" seems "more important" than "supervisor". But is there and differences between the two?--Dddddddas (talk) 05:40, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the difference would be that the director directs the development (sets out the process, makes decisions and so on), but the supervisor would monitor the development team to make sure the director's requirements are met. --Canley (talk) 23:26, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Voice actresses voicing males in cartoons
For many years, I've noticed that, in voice acting, there many examples of voice actresses voicing males (examples including Nancy Cartwright voicing Bart Simpson in The Simpsons, Tara Strong voicing Timmy Turner in The Fairly OddParents, Rica Matsumoto, Veronica Taylor and Sarah Natochenny voicing Ash Ketchum in the Pokémon anime, and Junko Takeuchi voicing Naruto Uzumaki in Naruto), but voice actors voicing females is almost unheard of. My question is simply: why is it common to hire voice actresses to voice male roles? I know that it's a common practice to hire adult voice actresses to voice young boys, but what are the reasons why this is done in the first place? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 13:47, 8 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Real boys' voices will change eventually when they mature, and men's voices are too deep. Adult women's voices will stay consistent for a long time so they can keep doing it for longer.  Check out Bob's Burgers for a rare exception where men voice both the mother and oldest daughter. Mingmingla (talk) 14:30, 8 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Agreed. However, we do have the technology to electronically change the pitch of voices, so men could now do female and children's voices, using that method (or women could do men's voices). StuRat (talk) 15:21, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
 * See South Park for that exception. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mingmingla (talk • contribs) 16:33, 8 October 2013 (UTC)


 * You are correct StuRat but that adds to the productions costs of any project so I think that would only occur for a specific reason. It should be noted that this is not new. Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro features the character Cherubino who is sung by a soprano. Now there may have been a talented male whose voice had not yet broken (or a castrati at some point in time) who has sung the part (I'll bet JackofOz might know) but it is usually a woman singing the role. The same usually occurs in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel (opera) MarnetteD | Talk 15:47, 8 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Ooh yes, and tks for the invite. See breeches role, a hallowed tradition in opera for centuries.  Maybe the most celebrated instance is the opening scene of Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, where the whooping horns in the introductory music are supposed to represent the ejaculatory spurts of a male lover's orgasm.  The music subsides along with his erection, the curtain then opens, and we see the Marschallin (wife of the Field-Marshall) in bed with her young male lover Octavian, having a post-coital cigarette (no, not really, but I'm sure some producers have considered it) - however, Octavian's role was written for a mezzo-soprano in male garb.  This was written as recently as 1910/11, so the tradition continued long after Mozart (who died in 1791). And it goes on: the list includes works by living composers such as Thomas Adès and Gil Shohat. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:30, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
 * See also the principal boy in the British pantomime tradition; where a young woman always plays the male lead, such as Aladdin, Dick Whittington and Jack in Jack and the Beanstalk. Alansplodge (talk) 18:54, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Heading in that direction, there's the case of Peter Pan, in which stage plays have been conducted starring Mary Martin and Cathy Rigby, among others. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:19, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up was heavily influenced by the pantomime tradition - also including the audience participation of that genre. Allegedly, J M Barrie wanted the role to be played by a young boy, but legislation was already in place restricting the amount of time that children could spend on stage and how late at night, so a female lead was the only practical optiuon. Alansplodge (talk) 09:01, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * You left out one of the crown jewels (possibly before your time): June Foray as the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel. Also Grace Stafford Lantz did the voice of Woody Woodpecker in the later incarnations of that bird. Mel Blanc, who voiced Woody in his first four cartoons, obviously did countless male voices for Warner and others, but he also did the occasional falsetto for a female in a cartoon, if Bea Benaderet or June Foray were either unavailable or the director didn't think they were needed. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:07, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

High Fidelity Pure Audio
These are the new (or rather not, not within my knowledge) Blu-ray discs that contain a music album on each, in very high quality, certainly higher than MP3, AAC audio format or that of CD's. So far, I have discovered some albums from artists such as Nirvana, and Amy Winehouse are going to be released in this format soon in the United Kingdom, however, I have no such information of these discs being released in the United States. My question is: When will the first batch of these High Fidelity Pure Audio discs be released in both the UK and the US, and what albums, pieces will these be? Thanks. Nicholasprado (talk) 23:41, 8 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, with any new application of technology, there's always the risk that it won't catch on. For example, this happened with digital audio tape.  Blu-Ray may be on it's way out already, to be replaced by more portable and less fragile media, like USB flash drives.  And, as long as the memory capacity is sufficient, there's no reason why the same quality of audio can't be recorded on those, in the same format as the Blu-Ray's use.  (The main disadvantage of flash drives is that they can fail after thousands of read/write cycles, but this hardly seems to be an issue with audio.)  StuRat (talk) 18:07, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Such an example was the Up to eleven audio devices, unless I was the only one thinking that was realistic?  Market St.⧏  ⧐ Diamond Way  14:51, 10 October 2013 (UTC)