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ST: Who are you?
I'm Colleen Clinkenbeard. I'm the director-one of the directors-- for Fullmetal Alchemist.
ST: Who's the other director?
Mike McFarland.
ST: How do you share directing responsibilities?
Actually it's fairly new to us. I think both of us have worked on things that were either singly directed in the past or were directed in conjunction with somebody who it wasn't necessary to get together with but we, since the beginning, we started having meetings about casting and about where we wanted the direction of the show to go and it's been very collaborative. It's a nice feeling. Feels like a unit.
ST: So how does it work? Do you direct some episodes, he directs some?
Yes. I directed the first episode and then they had the next episodes written and now he's currently directing 2, 3 and 4 and I'm directing 6, 7 and 8. And 5 is awaiting approval for the script.
ST: Do you dub them at the same time?
Uh-huh. He's actually... he does daytime and I do night. At the moment I'm doing day in here [recording studio A] and he's doing day in there [recording studio B].
ST: So that enables you to get the dubbing process faster?
Yes.
ST: Could you describe Fullmetal Alchemist?
Oh wow. Other than that I love it so very much, it's beautifully animated. The colors are fantastic. It's not too dark but it's also not bright and cartoony. It's very philosophical. And...I dunno, it touches on a lot of deeper subjects, but even the deeper subjects are tinged with humor all the way throughout and the animation is wild at times and at other times extremely subtle. It just has both ends of the spectrum included.
ST: What would say some of the challenges of dubbing an anime with such an established fanbase are?
I guess there is the feeling that there are expectations, which you don't always think about on the inside here. If I ever hear about it on the outside, like somebody will talk about it being on the cover of a magazine or something like that and it'll hit me again, "Oh yeah, people know this. It's happened before in Japan." And listening to the Japanese track is always extremely important and extremely interesting to see the different takes that there can be on any one line. So I think there's a feeling of expectation but it also makes it more exciting...that everybody's waiting to see how the American version is going to turn out.
ST: Were there concepts in Fullmetal Alchemist that you thought needed to be altered to better reach an American audience?
I can see how many animes would need to be altered to reach it...but there are so many underlying themes that are current here in America. It's not like Fruits Basket where some of the things don't transfer (Fruits Basket is my favorite anime, so it's not derogatory in any way) but I think that all of the themes, the religious themes, the philosophical themes, really transfer really well.
ST: If you had to take the series as a whole and say "No matter what, this particular thing is something that we absolutely have to get right", what would that be?
I think that we already did, with the casting of the two main characters. I think the most important thing is to have the innocence in Al and the bitterness in Ed and see the journey that both of them take as it goes on because they start to meet in the middle and that's an extremely important journey. I think that was kind of already taken care of for us when it was cast by Justin Cook.
ST: Who does Alphonse's voice?
Aaron Dismuke, who is an adorable 12 year-old boy, an actual kid. His voice is an actual kid voice and it sounds really great coming out of that huge metal suit of armor. It's the perfect kid, he's got such a great innocence to him.
ST: What was your reaction after seeing the show for the first time?
I only saw a couple of minutes of it before I was begging for the show. I'm madly in love with this show. I was madly in love with Kiddy Grade while I was doing it and now I'm even more in love with Fullmetal. 'Cuz it starts off with a bang.
ST: At Otakon when the dub was screened, did you get any reaction out of that?
I heard positive feedback from our line producer and from a couple of other fans. I think I might back off from hearing about it anyway since we've changed it so much...significantly. A bunch of the characters have changed, actually.
ST: Are there any funny ad-libbing stories of lines that came out of the dub sessions?
We've collected a few outtakes, but we haven't done too many episodes. So our outtakes are limited at the moment. But you put Vic in the booth and you're going to end up with some crazy outtakes.
ST: Is this your first directing experience?
No, I finished up Kiddy Grade when Justin [Cook] became Producer.
ST: You're also a Voice Actor, right?
Yes I did Eclair in Kiddy Grade and that's how I kind of fell into the Kiddy Grade directing. And I do Rachel in Case Closed and I'll be doing Hawkeye and Rose in Fullmetal.
ST: Is it really difficult to portray these kids in such adult situations?
It is... Vic Mignogna [the voice of Ed] is a real help in that in that he's done so much voice-over work and he has experienced life a lot, so he knows going in what kind of gravity he needs to add to what situation and when it needs to be soft...there's very little guidance there. It's a little more difficult with [12 year old voice of Al] Aaron, because he hasn't had as many experiences. He's a terrific little actor, I mean he's better than most of the adults we have here, but he's so inexperienced that you have to tell him when a sentence is actually serious... that takes a little bit of drawing power.
ST: Especially with Alphonse not actually having any expressions. Does that make it more difficult?
That actually makes it easier. He doesn't have mouth flaps for one thing, he doesn't have flaps to match, so we certainly fly through lines like we wouldn't be able to if we had mouth flaps. And it adds the ability to put pauses wherever are necessary to make sense to Aaron, for the actor to connect to it. He can connect to it however he wants to. He doesn't have to force a connection because of the lip flaps.
ST: You guys will still be dubbing this while it's airing. Will you be paying attention to the fan reaction while you dub?
Well, you're always going to pay attention to how fans react, but I don't think it can sway us too much as the process is going to be that far in. It's interesting to see other viewpoints, but I think you have to stay true to your own intentions as directors and that helps also, being in tandem with Mike, because we have the ability to get an outside viewpoint before going in. I mean, we have two opinions going in, so it's not just one person winging it.
ST: Have you found that there are differences in the way you and Mike direct the characters?
Yeah, Mike and I have talked about that. He watched the first episode and he said that he enjoyed it, it was solid, and there were things that he would have done differently, but it was just a choice thing, not a it-was-bad thing. But yeah, there's always going to be different takes on lines, sure. And usually when you end up watching the final thing you can see those choices where you would have, if you've been involved in the process you can go "Oh, I would have read the line that way", but you can tell when it's solid.
ST: Do you think it'll be apparent which episodes were done by different directors?
It'll be fun to see. I think that's fun to watch in Case Closed, when you can tell that one person's directed it and I don't think that hurts the dub at all. I think it just makes it more interesting. Just my opinion.
ST: What makes Fullmetal Alchemist so cool?
Well, for one, they're Alchemists! And that is just cool. It's not sci-fi, it's fantasy. And that's kind of different for me coming from the Kiddy Grade, is that it's so... it's really fantasy, it's a whole different world. It's like Dungeons and Dragons, it's like having a game master invent the whole world and then put the characters in there and see what adventures they come to. It's really fascinating to see the journey. And I love how the characters are introduced in the series, because there are some that you don't meet until further in. It's not a continuation of core characters, it's almost episodic. Like, you'll have a block of three episodes where one character is prominent and in the next three they'll taper off. It's really...the characters are probably the best part.
ST: How did you become a voice actor, then make that jump to being a director?
Well, my roommate is Laura Bailey, who plays Tohru Honda in Fruits Basket and Keiko in YuYu Hakusho and... I could go on and won't...but she got me an audition and then I worked one small character for Chris Bevins in Dragonball GT and then I did Eclair for Kiddy Grade. And just through working with Justin I was up here so much for Eclair and I think we had kind of a mental wavelength that we were both riding for the show, so that's how I landed with the directing. We were just on the same page. It was luck.
ST: And you have a theater background?
Yes. Yeah, I graduated from Florida State in 2002 with a BFA in Acting.
ST: Do you watch Adult Swim?
Yes, actually. I don't watch very much TV...but Adult Swim is one of the ones... Futurama is... I love Futurama! I own all the DVDs. I mean aside from Case Closed, which is of course the best show on Adult Swim.
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