The Final Hooray

I walked into Funimation for the last time (for a while) this morning. I knew where to go and how to get there; I knew who the people in the offices were and where to find people. In such a short amount of time, Funimation has become a familiar place.

I had two meetings in the morning: one with Kat of media purchasing and one with Cheree of brand management. I learned a ton about media purchasing from Kat; before this morning, I didn't even know that was a job. I learned that she is the person that analyzes statistics from sites such as Google, like what advertisement positions were working and which ones weren't. It's all very complicated, yet Kat is so used to it, she could do it in her sleep! My meeting with Cheree was fantastic as well. I learned that the brand manager is in charge of how to market their product, what demographic they're targeting, etc. Brand management is a nice mix of the production side (deciding how to market the promotional videos) and the business side of Funimation.

After my meetings, I created a series of tweets for the Funimation twitter regarding Funimation events at Anime Central in Chicago. Check out my first tweet here! The following tweets will be posted at certain times over the next few days. I met up with Walter again and saw him make a 90 second promotional video into a 30 second Google advertisement. It was really cool watching him decide what should be kept in the video and how much thought went into promotional videos. It was a fantastic last day and I am eternally thankful to Justin Rojas and Funimation for this opportunity!

A gift from Cheree, one of the brands that she manages!

My Many Meetings

Justin was out of the office today; he's busy representing Funimation at Anime Central in Chicago. So that means that today I was at meetings! Some of them my own and others at real company meetings. I first met with Stacy and Laura, who are part of the sales and distribution team at Funimation. I learned so much from them and gained a lot better understanding of what occurs in sales and distribution. For example, when a store has a sale, it's not just the store that takes the hit, but the company too. So many things go into a sale, such as deciding what items to put on sale (sales team), how many units to have ready (distribution team), how to market the sale (marketing), and any new graphics (graphic design team). I had no idea what an involved process that was until this morning.

After I talked with Stacy and Larua, I met with Walter from the trailers/motion graphics department. Can you say cool? He's one of the guys that makes the trailers and commercials for the Funimation shows. I learned about the artistic freedom that he has in making the trailers (a lot) and what the day to day duties of the job entails. One thing I learned so far is that everybody learned their craft on the job. Some majored in international relationships or in music managing, but aren't doing that here at Funimation (for the most part). Now I wonder how important what I study in college is versus what I will end up doing after college.

Then I had lunch and finished out the day with Mario, who is involved with everything! He sets the prices for the products and works closely with online streamers (like iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, XBox, etc). Not only did he let me sit in on a ton of meetings, he gave me an in-depth tour of Funimation! I saw where the scripts were translated, post-editing work was done, the sound mixing room, and more. I really enjoyed sitting in on the conference calls with other companies and learned how business was conducted. It involves a lot of conference calls (scheduled, weekly calls) and emails in between. Everything today was really fantastic; I enjoyed learning what other people did and how they accomplished their jobs.

My "desk" at Funimation.

Dr. Horrible in an office!

The hallway of translators, script editors, and advisors.

What makes the digital copies of shows imported from Japan.

Fifteen Minutes of Fame

Wow. Today Justin showed me how crazy and unpredictable life can be while working at Funimation (such as locking a guy in a room to watch 70+ hours of One Piece for the "Marooned on One Piece Island" marathon). I'm beginning to think that there aren't any normal days, despite what Justin had said on my first day. Every day is a new adventure and a different experience. Take this morning for example.

I'm shadowing Justin to learn about marketing and advertising. Nowhere in that description would one think that duties included going on the live stream live on Youtube for the "Marooned on One Piece Island". Yet, at around 10:30 on the morning of May 15th, I did exactly that. I was on Youtube, live, in front of a ton of One Piece fans. It was definitely an experience! In that moment (probably the wrong moment too) I realized just how personable Youtube personalities and others had to be in front of the camera. An unexpected lesson to learn, I'll do better next time (if there ever is one; there's a reason this post is titled Fifteen Minutes of Fame).

That wasn't the only neat thing to occur today. I ran into two voice actors: Duncan Brannan (Mr. 3 on One Piece) and Eric Vale (Sanji on One Piece, Trunks on Dragon Ball Z, Yuki Sohma in Fruits Basket, and America and Canada in Hetalia). Needless to say, I only found their credits after I met both of them. I watched Eric Vale in the recording room (don't remember the anime or the character's name, sorry!). It was super amazing. I would see him say and record the lines and it would be matched up with the character's mouth, then they would play the audio and visual together. There was a ton of work that was involved with dubbing, a lot more than I anticipated. That was a really fantastic experience; both Eric Vale and the technical professionals were amazing. The dubbing went by really quickly and they were very efficient.

My second day at Funimation was just as eventful as my first! I learned a lot more about the production side of Funimation; it's like a completely separate side from the business side of things. I learned that marketing is not a one man job and it takes a lot of people to collaborate and put together a commercial/trailer/poster/website. I learned that there is so much that goes behind the scenes that viewers don't realize. It's convention season, so Funimation has a booth at many of the conventions. They have to decide what to set up, where to put it, how to decorate it/the design of it, and the logistics such as getting the materials to places such as San Diego or Chicago. There's so much involved and marketing is right there in the middle of it all!

The reception area at Funimation.

Lights... Camera... Live?

Today I really did have fun at Funimation! My mentor, Justin Rojas, told me that today was not a typical day. It certainly seemed like I entered right into the middle of the hustle and bustle! After a quick introduction to Funimation, I helped set up the room for the "Marooned on One Piece Island" marathon that begins at 5pm tonight and continues until Saturday evening. It was really hectic around the building since the project was OK'd to go yesterday.

After I helped Justin set up the room for "Marooned on One Piece Island", there were a few meetings that I attended and a few that I couldn't attend. During the ones I couldn't attend, I talked with other Funimation employees and learned about their jobs. I really enjoyed the meetings I was allowed to sit in on. It was very interesting and informative to see what was being discussed.

I was really surprised about how many meetings Justin had; during the five hours I was at Funimation, he had four. I had no idea how collaborative marketing was. As Senior Manager of Social Strategy and Development, Justin had to sit on meetings that I didn't think his department was involved with. I learned that there is a lot more that goes on backstage, such as business dinners and relationships with fans. I also learned about various departments at Funimation; it's not as straightforward as I thought a mere six hours ago. I learned so much today and I'm eager to see what happens tomorrow!

The Funimation Entertainment building in Flower Mound, Texas.

Some friends and I catching up in the entrance of the Funimation building.

All of the DVD's required for the One Piece Marathon.

The room where the One Piece Marathon will be taking place.

Preview of the Week Ahead

From May 14th to 17th, I will be shadowing the amazing Justin Rojas, Senior Manager of Social Strategy and Development, at FUNimation. FUNimation is a television and film production company  known for their distribution of anime (Japanese animation) and other entertainment properties in North America. They have licensed many animated shows over the years, including Black Butler, Deadman Wonderland, Dragon Ball Z, Hetalia, One Piece, Ouran Host Club High School, Soul Eater, and Yu-Gi-Oh.

I am really excited to shadow Justin and learn about marketing and advertising for media. I am fascinated by the fields of advertising and marketing and hope to pursue these interests during my time at Boston University. My first day of "work" is Tuesday morning and I couldn't be more excited to learn everything I can. Please look forward to my first official post Tuesday evening!