Voice Actor + Opera Singer || Providing Engaging Voiceovers for Medical, Pharmaceutical, Healthcare, eLearning, Branded Content, Corporate Video || Professional Recording Studio + Audio Editing
It’s a debate in every country in the world – do we dub foreign films with voice actors, or do we use subtitles? You might think that as a voice actor, I would be 100% in the dubbing camp. But actually, I’m ambivalent about it. As someone who has lived abroad and learned the languages of my host countries, I deeply appreciate hearing the cultural nuance that’s expressed by on-screen actors speaking their mother tongue. But please don’t get me wrong--I am absolutely in awe of voice actors who dub for a living. Syncing lines and non-verbal utterances with an on-screen actor’s performance is an art and a science, and requires a lot of talent. When I lived in Germany, dubbing was very popular. I watched entire seasons of American TV shows dubbed into very fast German ('very fast' because German often needs more words than English does to convey the meaning). It wasn’t until I moved back to the US that I finally heard the American actors’ real voices. Jim Parsons' Texan drawl was a shocker! In countries where dubbing is the norm, those unseen actors are rock stars. I remember an interview with the German “Bruce Willis”, a voice actor named Manfred Lehmann, who had to bow out of voicing Bruce in a film once, and viewers were incensed. “Who is this imposter?! What have you done with Bruce?!!” Believe me, I get the power of great voice acting to bring stories to worldwide audiences. Afterall, who wouldn’t want to hear Bruce’s iconic “Die Hard” line, “Jippie ja jeh Schweinebacke” in their sweet mother tongue? But in America, it’s never been our custom to dub much. In fact, subtitles weren’t really our thing either. Essentially, if it wasn’t in English originally, movie producers didn’t think it was for us. But thanks to streaming, dubbing, and the ubiquity of closed captioning on videos, Americans are embracing foreign films. This article in the New York Times does an excellent job of discussing the evolution of American tastes, and particularly the recent record-breaking popularity of Asian films and shows. In it they discuss the subtitles vs dubbing debate. For me, the subtitles in “Parasite”, for example, allowed me to have a felt sense of a cultural underpinning that is expressly not American. If English-speaking actors had dubbed this story, I don’t think they could have conveyed the underlying 'Koreanness' of it. Subtitles let us know what they're saying, while the on-screen actors in their native language give us a sense of how they communicate--subtleties that may get lost in dubbing. So what do you think? Have you watched any other foreign language shows recently? Do you prefer your shows dubbed or with subtitles? If you’re a voice actor with dubbing experience, I’d love to know, what is your process for matching an actor’s on-screen performance and syncing dialogue at the same time? You're my hero! https://lnkd.in/eXNFMSEs
Adrianne Balcom
2mo
Doesn’t help blind people or deaf people to have dub-overs unless you can read lips!
I'll take subtitles over dubbing any day - unless it's a movie for kids, in which case, there really is no other choice but to use voice actors to dub it.