| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] | Is it that bad in your languages? Thread poster: Merab Dekano
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Andy Watkinson 
Spain
Local time: 11:55
Member
Catalan to English
+ ...
| Pretty awful | May 26, 2016 |
Merab Dekano wrote:
However, and personal preferences aside, dubbing in Spain is of very high level. The voices are amazing. I am sure anyone of those actors (because that's what they are, actors) could easily pull an opera aria. The colour of the voice, the fullness of it, neuter accent (unless otherwise required). It's a joy to listen to them.
To say that the dubbing in Spain is of such a high level is rather too generous, in my opinion.
I'd say it's dreadful for all the obvious reasons.
Firstly the translation process itself.
Envisage what this process consists of.
The translator works from a script which on occasions is not even complete (!) and they (the target language) translators then have to transcribe and translate "what they think they hear".
Good luck with that. The resulting mishearings and simple ignorance are apparent por doquier.
This process would only be capable of producing any half decent result by their watching, say, a 45 min. episode at least twice or three times with the script to hand, taking notes (of all and any difficulties, possible translations, cultural references that need special attention and may require re-creation...) and then sitting down to produce the translated version. Even in the case of a fairly mediocre text this would take at least a week.
Now, obviously, we're not talking about an original dialogue that's been thrown together in a couple of hours.
Scriptwriters (of both films and TV series) are paid (and deserve) a small fortune to produce a script (which in the case of a film may take anything from a few weeks to months to years to achieve a dialogue they're finally happy with.)
Now, take a 45 min. TV episode which was probably also weeks in its lengthy, meticulous making and polishing by a highly specialised group of writers (imagine an episode of The Big Bang Theory, whether you enjoy it or not) and then calculate how many words there are.
It must be in the several thousands, I've no idea. What I do know is that all this work is regularly done in roughly two to three days by the translators working for the studios.
Just not possible.
And " The colour of the voice, the fullness of it (...)"
Wrong; I'm sorry. The voices should match the original speakers. If they have a soft, whiney voice this should be reflected in the dubbing. It never is nor has been.
I've had to endure John Wayne dubbed into Spanish by what I can only imagine was a Mexican midget. (Judging by the accent and ridiculously high-pitched voice).
A serious disservice to the Duke.
And take Constantino Romero, for example, who indeed did have a magnificent, enviable voice. He could sing baritone and that was apparent, together with his perfect diction, whenever he spoke.
And he, of all people, was the designated dubber of Clint Eastwood in Spain; his exact opposite, Eastwood was an actor who growled, hissed and even whispered, as was his style, and had one of the most evil, menacing accents of any actor alive or dead.
It's like dubbing a virulent diatribe by Hitler with someone whose voice resembles that of your local vicar. Absolutely brainless.
Not to mention the mutilation of even the sound track itself.
There's a magnificent scene in the film "Runaway Train" with Voight where we see a night sequence of this train passing through the frozen, snow-covered heights and, to intensify the effect, the entire scene is in complete silence, as befits a snow laden scene.
Not the Spanish version - you should be so lucky....
No, anyone listening to the dubbed version has to put up with the typical studio "train sounds" and even some music thrown in for good measure. No respect for the original.
And don't get me started on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid having to learn French so they could rob a bank in Mexico (?¿?¿?¿?).
Dubbing's best moments are when it goes completely over the top to produce absurd results as it did in the film Mogambo with Clark Gable, when the Francoist censors actually rewrote the script to avoid showing an adulterous relationship by converting a husband and wife into brother and sister. That should have worked.
Well it didn't, it simply turned an adultery into incest.
Original version = 1
Dubbing = 0
[Edited at 2016-05-26 02:38 GMT]
| | | | Merab Dekano
Spain
Member (2014)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | I agree, but | May 26, 2016 |
Andy Watkinson wrote:
And " The colour of the voice, the fullness of it (...)"
Wrong; I'm sorry. The voices should match the original speakers. If they have a soft, whiney voice this should be reflected in the dubbing. It never is nor has been.
I've had to endure John Wayne dubbed into Spanish by what I can only imagine was a Mexican midget. (Judging by the accent and ridiculously high-pitched voice).
A serious disservice to the Duke.
And take Constantino Romero, for example, who indeed did have a magnificent, enviable voice. He could sing baritone and that was apparent, together with his perfect diction, whenever he spoke.
I should have been more explicit. No, I do not like how dubbing is done in Spain, precisely due to those deficiencies that you rightly pointed out. What I do enjoy is the way Spanish voice actors perform. And you cannot blame them, because:
- They probably have five or six actors to do all and any kind of voices they are dealing with. It's like when the same bass sings "O Isis und Osiris" and "La calunnia è un venticello", because he is retained by the company to do the entire season. Makes no sense, but money counts...
- When scripts are wrong, voice actors can do little, if anything at all, about it.
- When the dubbing manager decides to do stupid things and completely deviate from the original, voice actors can do little, if anything at all, about it.
Coming back to opera world, take "Je crois entendre encore" performed by Alfredo Kraus. When he arrives to high B natural, he powers with a forte like crazy as if it where a Puccini aria, while the score clearly shows a "PP" (I guess it stands for pianissimo). He also sings unwritten high C at the end of the aria. Was it Alfredo's decision? Probably not. Was he a poor singer. By all means not.
By the same token, it's not José Luis Gil's fault if he is retained to lay his voice over a 20 year old boy's voice, or if a teenage girl sounds like mature lady. They have five actors, that's all ("cuatro gatos", pero muy buenos).
| | | | | In Brazil... | May 26, 2016 |
Dubbers and dubbing directors (usually more experienced dubbers) MUST have a professional license as actors, registered as such with a regional office of the Ministry of Labor.
This means that they graduated from an accredited scenic arts school, or have submitted evidence (e.g. from amateur theater performances) that led the Actors' Syndicate to consider them sufficiently proficient to endorse their request to the Ministry of Labor's office.
Of course, like in any trad... See more Dubbers and dubbing directors (usually more experienced dubbers) MUST have a professional license as actors, registered as such with a regional office of the Ministry of Labor.
This means that they graduated from an accredited scenic arts school, or have submitted evidence (e.g. from amateur theater performances) that led the Actors' Syndicate to consider them sufficiently proficient to endorse their request to the Ministry of Labor's office.
Of course, like in any trade or craft, some are better than others, however it tends to set a minimum limit for the dubbers' skill.
The dubbers' union is strong... if they go on strike, the local TV/movie exhibition industry will suddenly come to a halt on new releases. And they are quite firm in setting minimum rates for dubbers and dubbing directors.
On the other hand, translation (apart from sworn translations for legal/official purposes) is completely deregulated. So the only places to cut costs in dubbing are translation and studio quality, the outcome of the latter being too evident to take risks.
In general, dubbing quality in Brazil is very good, though now and then there are low spots. Translation quality for dubbing here varies more than dubbing itself, this is the real problem.
I've often been to dubbing studios, sat through entire dubbing sessions, both using my translations and someone else's. I'd rate this as the #1 most effective training activity for any video-for-dubbing translation professional, as it enables us to see in practice what works well in a translation, and what doesn't. ▲ Collapse
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