Dubbing: No Funny Business

Author: Rashid Ali

Dubbing: No Funny Business

Every one of you should have watched different movies from different film industries. Bollywood is one of the biggest film industries present today, but have you ever tried watching Tollywood movies? Even if you want to watch one and understand it, you need the movie to be dubbed or subtitled. Not only subtitles and dubbed but the point is to properly do it so that the fun of watching that film is not lost. If dubbing of a movie is not done correctly and precisely the meaning of some sentences and responses of the character may also be lost. We can say that Dubbing is not an easy task as some may think it is.

Dubbing is certainly not a business that can be taken lightly as one single mistake can change the meaning of the whole sentence or the paragraph. The process of dubbing leads to the loss of the original voice of the actor, the person who has put a lot of hard work, worked upon his emotions, anger, sadness just to deliver the best to its audience. If a movie receives positive reviews then the credit merely goes to the actors that have delivered the best Dubbing studio in India and showcased a good performance. Now, if the same movie needs to be translated into some other language for a different audience, could the person who’s going to translate can deliver the same level of performance as done by the original actor? It all depends. Translators need a lot of experience in the field of acting and the clarity of their voice. If the translation is not good the essence of the movie would be lost. A translator has to take care of many things such as mispronunciations, humor, alliteration, metaphors, puns, rhyme, etc.

Translating a language into another language with the same level of intensity and emotions like the original voice is a pretty hard task to accomplish. Some skills required by a translator for dubbing are-

  • A good listener

  • The ability to transfer the message accurately from one language to another

  • Tone and style of translating

  • Cultural knowledge about both the languages

  • Creativity of their own

  • Good observation skills and more.

Translating humour is one of another difficult task to master. A joke may sound funny in one language but it may not come out as funny as it was in another language. Why? This is because of the different choice of words that are used by translators. Different languages have different meanings of the same word, if a certain word is not used correctly it may change the interpretation of the sentence. Two languages may convey a different kind of humour, the words used may be different, so it can take a lot of time to recreate a funny sentence from one language to another. Slangs are something which also differs from language to language. A translator needs to be creative so as to introduce concepts deliberately without making grammatical errors and invent new dialects to provide a better audio-visual translation to the audience.

Another thing that comes into mind is lip-syncing, which is another important aspect to be considered while dubbing. A professional translator has to take care of lip-syncing because there is a huge possibility that synchronization may destroy the whole scene. Poor dubbing is when the voice actor just reads and records the voice without any emotions and not considering the lip-synchronization. It can badly effect and may destroy the movie’s review in the language it is dubbed.

Talking about subtitles, it is also a task that requires a lot of expertise for not only translating the language but also taking care that every line is subtitled the way it should be, translators need to go straight to the point so that the audience can understand and interpret it correctly. Subtitling should be in a way that the viewers are able to digest the subtitles quickly if it takes a long time to understand the subtitles, the scene may be missed by the viewers.

Dubbing requires taking care of last-minute details and avoiding mistakes so that the best experience is delivered to the viewers. It is certainly not funny business and not an easy one too.