Look at Avatar; it’s successful from both a box office and a critical standpoint thanks to its Golden Globes wins. The movie has made an impressive $491 million dollars in the United States, but has nearly tripled that internationally with a gross of $1,111.0 million dollars. That’s $1 billion, 110 million bucks! Clearly, the international market is crucial to a movie’s success, but how do you get that movie into the hands of people who don’t speak English? There are two choices, subtitles or dubbing. Movie translating is big business these days.
I had no idea the process was as difficult as it is. Given my idea of dubbed movies are badly-translated kung-fu movies and the like, I figured they just hired someone to read a translated script over the top of the original. I had no idea they had to rewrite the script from the ground up to fit it to local markets, and I definitely didn’t know that they tried to rewrite the dialogue in such a way that the facial expressions actually (kind of) fit what’s being said.
The whole process is pretty fascinating, but if the French dubbing method, rythmo band, works so well… why don’t other places use it? I imagine there’s a learning curve, but how bad could it possibly be?
Image: synxspeed
Tags: Hollywood, movies, movie secrets, dubbing, movie translation process, rythmo band, movie tricks, how-tos, dubbing explained, dialogue recording, rythmo band
