So, I’m a writer …

I write dubbing scripts.

Film dubbing is part of the localization industry, and arguably the part which is most dependent on truly creative thinking. Despite the fact that we are seemingly bound by an original sound and an image, in order to arrive at a good dubbing script, the foundation for the work of dubbing actors, directors, editors, sound people, our thinking needs to be independent.

I’m not a translator.

I don’t adapt.

I write.

I write the German script of the movie or the series that you want to show to a German-speaking audience. This is the nature of dubbing – I write the German original.

Naturally, this is an interpretation. Like all communication, it’s what happens between a source and a target, a speaker and a listener, so it’s bound to be individual.

Why would anyone think that a machine can do this better than a human? It’s the faults, the mistakes, the twitches and the little chinks, that make communication what it is. Every time a character says “hello”, I think about whether it’s “hey”, “wie geht’s”, “Tag”, “na?”, “alles gut?” or maybe even “hallo”, to list just a few alternatives. How do I choose? Well, based on the translation I have, and on what the character and the actor, the cultural situation, conversational rules, and body language tell me. Sure enough, it’s a decision that I make. I get hired because I make good decisions, well-founded ones, and because my intuition as a writer is sound.

There might one day be something called responsible AI. But what I would want from a dubbing scriptwriter is not responsibility. It’s accountability and personality (and a lot of love, but I would never want to get paid for that part. That part is mine).

This is what dubbing can do for your movie or your series – it makes a straight line from a creative mind to the heart of an audience.