I can live with the argument that dubbing can be done faster, more efficiently, more cheaply. My own pace (not my brain) has become faster over the years, and my workflows have changed. I don’t think the quality of my work has suffered by the fact that I now download videos instead of picking up a DVD from the dubbing company. And it must be better for the environment that several thousand dubbing scriptwriters in the world don’t shred a VHS player once every few months any more.
What I cannot live with is the argument that dubbing is “horrible” and “appalling” and thus must be done away with. That’s like saying, operations are a bloody mess, so let’s stop removing inflamed appendixes.
And what I can live with even less is the way that people who talk about preserving the intent of the original work and respecting its creators through their particular brand of AI dubbing, often show absolutely no respect for two things.
A) No respect for their international audiences, who have watched dubbed films now for something close to a century, crying, laughing, being challenged, taking the lyrics of a children’s musical or the idea of beaming technology with them through their entire lives. Your stories, dear filmmakers, have touched their hearts because your characters were speaking their language. And don’t forget, all those millions of people have, over decades, made you, the creators and producers, a lot of money. So, dubbing works.
B) No respect for the dubbers. The people who put themselves into the shoes of your characters and reimagine what they would say in the foreign language. Who at the same time sit in the seat of every audience member, finding a way to convey something that might be very foreign to an audience that wants to be touched and moved, while at the same time doing everything in their power to stick to the original creators’ intent.
The story that is being told here is of evil translation putting up a wall between auteur and audience, as if a manipulated voice or face could break through that barrier any better. You’re always translating – even AI isn’t coming up with a universal language. Translation isn’t the wall. It’s the ladder that helps you over it. A BBC Click story called “How cinema is getting an AI makeover” from early 2022 says that AI dubbing “allows filmmakers to translate their films accurately.” Sorry, but I’m not following. Wouldn’t the only way to achieve that be to teach the original filmmaker the language of the country that they want to show their movie in?
The same clip mentions that AI dubbing has “benefits to the audience who (…) can be put off by poor dubbing.” Well yes of course the audience can be put off by poor dubbing. The audience can actually tell good from bad, and it should be put off if the dubbing is bad, but that can be rectified by one simple thing – by producing good dubbing. Because when it is good, the audience loves it.
Dubbing is neither horrible nor appalling to worldwide audiences. It might be something that filmmakers in the English speaking countries that dominate the world of film are not used to. And I can understand a certain sense of wonderment. But research has shown that in the case of dubbing, familiarity breeds acceptance, and that audiences even develop coping mechanisms to adjust for the fact that lip movements don’t perfectly match the spoken words in a dubbed version (see the article by Pablo Romero-Fresco on “The Dubbing Effect”). So trust your audiences. They know how to watch a dub.
Talking about AI dubbing in an interview for “The VFX Artists Podcast” earlier this year, an FX specialist explains about how his yardstick is “being respectful to the people involved in the process.” That, however, clearly doesn’t include dubbing scriptwriters, who, he says, “hack the language just to fit” the mouth movements. He then proceeds to give a few examples of some of the challenges that appear when you translate a dialogue for dubbing, displaying all the expertise of someone who is confronted with the existence of bilabials and rhythm for the first time in his life.
Thanks for noticing, and, no, the solution is not to hack the language. The solution is to play three dimensional scrabble, adapting just about 10 minutes of dialogue a day, until you get it right. And all the while thinking of nothing but what the original intent was and how to preserve it in translation.
In the BBC piece, a film director and founder of an AI dubbing company, talks about how he saw a dubbed version of one of his films, and that “the dialogue had been changed” (I hope so – it’s been translated after all), and that “the performance was completely different.”
Let’s assume that you as a film director can judge a translation because you know the language. Billy Wilder, for example, spoke German after all. He wrote his own dubbing scripts – brilliantly – and even if he hadn’t, he would have been able to assess the dub. And let’s also assume that your film was indeed dubbed badly. That happens, just like bad movies happen. It must be horrible indeed for a film director, as well as for the actors, and really everyone involved, because your movie will not move an international audience, and it will not earn any money. No one wants that. Dubbed and subtitled versions provide up to half of a major film’s total revenue. So the loss is on all sides.
If you want to sell your film internationally, your biggest concern should be how to avoid a bad dub. Dubbers will want it to be good, out of professional pride. Filmmakers, because of their artistic vision for their stories. And producers, in order to ensure the film’s financial success. The main concern should not be how to make the dub faster. Not how to have the same workflow worldwide. Or how to make the process scalable. But how to make it better.
As a dubbing scriptwriter, I can only say, I am here for you. Talk to me. Chances are I love your movie as much as you do. Get me involved early. Give me time. Give me information. Give me a sharp image and a crisp sound so that I don’t miss a thing and that I can be as immersed in the story while I’m working as the audience will be when it’s watching. Give me your trust and it will be rewarded. We have always been there, the dubbers. Now that you’ve noticed us, treat us with the respect we deserve. We create a new original version after all – the only one most people in the world will see of your baby. And we take that responsibility seriously. I’m sure AI can do a lot. But are you sure AI can promise you the same thing?
