Why do some workflows make you tense and leave you drained? Others relaxed and creative? It might very well have to do with the tools you work with.

It’s a pretty straightforward thing when you work with something tangible. If you like working in the kitchen, you probably know what a difference a sharp knife makes. With a sharp knife, cutting the peel off oranges and slicing them can put me in an almost meditative state. Give me more oranges! With a dull knife, not only is it more dangerous as you start hacking away at the fruit, but you want to be done as soon as possible and the result is ugly. Athletes will tell you the same thing. Whether it’s the racket that they use to hit a ball with or the shoes they run in, their equipment connects their bodies with the space around them. Musicians – same deal. Their instruments are natural extensions of their bodies.

For anyone who makes anything – without the right tools, it’s a tedious affair, and the result is unsatisfying.

But there is more to it. If the tool doesn’t fit, or is dull, or just not the right tool to begin with, you, as the maker of things, don’t have control over that thing. You need to be able to see it, to touch it, to feel it.

A dubbing script is not tangible. But writing a dubbing script is more physical than you might imagine. There are several reasons why I say every sentence, every phrase, out loud, and one of them is that the words that the characters speak are not just soundwaves. They are not theoretical. They are embodied. I have to send them through my body, physically, to know whether they make sense for the body of the actor on the screen and the actor in the dubbing studio.

A film isn’t tangible. But neither is it just a file. I literally need to be able to put my hand on it, by scrolling through it, moving it back and forth, building loops, reversing frame-by-frame. And wouldn’t you know – some of the platforms that we are required to use do not allow us to do that. But without that control, it never really feels like mine. I never have the kind of agency that allows my creativity to flow.

I have a similar issue with other features that disconnect me from the material. Some workflows do not require me to write the character name every time before they say something. Yes, that does save time. But – I’ve written series episodes now without remembering a single character name. And if I don’t know someone’s name, I don’t know them at all. In some systems, I don’t need to note audible breaths, coughs, sighs. They are already entered for me. But if I don’t breathe with a character, again, they cannot fully become mine.

If that sounds possessive, it is. But that’s part of the work of dubbing, where you appropriate the characters, you make them yours, and then you make them a twin of the original speaking a new language. For this kind of creativity, you need agency over your tools. They need to fit. They need to be sharp.

So, if you’re looking at improving quality through innovation, ask the people who will be working with the tools you give them. Otherwise, you might be giving a conductor a baseball bat.