Localizing a movie or series into another language by dubbing over the original actors is considered to be in the upper echelons of voice work by many industry veterans – especially in Germany. Dubbing is such a big deal here that our commonly used word for voice actor – “Synchronsprecher” – translates to dub or dubbing speaker. And given that we make some of the most acclaimed and well-produced dubs worldwide, it’s safe to say that that description of my job is both flattering and aspirational. That’s why I was intrigued when I stumbled upon a new kind of dub.
New Feature for international Viewers
YouTube recently added an “Audio track” setting for creators to use to make their videos available in different languages. As a viewer, you’ll mostly encounter this when you scroll through the video settings, trying to turn off some horrible AI-generated translation. At least, that’s how I first found out about this new feature. I’m sure there are instances where an auto-dubbed version of the audio could be useful, but generally, they just sound dreadful and fail to translate anything beyond the surface level of the video. Most YouTubers just turn this function off so they don’t annoy their international viewers, but some have chosen to go in a different direction.
Becoming a YouTube Footballer
If you want something done right, hire a professional. That’s how that saying goes, right? Yes, some creators are having actual dubs made of their videos by real voice actors. Recently, I got to work on a Football (Soccer if you’re American) video by a 2.5 million-subscriber-strong channel. The job: Take the English script, translate and localize it into German, and dub over the people in the video, matching their lip movements.
I should point out – normally, you’d have someone who specializes in localization edit the script and then hand it off to a studio where an actor and a director make the dub come to life. But this is web-video – content creation. The land of small teams and multi-tasking. Well, if you can’t get three professionals, get one who can do the job of three.
A Whole Team, cramed in a Booth
Was this an unconventional and frankly kind of weird way to do dubbing – taking these three jobs and doing them in parallel with each other? Absolutely! Especially considering there were four different dudes that appeared in the video, and I played every single one. But with me doing a lot of on-the-fly script improvements and putting on one hell of a one-man show, the video came together nicely.