Dubbing

What is dubbing??


Dubbing is substituting the original voice,that is, when a person substitutes the voice of the person who is acting. It´s more common in films, soap operas and series. 
Dubbing of motion pictures: When the voice actor from another country dubs the film (soap opera, series) to his language, to do a national version. 
Dubbing of cartoons: a cartoon character doesn't have an own voice, so the voice actor dubs it.

The History of Dubbing

Dubbing started in 1927, when the movie "The Jazz Singer" had some dubbed lines. In 1929, a movie was dubbed entirely for the first time, "Lights of New York". 

In 1925, movies started to have sound. Until then, they were mute. That was a huge revolution in the movies industry and created a big problem to movies' exportation. When the movies were mute, characters' lines were shown in the screen in cards, so it was really simple to export movies, they just needed to translate the cards. How were they going to make it possible to other countries' people to understand what was going on in the movies? In the beginning, subtitles didn't go so well. They even thought of making the scenes in many different languages with the same cast or with a different one from other parts of the world. Obviously that wasn't a very good (or cheap) solution. In 1930, Jacob Karol created a solution. He made a recording system where it was possible to sync audio and video. That was when dubbing really started.

Here are examples of some famous dubbing:

Homer Simpson -  Dan Castellaneta 

Dan Castellaneta is an American actor, voice actor, born In Chicago. He Was Born in October, 1957 (He's 59 Years Old Today). Castellaneta started taking acting classes at young age. To perform Homer's voice, Castellaneta lowers his chin to his chest and "lets his IQ go". Castellaneta likes to stay in character during recording sessions and tries to visualize a scene in his mind so that he can give the proper voice to it. Castellaneta has also had roles in several other television programs like: The Adventures of Dynamo Duck  and the animated series Darkwing Duck, Back to the Future: The Animated Series, Earthworm Jim,  Aladdin and Hey Arnold.

Castellaneta also provides the voices for numerous others characters in the series "The Simpsons":

 Abraham "Grampa" Simpson

 Barney Gumble

 Krusty the Clown

 Groundskeeper Willie

 Mayor Quimby

 Hans Moleman

 Sideshow Mel

 Itchy

 Kodos

 Gil Gunderson

Shrek: Myke Myers

                Myke Myers is a canadian actor, voice actor, comedian and film producer. He was born in May 25th, 1963. Myers dubbed the main character of the film “ Shrek”. The film was a multi-billion dollar franchise and was the first film to win an Academy Award for the Best Animated Feature.

                In 2012, Myke Myers will voice the character Harold at the Film "Bunnicula". Bunnicula is a children´s book series written by James Howe about a bunny vampire that sucks the juice out of vegetables.

Smurfette: Kate Perry

Katy Perry dubbed Smurfette in the film "The Smurfs”, which was released this year. She talked about the experience on a interview. Here is a part of the interview:

What was it like voicing and creating Smurfette?

Katy Perry: When I was doing the voice for Smurfette it was really interesting because I got to be a part of creating her character, adding little nuances to who she is on the big screen, that’s really fun. It was really nice to be there from the beginning, feeling like I was a part of molding who Smurfette is in this film.

How was the process of seeing the animation and recording your voice?

KP: When you are in the booth recording, half of the time you get to see a picture, so you get to see a rough cut, you get to see a story board, some rough animation. Towards the end of recordings I saw almost quite there animation, it was blowing my mind because you get so used to these sketches and working off of that (laughs).

To see the entire interview go to: http://katyperryforum.com/index.php?topic=10964.0

Other famous people who dubbed famous movies:

Miley Cyrus - Dubbed Penny in “Bolt” (2008)

Alan Rickman - Dubbed Absolem, the Caterpillar in “Alice in Wonderland” (2010)

Cameron Diaz - Dubbed Princess Fiona in “Shrek”

Dakota Fanning - Dubbed Coraline in “Coraline (2009)

Tom Hanks - Dubbed Woody in “Toy Story”

Ellen DeGeneres - Dubbed Dory in “Finding Nemo” (2003)

Family Guy - Seth McFarlane

“Family Guy” is an animated TV series, that shows us the daily life of the Griffin family.

MacFarlane is responsible for dubbing Peter Griffin, Stewie Griffin and Brian Griffin. When Seth is dubbing Peter he tries to copy the voice of a security guard; Stewie's voice is based on Rex Harrison. To dub Brian he uses his own voice. With the success of the series he got a deal with Fox that gave him $100 million dollars.

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