Film dubbing

Mon Oct 19 18:21:16 UTC 2009

*Many Russian интеллигенты (intelligenty) are fed up with the near-universal
practice there of dubbing;*

My impression is quite different. I regularly ask just about everyone in
Russia why no one subtitles. Typical comments:

We're not used to reading on the screen.
It's too much work to read subtitles.
I want to feel like I'm watching a real movie.
    etc.

I used to think that dubbing was part of a dark Soviet conspiracy to cover
up the original soundtrack. The fall of the Soviet Union, I figured, would
not only bring about an end to censorship but to dubbed films as well.

But in this sense, Russia is just following European tradition. European
films are often shot for multinational distribution with a multilingual
cast. Individual parts are then redubbed, depending on the market.

Then, too, there's the Russian tradition of redubbing even native-Russian
dialog. In Soviet days, dialog was redubbed because of bad sound recording
equipment. The Soviets could bug embassies but Mosfilm didn't have a lot in
the way of good shotgun mikes. Plus, redubbing meant that Barbara Brylska
(Polish) and Donatas Banionis (Lithuanian) could have accentless film
appearances in Russian.

-Rich

On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 1:47 PM, Hugh Olmsted <hugh_olmsted at comcast.net>wrote:

> Colleagues--
>
> About film dubbing in Russia.
> Many Russian интеллигенты (intelligenty) are fed up with the near-universal
> practice there of dubbing; they try hard to get foreign films with subtitles
> (титры) so they can hear the original language, voices, accents, the whole
> original integral oeuvre d'art.  But it's not easy.
> And I when resident in Russia, spoiled by my foreign background, certainly
> have no patience for this universal dubbing (one of whose manifestations is
> retention of the original sound track in the background, creating a serious
> sort of interference).  When I ask Russians for interpretation and
> explanation of the practice, I'm frequently told that it's driven by the
> demands and momentum of the dubbing profession, whose members need work.  I
> don't know whether that's a serious explanation...
> I wonder whether any one has insight or experience about the mechanisms at
> work in this issue, and/or possible movements for change in the direction of
> titry.
> Thanks for any contributions.
> Hugh Olmsted
>
>
> On Oct 19, 2009, at 1:23 PM, Richard Robin wrote:
>
>  Dear colleagues,
>>
>>
>> I am happy to see responses on Russian dubbing. My own contribution is
>> this:
>>
>> In 2006, I was invited to watch a cartoon dubbing session at Nevafilm at
>> their Vasilievsky Ostrov studios. Nevafilm mostly dubs cartoons, including
>> some major movie house releases as less noble Cartoon Channel fare.
>>
>> The firm employs local actors who specialize in voice work. Of course,
>> dubbing cartoons into a foreign language reverses the normal animation
>> process in which the voices are recorded first and the actual animation is
>> then fitted to the recorded voices. Here the actor (doing all the voices)
>> looked at the screen and tried to match his voice to the cartoon’s
>> original
>> sync dub.
>>
>> I was surprised that the dubbing director really ran roughshod over the
>> poor
>> actor. (e.g. Опять опаздываешь! Неужели нельзя внимательнее?) The
>> опоздание might
>> have been plus-minus a fifth of a second. The director insisted on take
>> after take after take. During a break I asked the script editor why the
>> director insisted on so many takes. After all, on takes that were so
>> close,
>> any discernible lip flap could be fixed in post production — much more
>> quickly than the time it took to do 10 takes. The script editor’s answer:
>> “У
>> нее подход традиционный”.
>>
>> This episode reinforced my original impression that dubbing in Russia is
>> very much an old school skill which commands respect but which places
>> great
>> demands on the dubbers.
>>
>> -Rich Robin
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 11:58 PM, Prof Steven P Hill
>> <s-hill4 at illinois.edu>wrote:
>>
>>  Dear colleagues, Kayiatos, Robin:
>>>
>>> Just occurs to me that Detfil'm's occasional actress Galina Vodianitskaia
>>> (Vodyanitskaya, 1918- ) in her years at that studio may have specialized
>>> as a voice actress i.e., may have specialized in dubbing.  I once
>>> interviewed
>>> the famous Detfil'm director Il'ia Frez, who'd begun at Detfil'm as an
>>> assistant, including on the famous WW2 film "Zoia" ("Zoya"), in which
>>> young
>>> Vodianitskaia starred.  Mr Frez may have mentioned about Vodianitskaia's
>>> frequent work
>>> in dubbing.  (She was seen ON screen very few times.) -- Steven P Hill,
>>> U. of Illinois.
>>> ________________________________________________________________________
>>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Richard M. Robin, Ph.D.
>> Director Russian Language Program
>> The George Washington University
>> Washington, DC 20052
>> 202-994-7081
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> Russkiy tekst v UTF-8
>>
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>
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-- 
Richard M. Robin, Ph.D.
Director Russian Language Program
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052
202-994-7081
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Russkiy tekst v UTF-8

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