Voice Dubbing As An Alternate Career
By Neeraj Mehra
Ever since the era of playback began, Voice Dubbing has been following it.
To hear a crystal clear voice
loaded with natural effects, the voice needs to be dubbed after the final editing. The opening of new TV channels
and tonnes of English programmes being dubbed in Hindi and various Indian Languages have opened up new avenues
for voice dubbing artists.
The most important aspect of voice dubbing must be a clear voice, diction and pronunciation.
The second most important aspect is timing. Lip sync Dubbings needs to be performed with eyes and ears wide open,
keeping in view of the fact the expressions and lip movement of the source. Cartoon dubbings need a lot of variation
in voice and a single artist can perform dubbing for many characters. Since we are used to hearing cartoon voices
in broken, jarred voices so a lot of modulation and stretch of voice is required. In this, Mimicry Artistes like
me have an advantage who can modulate, stretch, skew their voices at will, and can also perform dubbings for
many characters. Good command over both source and target languages also gives you an advantage to get the real
sense of the script.
Another new experience of voice dubbing for me and a lot of other voice dubbing artistes with
the advent of new technology is phone value added services. There is lot of content and potential in this
category also. I had to dub and listen to each take on telephone before giving the final nod because on the phone your
voices tends to get more treble. In other words, Voice Dubbing is here to stay and creeping forward.
