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Laurel and Hardy had a different scheme: they'd leave up all the sets, and later re-take all the scenes that had made it into the final cut, phonetically, in up
by drfuchs 6y ago
Laurel and Hardy had a different scheme: they'd leave up all the sets, and later re-take all the scenes that had made it into the final cut, phonetically, in up to 4 additional languages. All of the other actors were replaced by native speakers, but audiences everywhere wanted to see, and hear, the real Laurel and Hardy.
Randy Skretvodt's "Laurel & Hardy: The Magic Behind The Movies" quotes Stan Laurel: ...after shooting the entire picture in English, editing it and previewing it, they would bring in "French, German, Italian and Spanish interpreters. And they translated our dialogue into each language...we'd set up the camera, and we'd do the French version of the first scene...and each scene we did four times before we moved the camera for the different change."
- smegger001 6y agoI have often wondered recently why this isn't done more? Just re-shoot the same show/movie with Spanish French Chinese Japanesse Arabic etc.. speaking casts. make the smae show for diffenrt markets with different actors use the same sets the directors already have the scenes set up hell you could record camera positions and the camera could move exactly the same in different versions.
- edoceo 6y agoCost too much in labor/time. Overdub is super cheap compared to multiple shoots.
- p1necone 6y agoProbably because it would still be significantly cheaper to just sub/dub the english version. And finding quality casts for all the languages would be a lot harder too. I'd much rather watch a foreign production with top quality actors subbed in english than an assembly line english version with sub par acting. (Although I can see it being alright for stuff you already don't expect to be quality, like soaps)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- steveBK123 6y agoLabor is the most expensive component. The sets & equipment are peanuts by comparison.
- 83457 6y agoI wonder if any 3d movies have done this and synced speaking mouth movement with different languages.
- memco 6y agoSoftware does indeed exist for animation localization.
- wilsonrocks 6y agoDon't know about films but kids TV programs seem to do this. Edit, father who has seen Paw Patrol in lots of different regional versions on different streaming service.
- jon-wood 6y agoKids TV is really good at this, until quite recently I didn't even know that Paw Patrol was originally a US show which then gets dubbed by a UK cast alongside the more expected regions with entirely different languages.
- germinalphrase 6y agoTime is money. You’re paying far more people and tying up far more resources to shoot 4x takes as you would to hire voice actors to dub.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> I have often wondered recently why this isn't done more? Because you have to pay N casts, shoot N × as much film, do N times as much editing, and use the sets of N times as long. The only thing this saves on is constructing the sets. > hell you could record camera positions and the camera could move exactly the same in different versions. Which probably is of less value that you think unless you do the same thing with the cast, who usually aren't as mechanically programmable.
- codyb 6y agoWith deep fake technology you could presumably do one take in the main actors primary languages, then just hire voice crews per language maybe? The deep fake could adjust the actors to make the body match the audio where appropriate. Maybe a couple years off from being very feasible? Maybe use a sensor suit to add gestures. There’s a lot of advances coming up that seem like they could make for some interesting art.
- renewiltord 6y agoYou're downvoted at this point but I think this is definitely going to happen in the future, even if it's just rewiring mouth movements to match the new audio.
- robk 6y agoThis is already nearly there
- underwater 6y agoI don't think that lip movements are the thing holding dubbing back. Most dubbed voices have a cheesy Days of Our Lives vibe. Its quite easy to tell a dubbed TV show without ever looking at the screen.
- trulyme 6y agoCurious, could the voices also be altered / deep faked so that they sound similar to the actors' voices?
- gumby 6y agoIf you're going to all that effort you might as well adapt the stories, or storyline, to the local culture.
- goodcanadian 6y agoI don't know if it is practical in general, but the Norwegian show Norsemen is filmed twice: once in Norwegian and once in English: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norsemen_(TV_series) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norsemen_(TV_series) It's on Netflix: quite amusing.
- sideshowb 6y agoYes, fair play to them for this First 2 seasons were great in places, I stopped watching the third.
- lordnacho 6y agoBut in this case all the actors speak English, you don't need a whole new cast. Plus they put on that Norwegian accent that makes it great for English audiences. It's a great show that manages to be both about Vikings and modern Norway at the same time.
- antasvara 6y agoI have to imagine that it would be tough to cast actors in multiple languages that all fit the same vibe as the original. My understanding is that the casting process is relatively difficult and takes a lot of effort; why do it multiple times and risk putting out a mediocre imitation?
- bloak 6y agoSergio Leone's spaghetti westerns had a mixture of languages spoken during filming. In the English releases it certainly looks as though some of the minor characters are dubbed from another language, but my multilingual lipreading skills are not up to determining whether that other language is Italian or Spanish or even something else.
- dirkt 6y agoHollywood does this with productions from other countries, for example "City of Angels" [1] for "Der Himmel über Berlin" [2], or "Vanilla Sky" for "Abre los ojos" [4]. And not only do the use American casts, they re-shoot the whole movie. The result is inferior most of the time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Angels_%28film%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Angels_%28film%29 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wings_of_Desire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wings_of_Desire [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla_Sky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla_Sky [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Your_Eyes_%281997_film%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Your_Eyes_%281997_film%29
- riffraff 6y ago> but audiences everywhere wanted to see, and hear, the real Laurel and Hardy. This was probably due to the fact that until some time earlier people had not actually ever heard _anyone_ speaking, these were amongst the first movies which had audio, they just had not thought of dubbing. But they started applying normal dubbing soon after: according to wikipedia, the "self-dubbed" movies were produced between 1929 and 1931 but then stopped. A fun side effect of this is that the new dubbers kept the odd english accent! So if you get a copy of later movies where Hardy is dubbed by Alberto Sordi (one of the greatest actors of italian cinema) you can hear him make this funny fake accent, and mispronouncing words (e.g. very famously "stupìdo" rather than "stùpido").
- a_bonobo 6y agoIn the 70s Monty Python picked up this tradition by shooting two episodes of 'Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus' for German TV. The first special was written in English, then translated to German, and all Python members learned their German lines by heart. They didn't have time for the second special, so that one was dubbed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python%27s_Fliegender_Zirkus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python%27s_Fliegender_Zi... They're on YouTube with English subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHs45_EQvO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHs45_EQvO0
- moomin 6y agoPeter Gabriel did this with "Melt": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49mdn20QsbM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49mdn20QsbM Yes, you really can hear the whole album in German.
- gattilorenz 6y agoIt goes the other way with Kraftwerk, that released every single album both in German and English, except for Tour de France which is appropriately available in German or French
- 6y ago