Director, Actor, Cinematographer, Editor, singer are some of the familiar characters who generally come to our mind while we think of a movie. Adding to this list is the dubbing artist who is being recognized nowadays for their husky, metallic, breathy, croaky, gruffy, flat, gravelly, hoarse, penetrating, smoky, throaty and wheezy voices.
I always wanted to try out Dubbing. To know more about this specific part of the movie industry and to submit a column, I selfishly, took up this topic to find out whatever I wanted to know. I was surprised to find out that the romantic voice of Prabhu Deva in Kaadhalan and Minsara Kanavu, Ajith Kumar in Amaravathi and Abbas in Kandukondain Kandukondain were all dubbed by Vikram.
After listening to Raveena and Gee Gee, who had breathed life into the characters of Amy Jackson and Catherine Tresa in I and Madras respectively, I have got lots of important things to share with you all ‘dubbing-aspirants’ out there.
BASIC CRITERIA
All you have to do is to become a member of South India Cine Television Artist & Dubbing Union, which is responsible for all the four south Indian languages namely Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. A minimal payment is required to become a member. No person without the membership card is allowed to dub for any movie.
HOW IT WORKS
The union has 24 in-charges working under it. When a film comes for dubbing, a director or producer will fix up an in-charge providing him/her the details about the voice he exactly wants. So these people will call up the members for the voice test and the shortlisted candidates will go into the final round which happens with the director predominantly.
IT’S ALL IN YOUR HANDS
Membership is just a key to enter, but it is your talent to expand your horizons and explore your opportunities. There is no assurance that you would be dubbing once you become a member. Hunting for contacts and references plays a huge role to get into dubbing. Ultimately, everything is in your hands. It’s like giving you a sword and a forest to hunt. So proving yourself that you can dub, the confidence you show in your voice will be a good starting point in this industry. No inhibitions, good memory, proficiency in language, trying out different kinds of modulation and tones, creativity and judging that particular character to perfection and visualizing everything in one single room is the challenging part. You need to be crystal clear when you meet your mike and obviously it takes its own time.
DUBBING IS A SECOND CHANCE FOR ACTING
Bringing life to the imaginary character the director had visualized is the challenge of each and every dubbing artist. Dubbing is the second chance for acting. Whatever mistakes the actors do while shooting a scene will be corrected and the dialogue delivery will be enhanced while dubbing. Some actors talk from their heart, some don’t. So dubbing artists will have to feel it and coordinate in a way to get it right. Lip sync for a heroine who doesn’t know the language is the biggest task of all.
RECOGNITION
The scope is pretty better right now considering the fact that it was nearly non-existent before. Because of many online platforms, many have started recognizing dubbing artists and there is a lot of competition now. Obviously, getting into the top league is not too easy.
MAINTAINING THE VOICE
It entirely differs from person to person. Medically speaking, it is true that any voice artist should drink a lot of water as his/her vocal cord should be wet all the time. So as we age, this routine would not lead to any shivering in voice. Basically, being hydrated all the time is a major plus to the voice artists.
PAID LESS
Dubbing artist is the one who feels the dialogues from the heart, observes the scene with the eyes, analyses the character with the brain and finally emotes it through the throat. For such intricate and complex work that they do, dubbing artists are paid less. This has to be looked into by the industry for the betterment of these artists out there.
Dubbing is never going to be an easy task unless you have the ruthless passion inside you! With just the passion and commitment, you could be the next big dubbing artist of all time!
