Revised Edition: 2016

ISBN 978-1-280-29730-4

© All rights reserved.

Published by:
Library Press
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 Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Voice Acting

Chapter 2 - How to Become a Voice Actor/Voiceover Artist

Chapter 3 - How to Do a Voice Over

Chapter 4 - Dubbing

Chapter 5 - Voice Acting in Japan

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Chapter 6 - Voice-over

Chapter 7 - Radio Drama

Chapter 8 - Sound Recording and Reproduction

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Chapter- 1

Voice Acting

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Voice actors in the Sierra Leonean radio soap opera Atunda Ayenda

Voice acting is the art of providing voices for animated characters (including those in
feature films, television program, animated short films, and video games) and radio and
audio dramas and comedy, as well as doing voice-overs in radio and television com-
mercials, audio dramas, dubbed foreign language films, video games, puppet shows, and
amusement rides.

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Mel Blanc was one of the most well-known voice actors of all time

Performers are called voice actors/actresses or voice artists, and may also involve
singing, although a second voice actor is sometimes cast as the character's singing voice.
Voice artists are also used to record the individual sample fragments played back by a
computer in an automated announcement system. At its simplest, this is just a short
phrase which is played back as necessary, e.g. the Mind the gap announcement
introduced by London Underground in 1969. In a more complicated system such as a
speaking clock, the voice artist usually doesn't actually record 1440 different
announcements, one for each minute of the day, or even 60 (one for each minute of the
hour), instead the announcement is re-assembled from fragments such as "minutes past"
"eighteen" and "pm". For example, the word "twelve" can be used for both "Twelve
O'Clock" and "Six Twelve". So far voice artists have been preferred to speech synthesis
because they sound more natural to the listener.

A list of voice acting by one voice actor, one director, or on one subject, is sometimes
called a voxography.

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In the United States
Broadcast media

For live-action production, voice acting often involves reading the parts of computer
programs (Douglas Rain; Majel Barrett), radio dispatchers (Shaaron Claridge), or charac-
ters who never actually appear on screen but who give instructions by telephone (John
Forsythe in Charlie's Angels), or mailed recording (Bob Johnson in Mission: Impossible).
"Stunt double" voice actors are sometimes employed; if a voice actor or actress loses his
or her voice, someone who sounds similar can step in. For example, when Jeremy Irons'
vocal cords became strained during the recording of The Lion King song "Be Prepared",
Jim Cummings was called in to finish the song.

It is not unusual to find among the ranks of voice actors people who also act in live-

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action film or television, or on the stage. For those actors, voice acting has the advantage
of offering acting work without having to bother with makeup, costuming, lighting, and
so on. An occasional advantage is the fact that through voice acting, an actor can reprise a
role that he has played in live action but would be otherwise too aged to portray. An
example of this is Walter Koenig in Star Trek New Voyages who reprises his role as Lt.
Pavel Chekov.

A common practice in animation is to cast a woman to play the role of a young boy. On
The Simpsons, for example, Nancy Cartwright plays Bart Simpson and several other
juvenile males. Other voice actresses who would fit this criterion are Tara Strong, who
voices Timmy Turner and Poof and other young boys on The Fairly OddParents, and she
voices other young boys on other TV shows, or Regina King as the voice of Huey and
Riley Freeman on the Adult Swim show The Boondocks. This casting practice goes back
to the early 1930s with actresses such as Mae Questel providing the voices of various
male babies and children in Fleischer Studios cartoons, and continues with Elizabeth "E.
G." Daily as Tommy Pickles on Rugrats and All Grown Up! today. June Foray, even as a
senior citizen, can still faithfully voice Rocket J. Squirrel. Casting adult women for these
parts can be especially useful if an ad campaign or a developed series is expected to run
for several years, for while the vocal characteristics of a male child actor would change
over time, the voice of an adult female will not.

Notable exceptions to using women to voice young boys' roles are the Peanuts animated
specials and films, in which boys were actually cast to read the boys' lines (e.g., Charlie
Brown, Linus, Schroeder). In South Park, the authors Trey Parker and Matt Stone are
also voice actors for most male roles, especially the boys: Parker voices Stan, Cartman
and others while Stone is the voice of Kyle, Kenny, Butters and others. South Park kids'
voices are pitched up a little in order to seem more "childish". In addition, kindergarten
kids on the show are voiced by actual young children for realism. Jason Marsden is also
known for young male roles.

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Rise in use of film actors for voice roles

For much of the history of North American animation, voice actors had a predominantly
low profile as performers, with Mel Blanc the major exception. Other early exceptions
include Cliff Edwards in Pinocchio, Edward Brophy in Dumbo and Peggy Lee in Lady
and the Tramp. Over time, many movie stars began voice acting in movies, with one of
the earliest examples being The Jungle Book, which counted among its cast contemporary
stars such as Phil Harris, Sebastian Cabot, Louis Prima, George Sanders and Sterling
Holloway. The film which truly brought about this modern perception, however was
Aladdin which was marketed with a noted emphasis on Robin Williams' role. The success
of this film eventually spurred the idea of highlighting the voice actors as stars of a film,
this becoming the norm in movie marketing, with a greater focus on hiring Hollywood
celebrities for name power, rather than performers with more experience in voice acting.
By contrast, using anime voice actors as a box office draw was developed far earlier in

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Japan.

Some voice actors, such as Billy West, are highly critical of using movie stars for voices
in animated features. A particular point of contention is the practice of bringing in
veteran voice actors (who are capable of greatly altering their voices and inflections in
order to create personalities for characters) to read for a part, and then use the recording
of the professional voice actor as a guide for the movie star, even though the actual
character creation work is being done by the unpaid voice actor. West struck back at this
practice in Comic Book: The Movie, in which the entire main cast comprises voice
actors, including Jess Harnell, Lori Alan, Daran Norris, Mark Hamill and Tom Kenny.
The practice of hiring singers to "fill in" for voice actors in a singing role has also seen
change, as both Jeremy Irons and Mel Gibson have done singing in the respective films
The Lion King and Pocahontas, rather than have a singer as substitute.

Voice Actors for Commercials and Local Television

Voice actors have a relatively small but dedicated fan base, with appearances at large
events like Comic-Con International, various anime conventions, and websites dedicated
to profiling their work.

Commercials for television and radio are also cast using voice acting agencies. Ernie
Anderson was one of radio's most prominent voices throughout the 1970s and 1980s and
was heard on radio stations across the United States. While Don LaFontaine filled the
category of "The Voice of God" until his death in 2008, Ashton Smith, Howard Parker
and Miguel Ferrer provide most of the narration for movie trailers. David Mark was
heard around the world for various radio stations and across the country for Fox TV,
UPN TV and ABC TV. Beginning in the early 2000s, many organizations have moved
toward a younger, more natural sound; a few notable voice actors in this category are
Ethan Erickson (various commercials), and Paula Tiso (various networks, and
commercials)

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SAG and aliases

A voice actor may occasionally be credited under an alias. Sometimes producers are not
willing to spend the higher cost of hiring members of the Screen Actors Guild, which
prohibits its members from taking non-union jobs; but a voice actor needs income, so he
or she may take a job under a false name in an attempt to avoid the SAG's notice. If
caught, the SAG may respond with fines and suspended health coverage, so the actor has
a motivation to do all he can to discourage people from linking his or her name with the
alias. There are several unions that actors may belong to; some notable ones are the
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and Screen Actors Guild in the
United States and ACTRA and the Union des Artistes (UDA) in Canada. Some actors
prefer to remain non union, or "not affiliated" with any guild or union; a notable example
of a strictly non union voiceover agency is Vox Talent.

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Training and how-to classes

Instruction in how to enter the voiceovers marketplace and how to market one's services
is offered at various acting schools and also at adult learning facilities such as Voices For
All or Chicago's Discovery Center.

Many VO coaches who have had success in commercial, narration, and animation offer
private training, tele-seminars and weekend workshops for both novice and experienced
voice actors. The VoiceOver International Creative Experience (VOICE) in Los Angeles
is an annual global conference open to all voice actors, coaches, agents, and producers
whose goal is to promote community, education, and technology within the VO industry.

Steady work as a voiceover talent in the US is normally possible in major metro areas
such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. However, with the rise of online databases
and hiring websites, voicing from home is becoming the norm for a lot of voice actors.

In Japan
Japanese voice actors (seiyū) work in radio, television and movies. Their work largely
mirrors that of their Western counterparts: performing roles in animated cartoons and
video games, performing voice-overs for dubs of non-Japanese movies, and providing
narration to documentaries and similar programs.

Because the animation industry in Japan is so prolific, seiyū are able to achieve fame on a
national level and are able to have full-time careers as voice-over artists. Japanese voice
actors are able to take greater charge of their careers than in other countries. Japan also
has the institutions to support the career path, with around 130 seiyū schools and troupes
of voice actors that work for a specific broadcast company or talent agency. They often
attract their own appreciators and fans who watch shows specifically to hear their favorite
actor or actress.

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Seiyū frequently branch into music, often singing the opening or closing themes of shows
in which their character stars, or become involved in non-animated side projects such as
audio dramas (involving the same characters in new storylines) or image songs (songs
sung in character that are not included in the anime but further develop the character).

In Korea

Sungwoo (hangul:대한민국의 성우) is a South Korea's voice actor. South Korean voice
actor at complete from Korea under Japanese rule.

History

• 1924:Korea's first radio broadcasting test date, (Thursday of All Day Broadcast,
Sunday of Half Day Broadcast) / Company of Chosun Drama Association in Bok

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Hye Sook, from Korea actress first broadcasting test / Before call to 'Voice Actor
of Mother'
• 1927:Kyeongseong Broadcasting Corporation open, date of main broadcast, Tele
Number by JODK / Korea's first broadcast radiodrama, From radio drama
laboratory entry made wheel edit on broadcast it "Doll of House"
• 1933:From Kyeongseong Broadcasting Corporation at 2 heavy-duty broadcast
date of broadcast start by Korean Language. (1st Broadcast:Japanese Language,
2nd Broadcast:Korean Language) / Korea's first broadcast radio soap-drama,
made in Kim Hoe Chang by first made broadcast of "Nochaboo"
• 1934:Full-size drama of start at Katusha, foreign edit direct and wright it 1 week
of weekday broadcast in part 3
• 1946:Start of main full-size drama "TolToli Adventure", Novel by "Tom Soyer's
Adventure" is it U.S. Minister edit systems in Korea's first child of weekday full-
size drama, cast of before middle school by Koo Min in "Bok Nam", Lee Hye
Kyeong in "TolToli Teacher"
• 1947:Establish of Seoul Central Broadcast of Drama Association, Join to 1st
• 1948:Seoul Central Broadcast Drama Association Join to 2nd
• 1954:Erased at 6.25 Reconstruction in broadcast drama for rejoined director by Jo
Nam Sa(1st), the new join of 1st voice actor(Drama Tester), before 6.25 war by
voice actor1st and 2nd is renual parts / join of KBS 1st voice actor
• 1955:Christian Broadcasting System open, join of 1st voice actor
• 1956:Korea's first of start in weekday full-size drama, "Cheongsil Hongsil" by
made in Jo Nam Sa and director in Lee Kyeong Jae, current of start at radio full-
size drama
• 1960:start of history Drama of broadcast, "Dangjaeng Bihwa" by made in Kim
Hee Chang and in Lee Sang Man
• 1961:KMBC Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation open, join of 1st voice actor /
date of voice actor casting grade, full in new 4th voice actor 33 person at over 3rd
of A-Grade and after 4th of B-Grade from casting fund it part first of grade date
• 1963:DBC Dong-a Broadcasting Corporation, join of 1st voice actor / Broadcast
Culture Group Establish of <Korea Voice Performance Association>, 1st CEO
Jang Min Ho, Self Agent Bok Hye Sook

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 • 1964:TBC Tongyang Broadcasting Corporation open, join of 1st voice actor /
<Korea Voice Performance Association> Licenced in Ministry of Broadcast and
Announcement Division
• 1980:Mass-Communication total and close - Christian Broadcasting System,
Dong-a Broadcasting System, Tongyang Broadcasting Corporation, Seohae
Broadcasting Corporation, Jeonil Broadcasting System is more at KBS total and
close in totally KBS Voice Acting Division
• 1994:<Korea Voice Performance Association> Re-Licenced trade in Ministry of
Broadcast and Announcement Division

In the Philippines
The Philippine Center for Voice Acting under CreatiVoices Productions is the only
institution in the Philippines that promotes voice acting as an art and career. It also

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founded the only voice artist group in the region: Society of Young Voice Artists of the
Philippines.

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Chapter- 2

How to Become a Voice Actor/Voiceover

Artist

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A Voice-Over Actor/Voice-Over Artist is an oral actor and in many ways, must convey
emotions better than a visual actor. As a former voice-over artist, I can attest that being a
voice-over artist can be fun, demanding, and is a great field!

Steps

1. Practice reading articles out loud, prefereably those where you are required
to change your voice. IE: Reading "Dr. Suess" books such as "Are You My
Mother" are great ways to tell a story in a narrator's voice, as well a host of
characters in a book is a great way to practice keeping "in character". When you
get comfortable -- volunteer to read in front of groups of children, as they will be
honest if they like your characterizations or not.
2. Practice your characterizations into a microphone. Play them back and listen
to them; play them for friends and family.

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 3. Record other people's dialects and copy them, by recording yourself and
playing the recording of your impressions versus the recording of the real
dialect.
4. Record your best dialects, your best "straight" copy (copy is another term
for "advertisements" or "the written script") and look up in the newspaper,
trade magazine, or internet ads where there is someone hiring for part-time
vocal work. You can call your local television cable company and ask who does
their vocal work for their ads. SOME companies may not pay in money, but they
will give you trade items. Keep copies of your work, for experience.
5. Get copies of trade magazines, if at all possible, or, if you live in a larger
town, go to the library to look at trade magazines there ("Radio Ink",
"Variety", etc.). Or, you can always visit the Internet and look for places where
they are hiring voice-over talent.
6. The larger the market, the more you'll need an agent, yourself. In larger
markets, you may also need to become part of a union. Again, look up on the

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internet, "Voice-Over Actor's Unions"

Tips
• When reading "copy", make sure to SMILE. If reading copy of a serious nature,
don't smile. For some oddball reason, if you smile while reading copy, your voice
sounds more engaging, more accessible, and people are more apt to respond to
your voice if it sounds more approachable.
• AVOID "popping of the P's and T's" -- that is when you talk into a microphone
and you hear a "popping" sound whenever a "P" or "T" is pronounced. How can it
be remedied? SMILE. That's right -- when your bottom lip is stretched, you have
less of a chance of "popping the p's" -- just another great reason to smile while
doing the greatest job in the world!
• Practice makes perfect - so studying the masters of the craft (Mel Blanc - the man
of many voices, Hank Azaria, James Earl Jones, and a host of others- both male
and female - will help you immensely)
• Going to a community college that specializes in Mass Communication can also
help you if you wish to be in radio production - so don't rule out college if you
haven't done so, yet.
• Once you get past a certain age (unless you have worked your way up and have
gained a great reputation), big markets won't be interested in you.
• Make sure you have a tough skin - this is a business where you will hear ALOT of
feedback -- both good and bad. You will also be competing against many others
for your job in the larger markets, so hang tough, keep learning and keep growing.

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How to Become a Voiceover Artist

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The following paragraphs will explain how to succeed in voice over. This technique can
be used for other things as well, which include book recording and narration.

Steps
1. Find a voice coach. Although you may think that they work with singers, that's
not always the case.
2. Work on the clearness of your voice.
3. If possible, order "The Ross Reports"; they are great.
4. Look for voice over jobs in your area.
5. Go for the audition in person at local recording studios. (Unfortunately, many
auditions require previous experience and/or union associations.)
6. Do online voice-over auditions on websites.

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Tips
• Drink lemon water (The tang clears your throat from all that gunk)
• Don't, under any circumstances drink milk. (Or eat any dairy product, this causes
phlegm.)

Warnings

• Take breaks, don't overwork the voice.

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Chapter- 3

How to Do a Voice Over

Doing a voice-over is one of the funniest things to do! Voice-overs are videos in which
the audio is switch with your or another audio! If you ever watched TV and thought "I
would've said something other than that." this is for you! This is also called dubbing.

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Steps
1. Go to a website with a video (it can be part of a vid or full).
2. Choose a program that will allow you to make your own region (a selected
region), and record your own audio.
3. Start your region over the video and record. Once you record, your mike
records too.
4. Stop when your done save your file.

Tips
• Put it on a CD and share with your friends.
• Say anything you want.
• Friends can get in on the action too!
• Dubbing popular cartoons is funnier!

Warnings
• If you incorporate content that is inappropriate for kids keep it hidden.

Things You'll Need

• a mike
• camstudio
• a computer
• a video

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How to Exercise Your Voice
No matter who you are or what you do, chances are you need to use your voice most of
the day. Everyone knows the importance of exercising the body but few people realize
the voice needs exercise too. It is best to relax the body with simple self massage and
light stretching before doing vocal exercises. Perform these eleven quick and easy warm
ups in the privacy of your shower or wherever you feel comfortable to release physical
and vocal tension.

Steps

1. Massage the base of your tongue, in the spongy area just behind your chin
bone. Start by resting your index fingers on top of your chin. Drop your jaw
which will cause your mouth to open. While resting your index fingers on your

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chin, simultaneously use your thumbs to massage deeply into the base of your
tongue. Do not reach too far back or you may vomit.
2. Release tension from your temporal mandibular joints. To find the joints,
place your fingertips just by and in front of your ears on both sides of your face
and open your mouth. The space that opens up as your jawbone moves is your
temporal mandibular joint. Massage these joints using your fingertips or the palms
of your hands. Release your jaw further and massage deeper with each exhale.
3. Stretch your tongue out of your mouth as far as you can in all directions.
4. Make as many funny faces as you can to exercise all of your facial muscles
and stretch your cheeks.
5. Massage your neck and shoulders. It is also a good idea to add basic neck and
shoulder rolls to loosen up.
6. Make some silly noises while shaking out your entire body or jumping up
and down to let go of any other tense areas that may be stuck.
7. Yawn a few times to open up the back of the throat.
8. Hum holding any pitch for 10 or more seconds feeling a tingling sensation
around your lips and nose.
9. Buzz your lips making a Brr sound. Start on any pitch. Then go up and down
your vocal range.
10. Vocalize on an open ‘Ahh’ sound going up and down your range.
11. Sing or hum any song that uplifts or inspires you.

Tips
• If you experience any tenderness or pain during massage, there is tension trapped
in your body. Just continue to breathe into the tension, releasing and letting it go.
• Vocalizing with open sounds like ‘maah’ or ‘aahh’ on the exhale while massa-
ging or stretching can help you release even further.
• Note that this will take practice and should be done on a regular basis.

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Warnings
• Most people experience tension specifically in the tongue, jaw, face, neck, or
shoulders and are normally unaware of how much that consistent stress impacts
their verbal and non-verbal communication.

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Chapter- 4

Dubbing

Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion

picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most
commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by
those of different performers, who may be speaking a different language. The procedure

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was sometimes practised in musicals when the actor had an unsatisfactory singing voice,
and remains in use to enable the screening of audio-visual material to a mass audience in
countries where viewers do not speak the same language as the original performers.
"Dubbing" also describes the process of an actor's re-recording lines spoken during fil-
ming and which must be replaced to improve audio quality or reflect dialog changes. This
process is called automated dialogue replacement, or ADR for short. Music is also
dubbed onto a film after editing is completed.

Films, videos and sometimes video games are often dubbed into the local language of a
foreign market. Dubbing is common in theatrically released film, television series,
cartoons and anime given foreign distribution.

Automated dialogue replacement / post-sync

Automated dialogue replacement (ADR) is the process of re-recording the original
dialogue after filming for the purpose of obtaining a cleaner, more intelligible dialogue
track (also known as looping or a looping session). In the UK it is called post-
synchronisation or post-sync.

In conventional film production, a production sound mixer records dialogue during

filming. Unless the shoot takes place on a sound stage, accompanying noise from the set,
traffic, wind, and the overall ambience of the surrounding environment can be over-
bearing. This often results in unusable production sound, and during the post-production
process a supervising sound editor or ADR Supervisor reviews all of the dialogue in the
film and decides which lines will have to be replaced.

ADR is also used to change the original lines recorded on set in order to clarify context,
or to improve the actor's diction and timing.

For animation such as computer-generated imagery or animated cartoons dialogue is

recorded to a pre-edited version of the show. Although the characters' voices are recorded

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in a studio, ADR is necessary whenever members of the cast can not all be present at
once.

ADR is recorded during an ADR session, which takes place in a specialized sound studio.
The actor, usually the original actor from the set, is shown the scene in question along
with the original sound, following which he or she will attempt to recreate the perfor-
mance as closely as possible. Over the course of multiple re-takes (hence looping) the
actor will repeatedly perform the lines while watching the scene, and the most suitable
take will make it to the final version of the scene.

Sometimes, a different actor is used from the original actor on set. One famous example
is the Star Wars character Darth Vader, portrayed by David Prowse and later Hayden
Christensen. In post-production, James Earl Jones always dubbed that character's voice.

ADR can also be used to redub singing. This technique was used by, among many others,

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Billy Boyd and Viggo Mortensen in The Lord of the Rings.

There are variations of the ADR process. It does not have to take place in a post-
production studio, but can be recorded on location, with mobile equipment. ADR can also
be recorded without showing the actor the image they must match, but only by having
him listen to the performance.

Rythmo band

An alternative method, called rythmo band (or "lip-sync band") was historically used in
Canada and France. It provides a more precise guide for the actors, directors and tech-
nicians and can be used to complement the traditional ADR method. The band is actually
a clear 35 mm film leader on which the dialogue is written by hand in India ink, along
with numerous additional indications for the actor (laughs, cries, length of syllables,
mouth sounds, breaths, mouth openings and closings, etc.). The rythmo band is projected
in the studio and scrolls in perfect synchronization with the picture. Thanks to the
efficiency of the rythmo band, the number of retakes can be reduced, resulting in
substantial savings in recording time. The time saved in the studio comes at the price of a
long preparatory process.

The preparation of a rythmo band is a time-consuming process involving a series of

specialists organized in an old fashioned production line. Until recently this prevented the
technique from being more widely adopted, but software emulations of rythmo band
technology overcome the disadvantages of the traditional rythmo band process and
significantly reduce the time needed to prepare a dubbing session. Studio time is also
used more efficiently, since with the aid of scrolling text, picture, and audio cues actors
can read more lines per hour than with ADR alone (only picture and audio). With ADR,
actors can average 10-12 lines per hour, while with rythmo band they can read from 35-
50 lines per hour, and much more with experience.

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At present, there exist several dubbing software solutions, among which are dubStudio
(developed in Quebec, Canada) and Synchronos (developed in France).

Practice of dubbing foreign films throughout the world

Dubbing is often used to localize a foreign movie. The new voice track will usually be
spoken by a voice artist. In many countries, most actors who regularly perform this duty
are generally little-known outside of popular circles such as anime fandom, for example,
or when their voice has become synonymous with the role or the actor or actress whose
voice they usually dub. In the United States, many of these actors also employ
pseudonyms or go uncredited due to Screen Actors Guild regulations or a simple desire to
dissociate themselves from the role. However, famous local actors can also be hired to
perform the dubbing, particularly for comedies and animated movies, as their names are
supposed to attract moviegoers, and the entire Hollywood cast may be dubbed by a local

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cast of similar notoriety.

Europe

Dubbing only for children: Otherwise solely subtitles

Mixed areas: Countries using occasionally full-cast dubbing otherwise solely subtitles
Voice-over: Countries using usually one or just a couple of voice actors whereas the
original soundtrack persists

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 General dubbing: Countries using exclusively a full-cast dubbing, both for films and for
TV series
Countries which produce their own dubbings but often use dubbed versions from another
country whose language is sufficiently similar that the local audience understands it easily. (Belg-
ium and Slovakia)

Dubbing only for children

In North-West Europe—meaning the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and the Nordic
countries—and Portugal generally only movies and TV shows intended for children are
dubbed, while all TV shows and movies for older audiences are subtitled (animated
productions have a tradition of often being dubbed, though). For movies in cinemas with
clear target audiences both below and above c. 10-11 years of age, usually both a dubbed
and a subtitled version are available.

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In the Netherlands, in the majority of cases Dutch versions are only made for children
and youth related films. Animation movies are shown in theaters with Dutch dubbing, but
usually those cinemas with more screening rooms also provide the original subtitled
version; that was the case for movies like Babe, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Finding
Nemo, Cars, Shrek the Third, Ratatouille, Kung Fu Panda or WALL-E.

Since Belgium is a multilingual country, films are shown in French and Dutch. The range
of French dubbed versions is approximately as wide as the German range where
practically all films and TV-series are dubbed. Sometimes separate versions are recorded
in the Netherlands and in Flanders; for instance several Walt Disney films or Harry
Potter films. These dubbed versions only differ from each other in using different voice
actors and different pronunciation while the text is almost the same. In general, movies
shown by Flemish broadcasters are always shown in original language with subtitles,
with the exception of movies for a young audience.

In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the vast majority of foreign films are subtitled
although some, mostly animated films and TV programmes, are dubbed in English. These
usually originate from North America as opposed to being dubbed locally, although there
have been notable examples of films and TV programmes successfully dubbed in the UK,
such as the Japanese Monkey and French Magic Roundabout series. When airing films on
television, channels in the UK and Ireland will often choose subtitling over dubbing, even
if a dubbing in English exists. It is also a fairly common practice for animation aimed at
pre-school children to be re-dubbed with British voice actors replacing the original
voices, although this is not done with shows aimed at older audiences.

Some animated films and TV programmes are also dubbed into Welsh and Scottish
Gaelic. Similarly, in Ireland, animated series shown on TG4 are shown dubbed in Irish.

In Finland, dubbing is used only in animated features and other films for young
audiences. Some theaters in the major cities may screen the original version, usually as
the last showing of the day. For the 5% Swedish-speaking minority, the dubbed version
from Sweden may also be available at certain cinemas. DVD releases have both Finnish

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and Swedish language tracks (and also subtitles), in addition to the original audio. In
movie theaters, films for grown-up audiences have both Finnish and Swedish subtitles,
the Finnish printed in basic font and the Swedish printed below the Finnish in a cursive
font. In the early ages of television, foreign TV shows and movies were dubbed by one
actor in Finland, as in Russian Gavrilov translation. Later, subtitles became a practice on
Finnish television. Dubbing of other than children's films is unpopular in Finland, as in
many other countries. A good example is The Simpsons Movie. While the original version
was well-received, the Finnish dubbed version got poor reviews; some critics even
calling it a disaster. On the other hand, many dubs of Disney animated features have been
well received, both critically and by the public.

In Greece, all films are released theatrically in their original versions and contain
subtitles. Only cartoon films (e.g. Finding Nemo, The Incredibles etc.) are released in
both original and dubbed versions, for children who cannot yet read fast or at all. Foreign
TV shows are also shown in their original versions except for most cartoons. For example

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The Flintstones is always dubbed, while Family Guy is subtitled and contains the original
dialogue, since it is mostly for adults rather than children. Only Mexican series like Rubi,
La usurpadora, and teen series like Hannah Montana and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody
are dubbed.

In Portugal, dubbing was banned under a 1948 law, as a way of protecting the domestic
film industry. As late as 1960, a third of people in Portugal were illiterate, and would not
have benefited from the use of subtitles.

Today, only children's TV series are dubbed, and on cable TV even children's series such
as Doraemon are subtitled. Animated movies were dubbed in Brazilian Portuguese for
decades—The Lion King was the first feature film dubbed in Portugal. Recently,
children's live-action movies (such as the Harry Potter series, except for Order of the
Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince) have also been dubbed into Portuguese. While the
quality of these dubs is recognised, original versions with subtitles are usually preferred
by the public and they get even distribution in cinemas (Bee Movie is a good example). It
is not common practice to dub animation for adults (such as The Simpsons or South
Park). When The Simpsons Movie was dubbed and the Portuguese version was widely
distributed in cinemas, with some small cities not even getting the original version, there
were protests from the public. Live action series and movies are always shown in the
original language with subtitles.

In Romania, virtually all programmes intended for children are dubbed in Romanian,
including cartoons on Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, Minimax, Nickelodeon as well
as those shown on generalist television networks, children-focused series like Power
Rangers, The New Addams Family, The Planet's Funniest Animals or movies screened on
children television. Animation movies are shown in theaters with Romanian dubbing, but
usually those cinemas with more screening rooms also provide the original subtitled
version; that was the case for movies like Babe, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Finding
Nemo, Cars, Shrek the Third, Ratatouille, Kung Fu Panda or WALL-E. Other foreign TV
shows and movies are shown in the original language with Romanian subtitles. Usually

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subtitles are preferred in the Romanian market, except for programme intended for
children. According to "Special Eurobarometer 243" of the European Commission
(research carried out in November and December 2005), 62% of Romanians prefer to
watch foreign films and programmes with subtitles, rather than dubbed; nonetheless 22%
have a preference for dubbing, while 16% declined to answer. This is led by the
assumption that watching movies in their original versions is very useful for learning
foreign languages. However, according to the same Eurobarometer, virtually no
Romanian found this method—watching movies in their original version—to be the most
efficient way of learning foreign languages, compared to 53 percent who preferred
language lessons at school.

In Serbia, Croatia, and most other Serbo-Croat speaking parts of former Yugoslavia,
foreign films and TV series are always subtitled, while children's movies and cartoons are
dubbed into Serbo-Croat. The dubbing of cartoon classics during the 1980s had a twist of
its own: famous Belgrade actors provided the voices for Disney's, Warner Brothers',

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MGM's and other companies' characters, frequently using region specific phrases and
sentences and thus adding a dose of local humor to the translation of the original lines.
These phrases became immensely popular and are still being used for tongue-in-cheek
comments in specific situations. Even though these dubbed classics are seldom aired
nowadays, younger generations continue to use these phrases without knowing their true
origin.

In Croatia foreign films and TV series are always subtitled, while some children
programs and cartoons are dubbed into Croatian. Recently, more efforts have been made
to introduce dubbing, but public reception was poor. Regardless of language, Croatian
audience prefers subtitling to dubbing. Some previously quite popular shows (e.g., Sailor
Moon) lost their appeal completely after dubbing started and were eventually taken off
the program. The situation is similar with theater movies with only those intended for
children being dubbed (Finding Nemo, Shark Tale), but they are also regularly shown
subtitled as well. Recently, there has been effort to try and impose dubbing by Nova TV
with La Fea Más Bella translated as Ružna ljepotica (lit. "The Ugly Beauty"), a Mexican
telenovela, but it failed poorly. In fact they had only dubbed a quarter of the show,
ultimately replacing it with the subtitled version due to lack of interest for the dubbed
version.

In Slovenia, all foreign films and television programmes are subtitled without exceptions.
Traditionally, children movies and animated cartoons used to be dubbed, but subtitling
has gradually spread into that genre as well. Nowadays, only movies for preschool
children remain dubbed. It seems to prove, that it's because of the countries are too poor
and to small for the rentability of dubbing.

Generally dubbing countries

In the Italian, French, German, Spanish, and Russian-speaking markets of Europe, almost
all foreign films and television shows are dubbed (the exception being only theatrical
releases and high profile videos in Russia). There are few opportunities to watch foreign

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movies in their original versions, and even in the largest cities there are few cinemas that
screen original versions with subtitles, or without any translation. However, digital pay-
TV programming is often available in the original language, including the latest movies.
Prior to the rise of DVDs, which in these countries are mostly issued with multi-language
audio tracks, original language films other than in the country's official language were
rare, whether in theaters, on TV, or on home video, and subtitled versions were
considered a product for small niche markets such as intellectual or art films.

In France, movies and TV series are always released dubbed in French. Films are usually
released theatrically in both dubbed and original versions in large cities' main street
theaters, and a theater showing a subtitled movie typically has a sign on the poster
advising moviegoers that the film is an original-language version (usually abbreviated
VO [version originale] or VOST [version originale sous-titrée] as opposed to VF
[version française]). Art house movies are often available in their original version only
due to limited distribution. Some voice talents, such as Roger Carel, Richard Darbois,

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Edgar Givry, Jacques Frantz, Jacques Balutin or Francis Lax, have achieved significant
popularity.

The Germanophone dubbing market is the largest in Europe. Germany has the most
foreign movie dubbing studios per capita and per given area in the world. In Germany,
Austria and the German speaking part of Switzerland, practically all films, shows,
television series and foreign soap operas are shown in dubbed versions created for the
German market. (In Switzerland however in every bigger town (10'000 and more
inhabitants), both versions are shown, either in the same theatre at different hours/days or
in different cinemas.) Even computer games and video games feature German text menus
and are dubbed into the German language if there are any speaking parts in the games.
However, in recent years, Swiss-German television, SF1 and SF2 have been showing
increasing numbers of movies in "dual sound", which means the viewer can choose
between the original language (usually English) or German. In addition, Swiss-French
television shows many broadcasts available in either the original language or in French,
as does the Swiss-Italian television channel TSI. A common example is the American
detective series Columbo and other popular series-based broadcasts, such as Starsky and
Hutch.

Dubbing films has been and is still tradition and common practice in the German
speaking area since subtitles are not accepted and used as much as in other European
countries. According to a European study, Austria is the country with the highest
rejection (more than 70 percent) with regard to using subtitles, followed by Italy, Spain
and Germany.

Although voice actors play only a secondary role, they are still notable for providing
familiar voices to well-known actors. Famous foreign actors are known and recognized
for their German voice and the German audience is used to them, so dubbing is also a
matter of authenticity. However, in larger cities there are theaters where movies can be
seen in their original versions as English has become more popular, especially among

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younger viewers. On German TV, few movies are subtitled, although pay-per-view
programming is often available in its original language.

German dubbed versions sometimes diverge greatly from the original, especially adding
humorous elements to the original. In extreme cases, like The Persuaders!, the dubbed
version was more successful than the English original. Often it also adds sexually explicit
gags the U.S. versions might not be allowed to use, like in Bewitched, translating The Do-
not-disturb sign will hang on the door tonight to The only hanging thing tonight will be
the Do-not-disturb sign.

Some movies dubbed before reunification exist in different versions for the east and the
west. They use different translations, and often they are different in the style of dubbing.

In Italy the use of dubbing is systematic, with a long tradition going back to the 1930s in
Rome, Milan and Turin. In Mussolini's fascist Italy, foreign languages were banned.

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Rome is the principal base of the dubbing industry, where major productions such as
movies, drama, documentaries and some cartoons are dubbed. However, in Milan it is
mostly cartoons and some minor productions which are dubbed. Practically every
American film, of every genre, whether for kids or adults, as well as TV shows, are
dubbed into Italian. In big cities original version movies can also be seen. Subtitles are
usually available on late night programmes on mainstream TV channels, and on pay-TV
all movies are available in English with Italian subtitles, and many shows feature the
original English soundtrack. But for fans of dubbing, there are some little-known sites on
the Internet that offer the free streaming of movies with their Italian soundtrack. Early in
his career, Nino Manfredi worked extensively as a dubbing actor. Furthermore, common
practice at one point in Italian cinema was to shoot scenes MOS and dub the dialogue in
post-production, a notable example being The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, in which
even actors speaking English on screen had to dub in their own voices.

In Latvia, dubbing is hugely popular; almost all shows are dubbed.

In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, virtually all foreign films and television progra-
mmes shown on television are dubbed, often by well-known actors. In Slovakia often the
Czech dub is shown instead of producing a local one. Some audiences prefer the Czech
dubs because they are considered to be of higher quality. In both countries dubbing actors
often "overact", causing audiences to express views that American films are of low intel-
lectual quality. In cinemas, films are usually shown subtitled, unless they are intended for
children of 12 years of age and younger; Slovak law requires that those films be dubbed
or rated as MP-12 (roughly equivalent to PG-13, without a cautionary meaning in this
case.). Cinemas sometimes offer both dubbed and subtitled screenings for either very
major movie releases (e.g., the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy) that would have
otherwise not been dubbed, or conversely for children's films or family films that are
expected to also attract mature viewers (e.g., Shrek) to maximize the potential audience.
In opinion of many Czech viewers the Czech dubbing of some shows (for instance The
Simpsons, films with Louis de Funes), provided by popular Czech actors, is better than
the original voice. In the Czech republic it's also common that some actors are dubbed

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always by one Czech actor, for instance Louis de Funes was almost always dubbed by
František Filipovský. In Slovakia, state-owned public broadcaster Slovenská televízia
dubs programs that it acquires from foreign companies for its channels into Slovak.
Markiza and TV JOJ also dub. In the Czech Republic, MiniMax, Animax, TV Prima and
other Czech language stations also impose dubbing.

In Spain, practically all foreign television programmes are shown dubbed in Spanish, as
are most films. Some dubbing actors have achieved popularity for their voices, like
Constantino Romero, who dubs Clint Eastwood, Darth Vader and Schwarzenegger's
Terminator, among others. In Catalonia, the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands,
Galicia and the Basque Country, many or most foreign programmes are also dubbed into
their own official languages, different from Spanish. Currently, with the spread of the
Digital terrestrial television most movies and series can be listened to both in the original
and in the dubbed version.

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Mixed areas
In Bulgaria, television series are dubbed. But most television channels in Bulgaria use
subtitles for the action and drama movies. AXN uses subtitles for its series, but as of
2008 emphasizes dubbing. Only Diema channels dub all programmes. Movies in theaters,
excepting films for children, use subtitles. Dubbing of television programs is usually
done using voice-overs, but usually with at least four or five actors reading the lines and
always trying to give each character a different voice and use appropriate intonations in
each sentence. Dubbing with synchronized voices is rarely used, mostly for animated
films (with Mrs. Doubtfire being a rare example of a feature film dubbed this way on
BNT Channel 1, though a subtitled version is currently shown on other channels). Walt
Disney Television's animated series (e.g., DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, Timon and
Pumbaa) were only aired with synchronized Bulgarian voices on BNT Channel 1 until
2005, but then the Disney show was canceled. When airing of Disney series resumed on
Nova Television and Jetix in 2008, voice-over was used (but Disney animated movie
translations still use synchronized voices). Voice-over dubbing is not used in theatrical
releases. The Bulgarian Film Industry Law requires all children's films to be dubbed, not
subtitled. Nova Television dubbed and aired Pokemon with synchronized voices now its
airing on Disney Channel also in synchronized form.

In Hungary, practically all television programmes are dubbed, as are about 50 percent of
movies in theaters. In the socialist era, every one of them was dubbed with professional
and mostly popular actors. Great care was taken to make sure the same voice actor would
lend his voice to the same actor. In the early 1990s, as cinemas tried to keep up with
showing newly released films, subtitling became dominant in cinema. This, in turn,
forced TV channels to make their own cheap versions of dubbed soundtracks for the
movies they presented, resulting in a constant degrading of dubbing quality. Once this
became customary, cinema distributors resumed the habit of dubbing for popular
productions, presenting them in a quality varying from very poor to average. However,
every single feature is presented with the original soundtrack in at least one cinema in
large towns and cities.

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However, in Hungary most of documentary films and series (e.g. on Discovery Channel,
National Geographic Channel) are made with voice-over. Also some old movies and
series, or ones that provide non-translatable jokes and conversations (e.g. Mr. Bean
television series), are shown only with subtitles.

There is a more recent problem arising from dubbing included on DVD releases. Many
generations have grown up with an original, and by current technological standards
outdated soundtrack, which is either technologically (mono or bad quality stereo sound)
or legally (expired soundtrack licence) unsuitable for a DVD release. Many original
features are released on DVD with a new soundtrack, which in some cases proves to be
extremely unpopular, thus forcing DVD producers to include the original soundtrack. In
some rare cases the Hungarian soundtrack is left out altogether. This happens notably
with Warner Home Video Hungary, who ignored the existence of Hungarian soundtracks
completely. This was because they did not want to pay the licensees for the soundtracks
to be included on their new DVD releases, which appear with improved picture quality,

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but very poor subtitling.

Voice-over
In Poland cinema releases are almost exclusively subtitled, and television screenings of
movies, as well as made-for-TV shows, are usually shown with the most primitive
method - the original soundtrack kept, and translation spoken over by lector - it is almost
exactly the same as the so-called Gavrilov translation in Russia, with one difference - all
the dialogues are translated with only one acute, and usually male voice. Standard
dubbing is not widely popular with most audiences, with the exception of animated and
children's movies and shows, which are often dubbed both in cinema and TV releases.

Poland has long lasting dubbing traditions which reaches interwar years. One of the first
movies dubbed into Polish in the year 1931 were Dangerous Curves (1929), The Dance
of Life (1929), Paramount on Parade (1930) and Darling of the Gods (1930). After the
war in the year 1949 at the city Łódź was created the first dubbing studio. The first film
which was dubbed after the war in the year of creation the studio was Russkiy vopros
from 1948.

The Polish dubbing in the first post-war years didn't have good opinion because of bad
sonorisation. The Polish dialogues were unclear, so people couldn't understand them.
Cinemas had an old aperture which sometimes made a film more unclear than it was. In
the 50's the Polish publicist discussed about the quality of Polish versions to foreign
movies.

Both the number of dubbed movies and its quality had improved. In the 60's-80's the
Polish dubbing had a golden age. In the cinemas were dubbed 1/3 of foreign movies. It
was said about "Polish dubbing school" because of its high quality. In that time Poland
had some of the best dubbing in the world. The most important person who initiated high
quality dubbing versions was director Zofia Dybowska-Aleksandrowicz. Her works were
as good as original and sometimes even better who admitted people connected with the

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original version (actors and directors). In that time dubbing in Poland was very popular.
Polish television dubbed very popular films and TV series such as Rich Man, Poor Man,
Fawlty Towers, Forsyte Saga, Elizabeth R, I, Claudius, I'll Take Manhattan, Peter the
Great.

In the 80's an economical crisis had came, so there were less money for dubbing.
Television didn't have money for tapes so they used the actual record. After first emission
dubbing was canceled (they recorded on that tape something else). In the whole period of
communism were dubbed almost 1000 films. In the 90's after democratic transformation
Polish television (TVP) was steal dubbing films and TV series. Unfortunately like in 80's
it was a dubbing only for one emission.

In the year 1995 to Poland entranced Canal+ who at the first years dubbed 30% of
schedule. They dubbed very ambitious films and popular TV series. One of the well
known and popular dubbing were Friends. Unfortunately they stopped dubbing Friends

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in 2001 and films in 1999 although many people supported the idea of dubbing and
bought the access only for dubbing versions of foreign productions. According to survey
of public opinion dubbing in Canal+ supported 43,4% subscribers (almost 500 000
people). The other 50,2% preferred lectors and 8,1% with subtitles. In the 90's dubbing
was made also by television Wizja Jeden. They dubbed mainly production of BBC such
as very popular The League of Gentlemen, Absolutely Fabulous or Men Behaving Badly.
Wizja Jeden was closed in 2001. In the same year TVP stopped dubbing TV series
Frasier although that dubbing was very popular.

Nowadays according to the recent survey of public opinion made by TVP dubbing and
over sound supports equally 45% of society. At present dubbing to films and TV series
for teenagers is made by Nickelodeon and Disney's Channels. One of the major
breakthroughs in dubbing was the Polish release of Shrek, which contained many
references to local culture and Polish humour. Since then, people seem to have grown to
like dubbed versions more, and pay more attention to the dubbing actors. However, this
seems to be the case only with animated films, as live-action dubbing is still considered a
bad practice. In the case of DVD releases, most discs contain both the original soundtrack
and subtitles, and either lector or dubbed Polish track.

Russian television is generally dubbed with only a couple of voice actors, with the
original speech still audible underneath. In the Soviet Union most foreign movies to be
officially released were dubbed. However, with the fall of the regime many popular
foreign movies, previously forbidden or at least questionable under communist rule,
started to flood in, in the form of low-quality home-copied videos. Being unofficial
releases, they were dubbed in a very primitive way, e.g., the translator spoke the text
directly over the audio of a video being copied, using primitive equipment. The quality of
the resulting dub was very low, the translated phrases were off-sync, interfered with the
original voices, background sounds leaked into the track, translation was inaccurate and
most importantly, all dub voices were made by a single person and usually lacked the
intonation of the original, making comprehension of some scenes quite difficult. In
modern Russia, the overdubbing technique is still used in many cases, although with

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vastly improved quality and now with multiple voice actors dubbing different original
voices.

In Ukraine television and cinema is generally dubbed with the overdubbing technique,
with multiple voice actors dubbing different original voices. But for Russian films are
possible subtitles. Russian language TV programs are usually not dubbed.

America

In the United States and most of Canada outside of Quebec, foreign films shown in
theaters are usually subtitled. The exceptions are Tokusatsu and daikaiju films, which are
dubbed when imported into the U.S.; the poor quality of the dubbing of these films has
become the subject of much mockery. A small number of British films have been dubbed
when released in America owing to dialects used that Americans are not familiar with

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(e.g. Kes, Trainspotting). In addition, British children shows (such as Bob the Builder)
are redubbed with American voice actors, making the series more understandable for
American children. Televised Japanese anime is almost always aired in its dubbed format
regardless of its content or target age group, with the sole exceptions occurring either
when an English dub has not been produced for the program (usually in the case of
feature films) or when the program is being presented by a network that places
importance on presenting it in its original format (as was the case when Turner Classic
Movies aired several of Hayao Miyazaki's works, which were presented both dubbed and
subtitled). Most anime DVDs contain options for original Japanese, Japanese with
subtitles, and English dubbed, except for a handful of series which have been heavily
edited and/or Americanized.

In Latin American countries, all foreign language programmes, films, cartoons and
documentaries shown in free aired TV channels are dubbed into Neutral Spanish, while in
cable and satellite pan-regional channels, films are either dubbed or subtitled. In theaters,
only films made for children are dubbed into Neutral Spanish (usually with Mexican
pronunciation) and sometimes dubbed into local Spanish for major markets like
Argentina.

In Mexico, departing from the conventions of other Spanish-speaking Latin American

countries, blockbuster films are featured in all movie theaters with dubbing. In addition
most of the cinema-theaters, primarily in big cities, offer to show the film in the original
language with subtitles. Most of the movies released as DVD have the feature of Neutral
Spanish. On broadcast TV foreign programs are dubbed. Dubbing is a legal requirement
in movie theaters, documentaries, and for animated and children's movies. In pay TV
most shows and movies are subtitled.

In Brazil, foreign programmes are invariably dubbed into Brazilian Portuguese on

broadcast TV, with only a few exceptions. Films shown at cinemas are generally offered
with both subtitled and dubbed versions, although subtitling is preferential for adult
movies and dubbing is preferential for children movies. Pay TV commonly offers both

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dubbed and subtitled movies, but subtitling is predominant. When released on DVD, all
movies usually feature both dubbing and subtitling.

In Quebec, Canada, most films and TV programmes in English are dubbed into Quebec
French (with an International French accent for ease of comprehension and regional
neutrality). Occasionally, the dubbing of a series or a movie, such as The Simpsons, is
made using the more widely-spoken joual variety of Quebec French. This has the
advantage of making children's films and TV series comprehensible to younger
audiences, but many bilingual Québécois prefer subtitling since they would understand
some or all of the original audio. In addition, all films are shown in English as well in
certain theaters (especially in major cities and English-speaking areas such as the West
Island), and in fact, some theaters, such as the Scotiabank Cinema Montreal, show only
movies in English. Most American television series are only available in English on
DVD, or on English language channels, but some of the more popular ones have French
dubs shown on mainstream networks, and are released in French on DVD as well,

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sometimes separately from an English-only version.

Formerly, all French-language dubbed films in Quebec were imported from France, and
to this day some still are. Such a practice was criticized by former politician Mario
Dumont after he took his children to see the Parisian French dub of Shrek the Third,
which Dumont found incomprehensible. After Dumont's complaints and a proposed bill,
Bee Movie, the following film from DreamWorks Animation, was dubbed in Quebec,
making it the studio's first animated film to have a Quebec French dub, as all
DreamWorks Animation films had previously been dubbed in France. In addition,
because Canadian viewers usually find Quebec French more comprehensible than other
dialects of the language, some older film series that had the French-language versions of
previous installments dubbed in France have later ones dubbed in Quebec, often creating
inconsistencies within the French version of the series' canon. Lucasfilm's Star Wars and
Indiana Jones series are examples. Both series had films released in the 1970s and 80s
with no Québécois French dubbed versions; instead, the Parisian French versions with
altered character and object names, terms, etc. were distributed in the province. However,
later films in both series released 1999 and later were dubbed in Quebec, using different
voice actors and "reversing" name changes made in France's dubbings due to the change
in studio.The French dub of Naruto that airs in Quebec is from France but uses a intro
that is not used in the European airing.

Asia

China has a long tradition of dubbing foreign films into Mandarin Chinese which started
in the 1930s. Beginning in the late 1970s, not only films, but popular TV series from the
United States, Japan, Brazil, and Mexico were also dubbed. The Shanghai Film Dubbing
Studio has been the most celebrated one in the dubbing industry in China. In order to
generate high-quality products, they divide each film into short segments, each one
lasting only a few minutes, and then work on the segments one by one. In addition to the
correct meaning in translation, they make tremendous effort to match the lips of the
actors. As a result, viewers can hardly detect that the films they are seeing are actually

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dubbed. The cast of dubbers is acknowledged at the end of a dubbed film. Quite a few
dubbing actors and actresses of the Shanghai Film Dubbing Studio became well-known
celebrities, among whom are Qiu Yuefeng, Bi Ke, Li Zi, and Liu Guangning. In recent
years however, especially in the larger cities on east and south coast, it has become
increasingly common that movie theaters show subtitled versions with the original
soundtrack intact.

In Hong Kong, foreign television programmes, including English program and Chinese
Mandarin program (mostly China & Taiwan), are dubbed in Cantonese, and Japanese
programs, including anime, are also dubbed in Cantonese. The only exception is the TVB
drama, which is originally Cantonese and is dubbed into Mandarin for distribution in
China and Taiwan, but is broadcast in Cantonese in Malaysia, Hong Kong and overseas.

In Thailand, foreign television programmes are dubbed, but the original soundtrack is
often simultaneously carried on a NICAM audio track on terrestrial broadcast, and

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alternate audio tracks on satellite broadcast; previously, terrestrial stations simulcasted
the original soundtrack on the radio. On Pay-TV, many channels carry foreign language
movies and television programmes with subtitles. Nearly all movie theaters throughout
the country show the subtitled version and the dubbed version of English-language
movies. In Bangkok, the majority of theaters showing English-language movies are
subtitled only. In big cities like Bangkok Thai-language movies have English subtitles.

In Indonesia and Malaysia, South American telenovelas are dubbed, while English
language programmes are usually shown in the original language with Indonesian and
Malay subtitles, respectively. However, this has recently changed in Malaysia, and South
American telenovelas now retain their original language, with Malay subtitles. Most but
not all Korean and Japanese dramas are still dubbed in Mandarin with Malay subtitles on
terrestrial television channels. Cantonese, Mandarin, Tamil and Hindi programmes are
shown in original language all this while, usually with Malay subtitling (and in some
cases, multilingual subtitling). Cartoons and anime are also dubbed as well, such as
Kekkaishi, Megas XLR, Spheres (Korea), dubbed by young soundman Mohamad Nor
Aliff Abd Majid a.k.a Aliff JJ, and others like Crayon Shin Chan, Doraemon, Bleach, and
Naruto. Although English-language cartoons are normally not dubbed, and some anime
do retain their original Japanese language. In Indonesia English-language daytime
cartoons are mostly dubbed, however on some pay-tv channels like Nickelodeon cartoons
aren't dubbed and do not have subtitles. Feature animations are either dubbed or subtitled
depending on which television-channel it is shown on.

In the Philippines, Japanese anime are more often than not dubbed in Filipino(Tagalog).
The channel HERO TV, which focuses on anime and tokusatsu shows, has all its foreign
programs dubbed in Tagalog. Animax, meanwhile, have their anime programs dubbed in
English. Also popular in the Philippines are Chinese, Korean, and Mexican TV programs
which are termed Chinovelas, Koreanovelas, and Mexicanovelas, respectively, and all
these are also dubbed in Tagalog. The prevalence of media needing to be dubbed has
resulted in a talent pool that is very capable of syncing voice to lip, especially for shows
broadcast by the country's two largest networks. It is not uncommon in the Filipino dub

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industry to have most of the voices in a series dubbed by only a handful of voice talents.
English language programs are usually not dubbed, because Filipinos can understand
English. Notable exceptions are a number of Nickelodeon cartoons shown on TV5 which
are dubbed in Tagalog.

In Mongolia, most television dubbing uses the Russian method, with only a few voice
actors, and the original language audible underneath. In movie theaters, foreign films are
shown in their original language with Mongolian subtitles underneath.

In India, where "foreign films" are synonymous with Hollywood films, dubbing is done
mostly in Hindi, and languages like Tamil and Telugu. The finished works are released
into the towns and lower tier settlements of the respective states (where English
penetration is low), often with the English language originals being released in the
metropolitan areas. In all other states, the English originals are released along with the
dubbed versions where often the dubbed version collections are outstanding than original.

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The most recent dubbing of Spider-Man 3 was also done in Bhojpuri, a language popular
in northern India.

In Pakistan, almost 60% of the population speaks Punjabi as their mother tongue.
Therefore, Punjabi films have more business than Urdu films. The film companies produ-
ced Punjabi films and re-record all films in Urdu and released the result as a "Double
Version" film.

Also in Pakistan, where "foreign films" are synonymous with Hollywood films, dubbing
is done mostly in Urdu, which is the national language, and the finished works are
released in the major cities throughout country.

In Vietnam, foreign-language films and programs are fully dubbed on television. On

VTV4 the movies, both Vietnamese and foreign, are subtitled in English for non-
Vietnamese viewers. Subtitling is rare.

In multilingual Singapore, English language programmes on the free-to-air terrestrial

channels are usually subtitled in Chinese or Malay, while Chinese, Malay and Tamil
programmes are almost always subtitled in English. Dual sound programs like Korean
and Japanese dramas offer sound in the original languages with subtitles, Mandarin
dubbed and subtitled, or English dubbed. The deliberate policy to encourage Mandarin
among citizens has led to other Chinese dialects (Hokkien, Cantonese and Teochew)
programmes being dubbed into Mandarin, exceptions being traditional operas. In a recent
development, news bulletins are subtitled.

Middle East

In Iran, dubbing started in 1946 with the advent of movies and cinemas in the country.
Since then, foreign movies have always been dubbed for the cinema and TV. Using
various voice actors and adding local hints and witticisms to the original contents,
dubbing played a major role in attracting people to the cinemas and interesting them in

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other cultures. The dubbing art in Iran reached its culminant point during the 1960s and
1970s with the inflow of American, European and Hindi movies. The most famous musi-
cals of the time, such as My fair lady and The Sound of Music were translated, adjusted
and performed in Persian by the voice talents. After the 1978 revolution, the dubbing
industry has declined, with movies dubbed only for the state TV channels. During recent
years DVDs with Persian subtitles have found a market among the educated, but most
people still prefer Persian-spoken versions.

Africa

The Maghreb
In Algeria and Morocco, most foreign movies (especially Hollywood productions) are
shown with French dubbing. These movies are usually imported directly from French

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film distributors. The choice of movies dubbed into French can be explained by the
colonization past of these countries by France and the widespread use of the French
language (among the intellectual elite), in addition to the marginalization of one national
language (i.e. the Berber language). Another important factor is that local theaters and
private media companies do not dub in local languages to avoid high costs, but also
because of the lack of both expertise and demand. Starting from the 1980s, dubbed series
and movies for children in Modern Standard Arabic became a popular choice among
most TV channels, cinemas and VHS/DVD stores. But it should be noted that dubbed
films are still imported and dubbing is performed in Arab countries with strong tradition
of dubbing and subtitling (mainly Syria, Lebanon and Jordan). The evolution of movies
targeting the adult audience was different. After the satellite boom in the Arab World and
the emergence of Pan-Arab channels, the use of subtitles, which was already popular in
the Middle-East, was highly popular among local viewers in Algeria and Morocco.

In Tunisia, theaters usually show French dubbed movies, but cinema attendance in the
country for such movies is in continuous decline compared to Tunisian and Arab movies.
This decline can be traced to the huge popularity of free-to-air Pan-Arab movie channels
offering mainly subtitled content and the government's reduced efforts to limit piracy.
Tunisia National Television (TNT), the public broadcaster of Tunisia, is not allowed to
show any content in any language other than Arabic, which forced it to broadcast only
dubbed content (this restriction was lately removed for commercials). During the 1970s
and 1980s, TNT (known as ERTT at the time) started dubbing famous cartoons in
Tunisian and Standard Arabic. This move was highly successful locally, but was not able
to compete with mainstream dubbing companies (especially in the Middle East). In the
private sector, television channels are not subject to the language rule and sometimes
broadcast foreign content dubbed into French (excluding children content), although
some of them, such as Hannibal TV started adopting subtitling in Arabic instead, which
proved to be more popular than simply importing French dubbed content.

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South Africa
In South Africa, many television programmes, including The Six Million Dollar Man,
were dubbed in Afrikaans, with the original soundtrack (usually in English, but some-
times Dutch or German) "simulcast" in FM stereo on Radio 2000. However, this practice
has declined as a result of the reduction of airtime for the language on SABC TV, and the
increase of locally produced material in Afrikaans on other channels like KykNet and
MK. Similarly, many programmes, such as The Jeffersons, were dubbed into Zulu, but
this has declined as local drama production has increased.

Oceania

In common with other English-speaking countries, there has traditionally been little
dubbing in Australia, with foreign language television programmes and films being

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shown (usually on SBS) with subtitles. This has also been the case in New Zealand, but
the Maori Television Service, launched in 2004, has dubbed animated films, like
Watership Down, into Maori. However, some TV commercials which originated from
foreign countries are dubbed, even if the original commercial came from another English-
speaking country.

Insistence on subtitling

Subtitles can be used instead of dubbing, as different countries have different traditions
regarding the choice between dubbing and subtitling. In most English-speaking countries,
dubbing is comparatively rare. In Israel, some programmes need to be comprehensible to
speakers of both Hebrew and Russian. This cannot be accomplished with dubbing, so
subtitling is much more commonplace—sometimes even with subtitles in multiple
languages, with the soundtrack remaining in the original language, usually English. The
same also applies to certain television shows in Finland, where Finnish and Swedish are
both official languages.

In the Netherlands, Flanders, Nordic countries and Estonia, films and television progra-
mmes are shown in the original language (usually English) with subtitles, and only
cartoons and children movies and programs are dubbed, such as the Harry Potter series,
Finding Nemo, Shrek, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc. Cinemas usually show
both a dubbed version and one with subtitles for this kind of movie, with the subtitled
version shown later in the evening.

In Portugal this has traditionally also been the case (at least for live-action material), but
one terrestrial channel, TVI, dubs U.S. series like Dawson's Creek into Portuguese. RTP
also transmitted Friends in a dubbed version, but it was poorly received and later re-aired
in a subtitled version. Cartoons, on the other hand, are usually dubbed, sometimes by
well-known actors, even on TV. Animated movies are usually released to the cinemas in
both subtitled and dubbed versions.

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On DVDs with higher translation budgets, the option for both types will often be
provided to account for individual preferences; purists often demand subtitles. For small
markets (small language area or films for a select audience) subtitling is more suitable
because it is cheaper. For films for small children who cannot yet read, or do not read fast
enough, dubbing is necessary.

In Argentina, terrestrial channels air films and TV series in a dubbed version, as

demanded by law. However, those same series can be seen on cable channels at more
accessible timeslots in their subtitled version, and usually before they are shown on open
TV. In contrast, the series The Simpsons is aired in its Mexican dubbed version both on
terrestrial television and on the cable station Fox, which broadcasts the series for the area.
Although the first season of the series appeared with subtitles, this was not continued for
the following seasons.

Apart from airing dubbed TV series (for example, Lost, ER and House) the Argentinian

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open TV station Canal 13 (Argentina) has bought the rights to produce and air a "ported
version" of Desperate Housewives in Argentina, with local actors and actresses.

Use in video games

With recent video games placing a heavy emphasis on dialogue, many video games,
when translated into another language for the foreign markets of North America, Japan
and/or Europe and sometimes Australia, are also dubbed into the market's main
languages. Because characters' mouth movements are often part of the game's code, lip
sync is often achieved by re-coding the mouth movements to match the dialogue in the
new language.

For the European version of a game, the text of the game is available in various
languages, and in many cases, the dialogue is dubbed into the respective languages as
well.

The American version of any game is always available in English with translated text and
dubbed dialogue if necessary, as well as in other languages in some cases, especially if
the American version of the game contains the same data as the European version.
Because the English voice casts of many Japanese games are perceived negatively, some
Japanese games, such as those in the Sonic the Hedgehog and Soulcalibur series, include
the original Japanese audio as well as an English translated version.

Other uses
Dubbing is occasionally used on network television broadcasts of films which have
dialogue that the network executives or censors have decided to replace; this is usually
done to remove profanity. In most cases, the original actor does not perform this duty;
instead, an actor with a similar voice is called in. The results are sometimes seamless, but
in many cases the voice of the replacement actor sounds nothing like the original
performer, which becomes particularly noticeable when extensive dialogue needs to be

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replaced. Also, often easy to notice, is the sudden absence of background sounds in the
movie during the dubbed dialogue. Among the films considered notorious for using
substitute actors that sound very different from their theatrical counterparts are the
Smokey and the Bandit and the Die Hard film series as shown on broadcasters such as
TBS. In the case of Smokey and the Bandit, extensive dubbing was done for the first
network airing on ABC Television in 1978, especially for Jackie Gleason's character,
Buford T. Justice. The dubbing of his phrase "Sombitch" became the more palatable (and
memorable) "Scum Bum", which became a catchphrase of the time.

Dubbing is commonly used in science fiction television as well. Sound generated by

effects equipment such as animatronic puppets or by actors' movements on elaborate
multi-level plywood sets (e.g., starship bridges or other command centers) will quite
often make the original character dialogue unusable. Stargate and Farscape are two
prime examples where ADR is used heavily to produce usable audio.

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Since some anime series contain some amount of profanity, the studios recording the
English dubs often re-record certain lines if a series or movie is going to be broadcast on
Cartoon Network, removing references to death and hell as well. Some companies will
offer both an edited and an uncut version of the series on DVD, so that there is an edited
script available in case the series is broadcast. Other companies also edit the full-length
version of a series, meaning that even on the uncut DVD characters say things like
"Blast!" and "Darn!" in place of the original dialogue's profanity. Bandai Entertainment's
English dub of G Gundam is infamous for this, among many other things, with such lines
as "Bartender, more milk".

Dubbing has also been used for comedic purposes, replacing lines of dialogue to create
comedies from footage that was originally another genre. Examples include the Austra-
lian shows The Olden Days and Bargearse, redubbed from 1970s Australian drama and
action series, respectively, and the Irish show Soupy Norman, redubbed from pl:Pierwsza
miłość, a Polish soap opera.

Dubbing into a foreign language does not always entail the deletion of the original
language; in some countries, a performer may read the translated dialogue as a voiceover.
This often occurs in Russia and Poland, where "lektories" or "lektors" read the translated
dialogue into Russian and Polish. In Poland, a single person reads all parts of the perfor-
mance, both male and female. However, this is done almost exclusively for the television
and home video markets, while theatrical releases are usually subtitled. Recently,
however, the number of high-quality, fully dubbed films has increased, especially for
cartoons and children's movies. If a quality dubbed version exists for some film, it is
shown in theaters (however, some films, such as Harry Potter or Star Wars, are shown in
both dubbed and subtitled versions varying with the time of the show) as well as on TV
(although some channels drop it and do standard one narrator translation) and VHS/DVD.
In other countries, like Vietnam, the voiceover technique is also used for theatrical
releases.

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In Russia, the reading of all lines by a single person is referred to as a Gavrilov trans-
lation, and is generally found only in illegal copies of films and on cable television.
Professional copies always include at least two actors of opposite gender translating the
dialogue. Some titles in Poland have been dubbed this way, too, but this method lacks
public appeal so it is very rare now.

On special occasions, such as film festivals, live interpreting is often done by

professionals.

Criticism and defense of dubbing

Contra dubbing

Dubbing has been criticized in several ways, particularly in countries where it is not

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common practice.

Those who dislike dubbing sometimes claim that it devalues films or TV programs, as
original soundtracks are closer to what the director intended. The humorous effect of
Inspector Clouseau's accent is, of course, entirely lost if dubbed in French. Some consider
that the body language of Italian actors make their performances particularly ill-suited to
dubbing, as foreign post-synchronization often destroys much of the original Italian
language's feeling. Comedy performers such as Peter Sellers, Louis de Funès, Steve
Martin or Roberto Benigni are considered to lose much of their impact when dubbed into
foreign languages, as the humorous effect resulting from the interaction between their
voices and bodies is partially lost. Some feel that dubbing can make the film or program
less authentic. For example, German officers in WWII movies can be distracting to some
if not speaking German, while in the German-dubbed versions of these films, the contrast
between Germans and speakers of other languages is lost. The best example here is from
the Indiana Jones movies, where the German characters had to be dubbed by native
Germans for the German release. For the later re-release of the movies for television and
DVD, the dubbed lines were retained in the soundtrack to make it sound more authentic.
In films (usually English films) in which an actor is originally speaking German, the
original German speaking actor is often dubbed into other German dialects for example
Eastern German dialects, Austro-Bavarian German or Swiss German, as was done with
Üter Zörker from The Simpsons, who is a German in the English version, but a Swiss in
the German version.

Likewise, some claim it is distracting in English dubbed anime when many characters
speak in North American accents, which may not match their ethnicity and nationality or
the time and setting of the story. Similarly, in dubbed versions the different accents of the
protagonists may be important to the story (for example in Upstairs, Downstairs,
portraying the lives of an upper-class London family and their servants in the early 20th
century) but cannot always be adequately reproduced in certain languages. In addition, a
significant part of an actor's performance consists of his vocal inflections. Very often,
memorable lines from popular films are frequently quoted, not for their substance, but for
the way they were spoken; a good example is a famous sentence uttered by Jack

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Nicholson in the film A Few Good Men: "You can't handle the truth!" For these reasons,
some may feel they miss part of a film's artistic value when watching it dubbed into
another language. Also, lip synchronization is normally lost when dubbing, even with
quality dubbing between closely related languages. There are examples of films which
have been reshot or reanimated to remedy this problem. The dubbing of many television
series is often criticized: the French dubbing of Dynasty and many American soap operas
was and still is considered especially poor and ill-synchronized, and in addition it
sometimes appears as if the dubbing was filmed with the camera on a different setting.

Dubbing performers are occasionally known to take liberties with some works they do
not hold in particular esteem, or consider to be exploitation films. The French dubbing of
the anime Fist of the North Star is notorious, as the performers disliked the violence of
the series so much that, after post-synchronizing a few episodes, they only agreed to
continue their work if they could turn the show into a spoof. This resulted in episodes full
of idiotic puns, absurd dialogue and extreme overacting by everybody. This dubbing has

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gathered a cult following in France for that precise reason, although many anime fans
consider it highly disrespectful to the original work.

Another example is the German dub of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The people
responsible for the dub deemed Monty Python's humour unsuitable for a German
audience (which was disproven by the huge success of Monty Python in Germany up to
the present day, the group having even produced a German-language TV show and
actually speaking the language in it) and introduced a lot of awkward puns into the
dialogue, whereby they often completely killed the original humour. However, this
practice was a success with The Persuaders!, where Tony Curtis' and Roger Moore's
suddenly very humorous dialogue generated a cult following in Germany, whereas the
series was not as well received in its original country, England.

A growing lobby in Europe cites dubbing as hindrance to multilingualism. In countries

where subtitling is the preferred option, English literacy and comprehension is stati-
stically far higher than in countries where television and films are routinely dubbed.

Occasionally, dubbing teams can show some disregard for the meaning and setting of the
movies, regardless of their perceived quality. The French version of Gunfight at the O.K.
Corral renames Wyatt Earp "Edward Thorpe", as Earp's name is difficult to pronounce in
French. Since Wyatt Earp is not familiar to French audiences as a historical figure, the
adaptators did not feel bound to retain his name.

Dubbing can also induce censorship issues, especially if a film's topic is uncomfortable
for the country where it is going to be released. For instance, in the 50s and 60s in
Germany it was usual to conceal any mentioning of Nazis in popular movies: in the 1952
version of Casablanca (film) shown in Germany, all the Nazi characters were cut out and
dialogues were replaced in order to remove any mention of them (most notably, the
freedom fighter Victor László has been renamed to a Norwegian scientist Victor Larsen
who was hunted by a crime syndicate because of his invention). Latter examples include
the first Die Hard film where the names of the originally German terrorists have been

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changed to English-sounding ones, and Starship Troopers (film), where dialogues were
rewritten in the dub in order to soften down the fascist society depicted in the film.

Pro dubbing

Defenders of dubbing maintain that subtitling interferes with the visual experience, as it
obscures part of the picture. Some people also find that the act of reading itself is
distracting, especially in pictures that rely on subtle motion: one would be too busy
reading the subtitles to pay attention to what everyone is doing. In other cases, viewers
may not consider subtitling (and alternate forms of translation) to be distracting or
inadequate; rather, they simply chose to listen to dubbed versions as a matter of personal
preference. These people sometimes argue that as long as dubbing does not prevent
others from viewing programs in the language format that they chose, it has its merit
simply because there are people who enjoy dubbing. Another defense for dubbing is that

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it works better in action movies, in particular scenes involving special effects with
occasional dialog, since subtitles distract from the action or effects.

In many European countries, Hollywood movies are regularly dubbed and some people
maintain that a creative translation (not necessarily faithful to the original English words)
can occasionally bring additional fun and depth to films. English-language series such as
The Persuaders! and Starsky and Hutch are highly popular in France for their talented
dubbing. The French version of The Persuaders! was in fact a translation of the German
version instead of the English original—and was also successful. It also frequently
included remarks about the series itself like "Junge, lass doch die Sprüche, die setzen ja
die nächste Folge ab!" ("Stop those jokes, or they'll cancel the series!") or about the
dubbing: "Du musst jetzt etwas schneller werden, sonst bist du nicht synchron" ("Talk
faster, or you won't be in sync any more").

In Hungary, it is common for translators to create a Hungarian text which rhymes for
comedies and cartoons, using well-known local actors to provide the reading voices. The
most famous example is perhaps the The Flintstones, with its entire Hungarian text in
rhymes.

In many cases, dubbing of films or series involves the addition of dialogue where there
previously was none. This often happened during the dubbing of anime for television.
Extended silent scenes with no dialogue are often used for dramatic effect in anime, as in
live action. This is typically considered too slow-paced for North American children's
cartoons where dialogue is considered the most important element. This was commonly
seen in early anime dubs such as Robotech or Voltron, where narration or character
voiceovers (an animated equivalent to "thought balloons" in comics) would fill in silence.
American cartoons are known for rarely having scenes without background music due to
the same concerns over slow pacing. Therefore, in anime dubs, background music would
also be edited into scenes that previously contained no background music.

Dubbed films can also be regarded as a second edited version of a film since the film is
narrated and acting once more and several dubbed versions could be considered as an

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additional film next to the original one as it offers more scope in spoken language and
text content and has not to be translated uninspiredly word by word. On DVDs you even
have the choice to choose the language you better like but which is not possible with
subtitled films where you are forced to watch the only existing version.

One more advantage of dubbing films is the opportunity to improve the original film by
adding regional phrases, hints or some simple side noises like coughing, laughing,
buzzing etc. which would be considered as more natural in another language while such
noises are missing in the original for example.

Dubbing films affords also the opportunity to change the original text or meaning which
was originally made and intended for only one group or a few groups of audience but
would be regarded kind of weird or would not be understood in the same way as it
actually should when it would be translated literally into another language. In this case
the text or the meaning would get confusing or it would reduce or even lose its fun factor.

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Dubbed versions do have the advantage to use a proper imaginative translated counterpart
of a word or a phrase and enriches so the comprehension of the audience watching the
dubbed version.

A funny example: In one episode of The Golden Girls, Dorothy Zbornak is arguing with
her mother Sophia Petrillo and threatens to send her back to her prior retirement home. In
the original version she claims that the home is now led by Germans to scare her, but in
the German version Dorothy says that the home is led by Saddam Hussein.

Subtitled versions, in contrast, could be confusing because there is the problem of how to
translate the phrase analogously or literally, and it should please the audience as well.

Dubbing the same language several times

In the case of languages with large communities (like English, Chinese, German, Spanish
or French), a single translation may sound foreign to some groups, or even all of them.
This is why a film may be translated to a certain language more than once: for example,
the animated movie The Incredibles was translated to European Spanish, Mexican
Spanish, Venezuelan Spanish and Rioplatense Spanish. However, people from Chile and
Uruguay clearly noticed a strong porteño accent from most of the characters of the
Rioplatense Spanish translation. Another example is the French dubbing of The
Simpsons, which is entirely different in Quebec and France, the humor being highly
different for each audience. Audiences in Quebec are generally critical of France's
dubbing of The Simpsons, which they often do not find amusing. The French-language
Télétoon network once aired the Quebec Simpsons dub, as well as Parisian French dubs
of Futurama and Family Guy, which were both similar to the Parisian Simpsons dub. The
two latter shows have since been taken off the network (probably due to a lack of
popularity), while The Simpsons continues its run on Télétoon. The Quebec French
dubbing of films, while generally made in accent-less Standard French, often sounds
peculiar to audiences in France, because of the persistence of some regionally neutral
expression which may not sound quite natural to all audiences, and because Quebec

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French performers pronounce Anglo-Saxon names with an American accent, while
French performers do not. Occasionally, for reasons of cost, American direct-to-video
films, such as the 1995 film When the Bullet Hits the Bone, are released in France with a
Quebec French dubbing, sometimes resulting in what some members of French audiences
perceive as unintentional humor.

Portugal and Brazil also use different versions of dubbed films and series. Because
dubbing has never been very popular in Portugal, for decades children films and
television series were distributed using the good-quality Brazilian dub. Only in the 1990s
dubbing began to gain importance in Portugal, thanks to the popularity of dubbed series
like Dragon Ball. The Lion King became the first Disney feature film to be completely
dubbed into European Portuguese, and subsequently all major animation films and series
gained European Portuguese versions. In recent DVD releases, most of these Brazilian-
dubbed classics were released with new Portuguese dubs, eliminating the predominance
of Brazilian Portuguese dubs in Portugal.

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The German speaking area which includes Germany, Austria, the German speaking part
of Switzerland and Liechtenstein share together one common German dubbing version.
Although there are sometimes some differences concerning some local words or the
pronunciation of some words, there's no need to dub into their own versions because all
films, shows and series are still dubbed into one single German version made for the
German speaking audience irrespective of any geographical borders. Most voice actors
are primarily Germans and Austrians since here there has been a long tradition of
dubbing films. Switzerland which has four official languages (German, French, Italian,
Romansh) generally use the dubbed versions made in its respective countries (except for
Romansh). Liechtenstein is using German dubbed versions only.

Sometimes it occurs that films get also dubbed into several German dialects e.g.
(Berlinerisch, Kölsch, Saxonian, Austro-Bavarian or Swiss German) which concerns
especially animated films or Disney films. It's rather made for amusement and as an
additional "special feature" for making the audience buying it. Popular animated films
which were dubbed into German dialects were Asterix films (in addition to its standard
German version, every film has a particular dialect version), The Little Mermaid, Shrek 2,
Cars (+ Austrian German) or Up (+ Austrian German). But there are also live-action
films or TV-series which have an additional German dubbing: Babe and its sequel Babe:
Pig in the City (Germany German, Austrian German, Swiss German); Rehearsal for
Murder, Framed (+ Austrian German). TV-series: The Munsters, Serpico, Rumpole (+
Austrian German); The Thorn Birds (only Austrian German dubbing).

Before the German reunification, East Germany also made its own particular German
version. For example: Olsen Gang or the Hungarian animated series The Mézga Family
were dubbed twice. So you got the opportunity to see a quality comparison.

The many martial arts movies from Hong Kong that were imported under the unofficial
banner Kung Fu Theater were notorious for their seemingly careless dubbing which
included poor lip sync and awkward dialogue. Since the results were frequently uninte-

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ntionally hilarious, this has become one of the hallmarks that endear these films to part of
the 1980s culture.

While the voice actors involved usually bear the brunt of criticisms towards poor dub-
bing, other factors may include script translation and audio mixing. A literal translation
of dialogue typically contains speech patterns and sentence structure that are native to the
foreign language but would appear awkward if translated literally. English dubs of
Japanese animation, for example, must rewrite the dialogue so that it flows smoothly and
follows the natural pattern of English speech. Voice actors in a dubbing capacity typically
do not have the luxury of viewing the original film with the original voice actor and thus
have little idea on how to perform the role. Also, on some occasions, voice actors record
their dialogue separately, which lacks the dynamics gained from performing as a group.

New technology

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It is now becoming possible to overcome some of the problems associated with dubbing
using new technology. An application developed at New York University, known as
Video Rewrite, uses computer animation to match lip movements with the new voice
track. In a video clip made using this technology, John F. Kennedy appears to be saying
"Video Rewrite gives lip-synced movies".

Media Movers, Inc., a dubbing company, has developed a piece of proprietary software
which can automatically sync ADR/dubbed tracks with pre-defined algorithms.

TM Systems received Emmy awards in 2002 and 2007 for their dubbing and subtitling
software.

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Chapter- 5

Voice Acting in Japan

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Voice Animage, the Japanese magazine about voice acting

Voice acting in Japan has far greater prominence than in most other countries. Japan's
large animation industry produces 60% of the animated series in the world; as a result
Japanese voice actors, or seiyū (声優), are able to achieve fame on a national and
international level.

Besides acting as narrators and actors in radio plays, and performing voice-overs for non-
Japanese movies and television programs, the seiyū are extensively employed as
character actors in anime and video games. Popular seiyū, especially female ones such as
Kikuko Inoue, Megumi Hayashibara, Aya Hirano, Aya Hisakawa, Mitsuki Saiga, Nana

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Mizuki, Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya, and Yui Horie, often have devoted international
fanclubs. Some fans may watch a show merely to hear a particular seiyū. Some Japanese
voice actors have capitalized on their fame to become singers, and many others became
live movie or television actors.

In Japan there are around one hundred and thirty voice-acting schools. Broadcast
companies and talent agencies often have their own troupes of vocal actors. Magazines
focusing specifically on seiyū are published in Japan, with Voice Animage being the most
well known and longest running.

The English term character voice (or CV), has been commonly used since the 1980s by
Japanese anime magazines such as Animec and Newtype, for a voice actor associated with
a particular anime or game character. Conversely, the Japanese term seiyū is commonly
used among English-speaking anime and game fans for Japanese voice actors.

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Actors and seiyū
Initially, dubbing and doing voice-overs was a performance of an actor who used only his
voice. When doing this job, they would be called "voice actors" (声の俳優 koe no
haiyū?). For convenience, the term was shortened to a new compound consisting of the
first and last kanji to make seiyū (声優?). It was only after the seiyū booms however that
this word became widespread. For this reason, elderly voice actors resent being called
seiyū, because during their time the term had a different (and minimizing) connotation.
The renowned Chikao Ōtsuka, who dubbed Charles Bronson among others, was quoted
in a special issue of Animage saying "We are actors. Even if a performance only requires
the use of our voice, we still remain actors, and it is therefore incorrect to refer to us as
just voice actors, isn't it?". He was opposed to the new trend of separating actors and
seiyū, even in the face of emerging seiyū like Genzō Wakayama, who learned how to act
using their voice and never set foot in a theater.

There are three main factors that set seiyū and actors apart.

• Their professional upbringing by the Tokyo Broadcasting Drama Troupe (東-

京放送劇団 Tōkyō Hōsō Gekidan?), formed by NHK and other private networks
during the golden age of radio dramas.
• The increasing popularity of the television: due to the lack of Japan-made movies
and dramas, TV networks were forced to air foreign shows, and that raised
demand for seiyū.
• The boom in the anime world market, which produced a wave of young talents
who wanted to become seiyū rather than actors.

History
Voice acting has existed in Japan since the advent of radio. It was only in the 1970s that
the term seiyū entered popular usage because of the anime Space Battleship Yamato.

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According to a newspaper interview with a voice talent manager, "Since the Yamato
boom, the word 'seiyū' has become instantly recognized, before that actors and actresses
who introduced themselves as seiyū were often asked, 'You mean you work for Seiyu
supermarket?'"

The radio drama era

In 1925, the Tokyo Broadcasting Company (predecessor to the NHK, Japan's public
broadcasting system) started radio broadcasts. In that same year, twelve students who
were specializing in voice-only performances became the first voice actors in Japan when
a performance of a radio drama was broadcast. They referred to themselves as seiyū, but
in those days the term "radio actor" (ラジオ役者 radio yakusha?) was used by news-
papers to refer to the profession.

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In 1941 NHK opened a training program to the public to prepare actors to specialize in
radio dramas.This was called the "Tokyo Central Broadcasting Channel Actor Training
Agency" (東京中央放送局専属劇団俳優養成所 Tōkyō Chūō Hōsō Kyoku Senzoku
Gekidan Haiyū Yōsei Sho?). Then in 1942, the Tokyo Broadcasting Drama Troupe
debuted its first performance. This was the second time that the term "seiyū" was used to
refer to voice actors.

There are several theories as to how the term "seiyū" was coined. One theory is that
Oyhashi Tokusaburo, a reporter for the Yoimuri Newspaper, coined the term. Another
theory is that Tatsu Ooka, an entertainment programming managing producer for the
NHK came up with the term.

At first, seiyū, like those at the Tokyo Radio Drama Troupe and similar companies
specialized in radio dramas; with the advent of television, the term took on the additional
meaning of one who does dubbing for animation. Television broadcasting aside, when
radio was the leading mass medium, actors who played in radio dramas were not without
their fans; for example, actors in the Nagoya Radio Drama troupe who played the lead
love interest roles often received many fan letters.

1960s: first seiyū boom period

In 1961, during the early days of commercial television broadcasting, the Five-Company
Agreement (Gosha Agreement) caused the supply of Japanese movies that were available
to Japanese television stations to dry up. As a result, in the 1960s many foreign dramas
and other foreign programming was imported and dubbed into Japanese language for
television broadcast.

At first, the NHK subtitled most foreign shows; however, shows dubbed in the Japanese
language soon became the standard. This increased the popularity of seiyū. At the center
of the first seiyū boom were actors like Nachi Nozawa, who gained fame by dubbing the
same foreign actors, in Nozawa's case Alain Delon, Robert Redford, and Clint Eastwood.
Because of problems with pay guarantees arising from the Gosha Agreement, cinema

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actors were prevented from dubbing foreign movies for television. Television actors were
also prevented from dubbing because of a similar agreement. This caused studios to turn
to actors from the radio age and actors from the Shingeki style of acting. Around this time
dubbing of foreign animation was done by Rakugo story tellers, Asakusa comedians, and
the like, and seiyū were called "dubbing talents" if they specialized in dubbing, while
those giving voice to a character went under the name of "ateshi". It is during this golden
age for dubbing that the Tokyo Actors Cooperative Haikyo was founded. Later, Haikyo
seiyū managers left and opened their own management agencies.

The first dubbed show broadcast in Japan was an episode of the American cartoon Super-
man, on October 9, 1955, on KRT (today TBS), and the first non-animated dubbed show
broadcast was Cowboy G-Men, again by KRT, in 1956. Both were dubbed live; the first
show to be broadcast with pre-recorded dubbing was The Adventures of Television Boy
(テレビ坊やの冒険 Terebi Bōya no Bōken?) on April 8, 1956.

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1970s: second seiyū boom period

During the late 1970s, the boom in the animation world allowed seiyū of attractive male
anime characters to become popular. Akira Kamiya, Tōru Furuya and Toshio Furukawa
were the first to unite into a band, Slapstick, and perform live. Many other seiyū released
their own albums. In 1979, radio programs featuring seiyū as DJs such as Animetopia
became widely popular, and at around the same time the first anime magazines began to
be published. The then editor-in-chief of Animage, Hideo Ogata, was the first to publish
editorials on the ongoing transformation of seiyū into idols. Following his lead, the other
magazines created "seiyū corners" with information and gossip about seiyū; this was one
of the main causes of young anime fans yearning to become seiyū. This led to a sudden
increase in the number of students in seiyū specialized schools. For the first time, anime
seiyū were young people who grew up dreaming to become that, as opposed to being
members of drama troupes or theatre actors who performed as a hobby. This boom lasted
until the first half of the 1980s.

1980s: an interim period

In 1989 the seiyū of the five main stars of the animated television show Ronin Warriors
(Nozomu Sasaki, Takeshi Kusao, Hiroshi Takemura, Tomohiro Nishimura and Daiki
Nakamura) formed an all-male singing group called "NG5". The group became popular,
to the extent that it was featured as the subject of a special documentary program on
MBS. The popularity of NG5, however, did not spread to other seiyū groups.

In this period seiyū production companies also began to provide specialized courses at
on-site training schools specifically for training in animation dubbing.

1990s: third seiyū boom period

The 1960s and 1970s booms were centered around media, such as the TV. In the 1990s a
new boom centered around more personal ways of communication, such as radio shows,

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Original Video Animation, television quizzes, public events and the Internet, gave way to
the publication of the first seiyū-specialized magazines, Seiyū Grand Prix and Voice
Animage. Seiyū acquired a score of new fans thanks to the radio, and their CD sale
figures increased. Concerts began to be held in the bigger halls. While the second boom
also saw the seiyū become popular as DJs, this time the recording houses backed the
seiyū radio shows as sponsors, and large sums of money began to circulate. Megumi
Hayashibara, Hekiru Shiina and Mariko Kōda are the first examples of this new trend.
Recording companies and seiyū schools began to devise new ways to raise young seiyū to
nation-wide popularity.

When voice acting was introduced in television games, the existence of seiyū became
known throughout the entire country. As a consequence, the same seiyū would perform in
a series of events related to the television game world, making appearances and partici-
pating in radio programs based on the television games to attract the fanbase.

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In the second half of the 1990s, the boom in the animation world led to the increase of
anime shown in the Tokyo area. With the Internet, gathering information on their
favourite seiyū became easy for fans, and seiyū began to appear in Internet-based radio
shows.

Five ways to become a seiyū

By looking at the career of today's most popular seiyū, the majority of them became
famous treading one of the following five paths.

From broadcasting drama troupe member

Trained by broadcasting drama troupes, they specialized in roles requiring voice acting
other than announcing, particularly radio drama acting.

Former members of the Tokyo Broadcasting Drama Troupe include Ryō Kurusawa,
Kazue Takahashi, Masato Yamanouchi, Hisashi Katsuta, Akira Nagoya and Kiyoshi
Kawakubo.

Examples of seiyū coming from privately funded drama troupes are Tōru Ōhira and
Tadashi Nakamura from the Tokyo Radio Broadcasting Drama Troupe (ラジオ東京-
放送劇団 Rajio Tōkyō Hōsō Gekidan?)), Junpei Takiguchi, Nobuo Tanaka, Mariko Mu-
kai.

Local broadcasting stations also helped many seiyū in the early stages of their careers,
before the television age and the advent of foreign drama series concentrated most of the
seiyū business in the Tokyo area. Some examples include the aforementioned Genzō
Wakayama from NHK's Sapporo Broadcasting Drama Troupe (札幌放送劇団 Sapporo
Hōsō Gekidan?), Kenji Utsumi from NHK's Kyūshū Broadcasting Drama Troupe

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(九州放送劇団 Kyūshū Hōsō Gekidan?)) and Jōji Yanami from RKB's Mainichi
Broadcasting Drama Troupe (毎日放送劇団 Mainichi Hōsō Gekidan?)).

From child actor

Some seiyū are middle-school children who joined juvenile theatrical companies (Hima-
wari Company, Komadori Group) and honed their acting skills with them, then took up a
career as full-time seiyū after graduating from high school.

The first to follow this path include Ryūsei Nakao, Tōru Furuya, Shūichi Ikeda, Yoku
Shioya, Hiromi Tsuru, Miina Tominaga and Katsumi Toriumi (the first two debuting
while still in middle-school but continuing only after graduating).

More recent seiyū include Daisuke Namikawa, Maaya Sakamoto, Mayumi Iizuka, Akeno

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Watanabe, Saeko Chiba, Yūka Nanri, Kaori Nazuka.

There have been cases of young people who started appearing in seiyū roles while still in
middle-school. Miyu Irino, Eri Sendai, Ayaka Saitō, Aya Hirano, Subaru Kimura and
Miyū Tsuzurahara are a few examples.

From theatre actor

Sometimes theatre actors, whether they be in high school, specialization schools, univer-
sity or having just graduated, are scouted by people in the anime industry to become
seiyū. This happens to actors affiliated with the major Shingeki theatre companies, which
include the Bungaku Company, the Seinen Company, the Troupe Pleiades, the Theatrical
Group EN and Theatre Echo. Actors performing in minor theatres may sometimes be
spotted by the theatre's sound production staff or by managers affiliated with seiyū
management agencies. It is also common for actors affiliated with seiyū-led theatre
companies, such as Nachi Nozawa's Rose Company or Kaneta Kimotsuki's 21st Century
Fox Company, to become seiyū themselves.

To name a few, Romi Park, spotted by animation creator Yoshiyuki Tomino, Fumiko
Orikasa, graduated from the Super Eccentric Theatre, and talents discovered in local
college theatre groups by Kazuya Tatekabe: Sanae Kobayashi, Gō Aoba, Tetsu Shiratori,
Akino Murata and Rieko Takahashi.

Worthy of note is Hitomi Nabatame's career. Shortly after entering the Dorikan Club, a
group of seiyū in the making, part of the aniradio program SOMETHING DREAMS
Multimedia Countdown (SOMETHING DREAMS マルチメディアカウントダウン
SOMETHING DREAMS Maruchimedia Kauntodaun?, shortened to ドリカン Dorikan)
on radio station Nippon Cultural Broadcasting, she showed so much potential that she
earned herself a role in Maburaho right after graduating from the seiyū training school
she was attending, while also performing as theatre actress.

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From seiyū training school student

Many seiyū made their debut after attending seiyū training schools for several years after
graduating from high school, specialization schools or university, or even just between
school terms, and learned the trade by observation. This is the path most young people
who watch anime and want to become a seiyū take. This is probably the easiest path at its
beginning, but breakthrough chances are very slim. For example, each school affiliated
with the Yoyogi Animation Academy has a seiyū talent department with hundreds of new
students each year, but only a very small minority of them manage to become a seiyū
after graduating. Many who do not make it enter a different seiyū training school and try
again.

People who made it in the past include Megumi Hayashibara, Kaneto Shiozawa, Kōichi
Yamadera, Kikuko Inoue, Kotono Mitsuishi and Toshiyuki Morikawa. More recent exa-

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mples are Ai Shimizu, Rie Tanaka, Yukari Tamura, Mai Nakahara and Kenichi Suzu-
mura.

Some young talents became seiyū after winning nation-wide contests held by magazines
or production companies (although they still usually had to attend seiyū training schools
after winning the contest to learn the trade). Winners include Asami Sanada, Masumi
Asano, Yui Horie, Miyuki Sawashiro and Sakura Nogawa.

From a different role in the entertainment world

Junko Iwao and Noriko Hidaka are examples of idols who later took up seiyū roles (the
latter having some experience as a child actress). Former "gravure idols" (bikini models)
who made a breakthrough as seiyū include Marina Ōno, Ryōka Yuzuki and Chiemi
Chiba. Yumi Kakazu and Yuki Matsuoka are two former reporters turned seiyū. Retired
owarai sometimes made a comeback as seiyū, like Yūko Saitō. Yūichi Nagashima was
very popular as an actor in the role of "Chō", the main character in NHK Educational
TV's Exploring My Town (たんけんぼくのまち Tanken Boku no Machi?)). Masakazu
Morita and Mayuko Aoki, both debuted as the lead characters of Final Fantasy X, are
motion actors for video games turned seiyu. Mamoru Miyano was one of the cast in the
Prince of Tennis live musicals who chose to branch out and become a seiyū. Tokusatsu
actors/actresses also took seiyu roles before or after their careers in Tokusatsu. Examples
are the late Machiko Soga, Naoya Uchida, Tsutomu Isobe, Jouji Nakata, Rikiya Koyama,
Reiko Chiba, Hiroshi Tsuchida, Yuji Kishi, Masaya Matsukaze, Takeru Shibaki and
Mika Kikuchi.

The job
Voice-over and dubbing

This is the core of the seiyū's job: speaking a role and recording it.

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Anime
A seiyū's role in anime consists of timing the recording of their character's voice with the
picture on the screen. Before completing the recording of the role, there are two different
methods of prescoring. In Japan, the most popular method is to perform the dubbing after
the animation has already been completed (although, depending on the production
schedule, the dubbing may be recorded before all of the animation is complete).

In order to keep to the limits of the production budget, less well-known and younger
seiyū are often used. However, for original video animation and fan-oriented productions
and products, famous seiyū are often used as a selling point.

Dubbing into Japanese

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In the case of foreign dramas, movies, animated cartoons, news and documentaries, the
localization voice-over requires more exact timing in relation to what appears on the
screen. In order to perform voice-overs, the volume of the original language voice track is
lowered, leaving only a faint sound remaining or, in some cases, no sound at all except
for the music-and-effects tracks. Voice-over work is primarily performed for news and
original foreign dramas. Auditions are held in order to determine who will take on the
roles.

Video games
Unlike in anime or dubbing roles, in a video game the voice tracks are often recorded
separately due to the way individual voice tracks are selected and played depending on a
player's progress. Typically a seiyū uses a script with only a single part's lines and
matches it to the timing of the recording. Because of this, many collaborating seiyū in a
production have never seen each other in person. Popularity rankings may play a role in
video game casting, but it is also possible to negotiate fees when a client requests a
particular cast.

Radio drama or CD drama

With a radio drama or CD drama there is more freedom given in voicing because there is
no need to match a dub to the original actors, or to match an animated character. Because
of this a seiyū's particular interpretation of an act or acting ability are considered. If the
drama is based on an anime or manga then the seiyū from the anime are used. However,
original drama or works based on literature rarely employ typical seiyū or younger seiyū.
Auditions are rarely employed, and the cast is directly selected by the production staff.

Puppet and kigurumi shows

In puppet shows, the seiyū must time the voice-over in relation to the puppet movements.
While timing is of the essence in kigurumi shows as well, in this case the seiyū's voice

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acting is recorded beforehand, and it is left to the kigurumi entertainer to move and act
based on the spoken lines.

Narration

Seiyū are also commonly employed as narrators in radio and television commercials,
radio and television programs, press release videos and other kinds of media that require
the voice actor to read text that clarifies what the program is about from a script. Even
though the narration role falls within a seiyū's area of expertise, it is not uncommon for
popular regular actors, young talents or announcers to be chosen instead. The fee is
proportional to the popularity of the person employed, and veterans are usually preferred
for this role due to the high acting ability it requires. Candidates are required to send a
short sample recording as a demonstration, and these samples play a large part in the
selection process.

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Theatre acting

It is not uncommon for Shingeki actors and actors performing in small theatres to take a
voice acting course in specialized schools and become seiyū, considering the small
difference between actor and seiyū. Those who successfully become seiyū sometimes
take stage acting roles of their own choosing, and the seiyū's agency takes no part unless
the theatre management requires it.

Singing

Some seiyū branch into music, releasing albums in their own name and becoming full-
time singers.

However, it has become common for seiyū to sing the opening or closing themes of
shows in which their character stars, or participate in non-animated side projects such as
audio dramas (involving the same characters in new storylines) or image songs (songs
sung in character that are not included in the anime but further develop the character),
releasing CDs in the character's name rather than their own. Sometimes the singing style
of an anime character is quite different from that of the seiyū, and tracks sung using the
style of the character are often included in CDs the seiyū release in their own name. This
made singing a central activity for many seiyū, especially the ones who do voice-overs
for anime characters.

The limitations imposed on singer seiyū by their recording companies are also less strict
than the ones imposed on regular singers. This allows seiyū to release CDs in their
character's name with different companies.

Radio personality

Radio talks (so called aniradio) further extend seiyū popularity. Initially the vast majority
was aired by local broadcast stations only, but after the communication boom of the

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1990s the metropolitan radio stations began to also employ them. While such programs
last only as long as the anime or game is popular (usually no more than one year), some
aired for over ten years due to their popularity among fans, who regard radio talks as a
way to get to know the seiyū as human beings rather than just voices for the characters
they play.

Due to lower costs and the increase in the number of listeners, more and more of these
radio talks are hosted on the Internet.

Other jobs

Apart from other performances related to the characters they play, such as press con-
ferences, anime news programs or interviews, seiyū are also hired for company-internal
training videos, supermarket announcements, bus route information broadcasts, ring

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announcers for professional wrestling and other fighting disciplines, and even train
station route announcements - tasks usually performed by professional announcers, even
though the seiyū's employment or name are not always made public.

Agencies and management

Relations between seiyū and music, movie and anime companies in Japan are regulated
by seiyū management agencies, each with its specialization. In exchange for a fee from
the seiyū, they take care of the business affairs and sales promotions. These agencies can
also act as a bridge between entertainment companies and private agencies the seiyū may
be affiliated with. Sometimes the producers leave it to the agencies to recruit seiyū for
minor roles, or handle their schedule.

Seiyū for child roles are sometimes selected from renowned juvenile theatrical com-
panies, such as the Troupe Himawari. In most cases, adult female seiyū play child roles.

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Chapter- 6

Voice-over

Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production

technique where a voice which is not part of the narrative (non-diegetic) is used in a
radio, television, film, theatre, or other presentation. The voice-over may be spoken by
someone who appears elsewhere in the production or by a specialist voice actor.

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Voice-over techniques
As a character device

In the 1956 film version of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, Richard Basehart, as Ishmael,
narrates the story and sometimes comments on the action in voice-over, as does William
Holden in the films Sunset Boulevard and The Counterfeit Traitor, as well as John Mills
in David Lean's Great Expectations (based on Charles Dickens's novel) and Michael
York in a television remake of the book.

Voice-over technique is likewise used to give voices and personalities to animated

characters. Among the most noteworthy and versatile of whom include Mel Blanc, Daws
Butler, Don Messick, Frank Welker and June Foray.

As a creative device

In film, the film-maker places the sound of a human voice (or voices) over images shown
on the screen that may or may not be related to the images being shown. Consequently,
voice-overs are sometimes used to create ironic counterpoint. Also, sometimes they can
be random voices not directly connected to the people seen on the screen. In works of
fiction, the voice-over is often by a character reflecting back on his or her past, or by a
person external to the story who usually has a more complete knowledge of the events in
the film than the other characters.

Voice-overs are often used to create the effect of storytelling by a character/omniscient

narrator. For example, in The Usual Suspects, the character of Roger "Verbal" Kint has
voice-over segments as he is recounting details of a crime. A classic voice-over in cinema
history can be heard in Citizen Kane. Other examples of storytelling voice-overs can be
heard in, Gattaca, Blade Runner, The Shawshank Redemption, Big Fish, How to Train

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Your Dragon, Moulin Rouge!, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raising Arizona, Good-
fellas, Clash of the Titans and Star Quest: The Odyssey.

Sometimes, voice-over can be used to aid continuity in edited versions of films, in order
for the audience to gain a better understanding of what has gone on between scenes. This
was done when the 1948 Joan of Arc, starring Ingrid Bergman, turned out to be far from
the box-office and critical hit that was expected, and was edited down from 145 minutes
to 100 minutes for its second run in theatres. The edited version, which circulated for
years, used narration to conceal the fact that large chunks of the film had been cut. In the
full-length version, restored in 1998 and released on DVD in 2004, the voice-over
narration is heard only at the beginning of the film.

The genre of film noir is especially associated with the voice-over technique.

In radio, voice-overs are an integral part of the success of the radio programme. Although

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the announcer holds the prestige and claims all the glory, it is the voice-over artist that is
the real drive behind the show. One example is David M. Green's Summer Pow-Wow
and his voice-over artist, Tim Wray.

As an educational or descriptive device

The voice-over has many applications in non-fiction as well. Television news is often
presented as a series of video clips of newsworthy events, with voice-over by the repor-
ters describing the significance of the scenes being presented; these are interspersed with
straight video of the news anchors describing stories for which video is not shown.

Television networks such as The History Channel and the Discovery Channel make
extensive use of voice-overs. On NBC, the television show Starting Over used Sylvia
Villagran as the voice-over narrator to tell a story.

Live sports broadcasts are usually shown as extensive voice-overs by expert announcers
over video of the sporting event.

Game shows formerly made extensive use of voice-overs to introduce contestants and
describe available or awarded prizes, but this technique has diminished as shows have
moved toward predominantly cash prizes. The most prolific have included Don Pardo,
Johnny Olson, John Harlan, Jay Stewart, Gene Wood and Johnny Gilbert.

Voice-over commentary by a leading critic, historian, or by the production personnel

themselves is often a prominent feature of the release of feature films or documentaries
on DVDs.

As a commercial device

The commercial use of voice-over in advertising has been popular since the beginning of
radio broadcasting.

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In the early years, before effective sound recording and mixing, announcements were
produced "live" and at-once in a studio with the entire cast, crew and, usually, orchestra.
A corporate sponsor hired a producer, who hired writers and voice actors to perform
comedy or drama.

The industry expanded very rapidly with the advent of television in the 1950s and the age
of highly produced serial radio shows ended. The ability to record high-quality sound on
magnetic tape also created opportunities, as has the proliferation of home computers
capable of recording, often using inexpensive (even free) software and a microphone of
reasonable quality.

Manufacturers will often use a distinctive voice to help them with brand messaging, often
retaining talent to a long term exclusive contract.

As a translation device

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In some countries, such as Russia and Poland, a voice-over provided by a single artist is
commonly used on television as a language localization technique, as an alternative to
full dubbing.

In Bulgaria, voice-over translation is also common, but each film (or episode) is normally
voiced by at least four actors. The voice artists try to match the original voice and
preserve the intonation. The main reason for the use of this type of translation is that
unlike synchronized voice translation, it takes a relatively short time to produce as there
is no need to synchronize the voices with the character's lip movements, which is
compensated by the quieted original audio. When there is no speaking in the film for
some time, the original sound is turned up. Recently, as more films are distributed with
separate voice and noises-and-music tracks, some voice-over translations in Bulgaria are
produced by only turning down the voice track, in this way not affecting the other
sounds. One actor always reads the translation crew's names over the show's ending
credits (except for when there are dialogs over the credits).

Voice-over translation
Voice-over translation is an audiovisual translation technique in which dubbing is
recorded over the original audio track which can be heard in the background.

This method of translation is most often used in documentaries and news reports to
translate words of foreign-language interviewees. In some countries, most notably in
Eastern Europe, it is commonly used to translate all kinds of movies.

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Voice-over translation of movies
A typical voice-over translation is usually done by a single male voice artist. It is fast
paced, though fully intelligible, usually trailing the original dialogue by a few seconds.
The original audio can thus be heard to a large extent, allowing the viewer to grasp the
emotions in the actors' voices, as well as hear the actors' musical performances if the film
contains singing. The dubbing usually contains only a hint of emotion, as many of the
interpreters have stated that they try to follow the narrow path between sounding
monotonous and "overacting". A significant drawback of such dubbing is the ambiguity
as to which character is speaking at a given time, as the interpreter usually makes very
few changes in intonation to distinguish between different participants in a dialogue. Any
text appearing on the screen is also read out by the interpreter.

Due to the imprecise nature of simultaneous interpretation, as well as the difficulties

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faced by non-native speakers in understanding foreign-language vernacular, idioms, and
culture references, voice-over translations are often riddled with errors in translation.
Dmitriy Puchkov has been very outspoken about the issue, stating that simultaneous
interpretation should be abandoned in favour of a more precise translation, with thorough
efforts to research and find Russian equivalents in cases of lexical gaps, and maintains
numerous lists of gaffes made by interpreters, including highly experienced ones such as
Mikhalev. However, others have commented that the creativity of good interpreters can
make the film more enjoyable, though deviating from the filmmaker's original intentions.

In Russia

Called Gavrilov translation or single-voice translation, the technique takes its name
from Andrey Gavrilov, one of the most prominent artists in the area, but the name used to
refer to single-voice dubs in general, not necessarily those performed by Gavrilov
himself. Such dubbing is ubiquitous in Russian-speaking countries on films shown on
cable television and sold on video, especially pirate copies, and are sometimes included
as additional audio tracks on DVDs sold in the region, along with dubbing performed by
multiple actors.

During the early years of the Brezhnev era, when availability of foreign films was
severely restricted, Goskino, the USSR State Committee for Cinematography, held
closed-door screenings of many Western films, open mainly to workers in the film
industry, politicians, and other members of the elite. Those screenings were interpreted
simultaneously by interpreters who specialised in films, where an effective conveyance of
humour, idioms, and other subtleties of speech were required. Some of the most prolific
"Gavrilov translators" began their careers at such screenings, including Andrey Gavrilov
himself, as well as Aleksey Mikhalyov and Leonid Volodarskiy. Their services were also
used at film festivals, where Western films were accessible to a larger public, and
allowed the interpreters to gain further recognition.

With the introduction of VCRs in the 1970s, and the subsequent boom in illegal pirate
videocassette sales, which were the only means of seeing Western films available to the

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general public, the same interpreters began to lend their voices to these tapes. Many of
their voices had a distinct nasal quality, most pronounced in Volodarskiy, which led to
the rise of an urban legend that the interpreters wore a noseclip so that the authorities
would not be able to identify them by their voice and arrest them. Interviews with many
of the interpreters revealed that this was not true, and that authorities generally turned a
blind eye to them, focusing their efforts on the distributors of the tapes instead. This was
also due to the lack of specific law forbidding the work of these interpreters, and they
could only be prosecuted under the relatively minor offence of illicit work.

The three aforementioned interpreters, Gavrilov, Mikhalev, and Volodarskiy, were the
leading names in film dubbing in the last decades of the 20th century, with dubs done by
each of them numbering in the thousands. Many of these dubs were made using
simultaneous interpretation, due to time constraints caused by competition among the
distributors to be the first to release a new production, as well as the sheer volume of new
films. Whenever possible, however, the interpreters preferred to watch the films a few

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times first, making notes on the more difficult parts of the dialogue, and only then record
a dub, which also allowed them to refuse dubbing movies they didn't like. While each of
the interpreters dubbed a wide range of films, with many films being available in multiple
versions done by different interpreters, the big names usually had specific film genres
that they were known to excel at. Gavrilov, for instance, was usually heard in action
films, including Total Recall and Die Hard; Mikhalev specialised in comedy and drama,
most notably A Streetcar Named Desire and The Silence of the Lambs; while Volo-
darskiy, who is most readily associated not with a particular genre, but with the nasal
intonation of his voice, is best remembered for his dubbing of Star Wars. It is unclear
why the term "Gavrilov translation" came to bear Gavrilov's name, despite Mikhalev
being the most celebrated of the interpreters, though the popular nature of films dubbed
by Gavrilov may be the most likely explanation. Other notable names of the period
include Vasiliy Gorchakov, Mikhail Ivanov, Grigoriy Libergal, and Yuriy Zhivov.

After perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union, when restrictions on Westerns
films were lifted, movie theatres, the state television channels, and eventually DVD
releases primarily employed multiple-voice dubbings done by professional actors.
However, cable television and the thriving pirate video industry continued fuelling
demand for Gavrilov translations. This period marked a significant drop in the quality of
such dubbings, as the intense competition between the numerous pirate groups and the
lack of available funds resulted in releases with non-professional in-house dubbing. This
was further exacerbated by the death of Mikhalev in 1994 and fewer recordings being
produced by many of the other skilled veterans of the industry, who pursued alternate
career paths. Numerous well-regarded newcomers took their place, including Alexey
Medvedev, Petr Glants, Petr Kartsev, Pavel Sanayev, Sergey Vizgunov, and most famo-
usly Dmitry "Goblin" Puchkov. The latter is notorious for his direct translation of
profanity, as well as alternative "funny translations" of Hollywood blockbusters.

Recently, the use of Russian mat (profanity) in the dubbings has been a great source of
controversy. While many pirate recordings do not shy away from translating expletives
literally, Gavrilov, Mikhalev, and Volodarskiy have all stated that they feel that Russian

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mat is more emotionally charged and less publicly acceptable than English obscenities,
and would only use it in their dubs when they felt it was absolutely crucial to the film's
plot.

In Poland

Voice-over is the traditional translation method in Polish television and DVDs (which
also provide the original audio track), except for children's material, especially animation,
which is often fully dubbed. The word lektor ("reader") is used to refer to the voice artist
as well as the technique itself.

Voice-over is the preferred form of dubbing among Polish viewers, and attempts to
introduce full dubs to Polish television met with viewer protests and ultimately failed. It
is also preferred over subtitles; an opinion poll conducted in 2008 shown only 19% of

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Poles supports the switch to subtitling in television.

The most notable readers are Janusz Szydłowski, Maciej Gudowski, Tomasz Knapik,
Stanisław Olejniczak and Piotr Borowiec.

In Bulgaria

In Bulgaria, voice-over translation is also common, but each film (or episode) is normally
voiced by at least four actors. The voice artists try to match the original voice and
preserve the intonation. The main reason for the use of this type of translation is that
unlike synchronized voice translation, it takes a relatively short time to produce as there
is no need to synchronize the voices with the character's lip movements, which is
compensated by the quieted original audio. When there is no speaking in the film for
some time, the original sound is turned up. Recently, as more films are distributed with
separate voice and noises-and-music tracks, some voice-over translations in Bulgaria are
produced by only turning down the voice track, in this way not affecting the other
sounds. One actor always reads the translation crew's names over the show's ending
credits (except for when there are dialogs over the credits).

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Chapter- 7

Radio Drama

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Recording a radio play in the Netherlands (1949)

Radio drama (or audio play, radio play, radio theater) is a dramatized, purely acoustic
performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With
no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help
the listener imagine the characters and story. “It is auditory in the physical dimension but
equally powerful as a visual force in the psychological dimension.”

“Seneca has been claimed as a forerunner of radio drama because his plays were
performed by readers as sound plays, not by actors as stage plays; but in this respect
Seneca had no significant predecessors until 20th-century technology made possible the

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widespread dissemination of sound plays.” Radio drama achieved widespread popularity
within a decade of its initial development in the 1920s. By the 1940s, it was a leading
international popular entertainment. With the advent of television in the 1950s, however,
radio drama lost some of its popularity, and in some countries, has never regained large
audiences. However, recordings of OTR (old-time radio) survive today in the audio
archives of collectors and museums.

As of 2006, radio drama has had a minimal presence on terrestrial radio in the United
States. Much of American radio drama is restricted to rebroadcasts or podcasts of
programs from previous decades. However, other nations still have thriving traditions of
radio drama. In the United Kingdom, for example, the BBC produces and broadcasts
hundreds of new radio plays each year on Radio 3, Radio 4, and BBC Radio 7. Drama is
aired daily on Radio 4 in the form of afternoon plays, a Friday evening play, short dramas
included in the daily Woman's Hour program, Saturday plays and Sunday classic serials.
On Radio 3 there is Sunday evening drama and, in the slot reserved for experimental

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drama, The Wire. The drama output on Radio 7, which consists predominantly of
archived programs, is chiefly composed of comedy, thrillers and science fiction.
Podcasting has also offered the means of creating new radio dramas, in addition to the
distribution of vintage programs.

The terms "audio drama" or "audio theatre" are sometimes used synonymously with
"radio drama" with one notable distinction: audio drama or audio theatre is not intended
specifically for broadcast on radio. Audio drama, whether newly produced or OTR
classics, can be found on CDs, cassette tapes, podcasts, webcasts and conventional
broadcast radio. Radio drama documentaries are also called "feature".

Thanks to advances in digital recording and internet distribution, radio drama is experie-
ncing a revival.

History
Early years

Radio drama traces its roots back to the 1880s. “In 1881 French engineer Clement Ader
had filed a patent for ‘improvements of Telephone Equipment in Theatres’” (Théâ-
trophone). English language radio drama seems to have started in the United States. A
Rural Line on Education, a brief sketch specifically written for radio, aired on Pittsbugh's
KDKA in 1921, according to historian Bill Jaker. Newspaper accounts of the era report
on a number of other drama experiments by America's commercial radio stations: KYW
broadcast a season of complete operas from Chicago starting in November 1921. In
February 1922, entire Broadway musical comedies with the original casts aired from
WJZ's Newark studios. Actors Grace George and Herbert Hayes performed an entire play
from a San Francisco station in the summer of 1922.

An important turning point in radio drama came when Schenectady, New York's WGY,
after a successful tryout on August 3, 1922, began weekly studio broadcasts of full-length

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stage plays in September 1922, using music, sound effects and a regular troupe of actors,
The WGY Players. Aware of this series, the director of Cincinnati's WLW began regu-
larly broadcasting one-acts (as well as excerpts from longer works) in November. The
success of these projects led to imitators at other stations. By the spring of 1923, original
dramatic pieces written especially for radio were airing on stations in Cincinnati (When
Love Wakens by WLW's Fred Smith), Philadelphia (The Secret Wave by Clyde A.
Criswell) and Los Angeles (At Home over KHJ). That same year, WLW (in May) and
WGY (in September) sponsored scripting contests, inviting listeners to create original
plays to be performed by those stations' dramatic troupes.

Listings in The New York Times and other sources for May 1923 reveal at least 20 dra-
matic offerings were scheduled (including one-acts, excerpts from longer dramas,
complete three- and four-act plays, operettas and a Molière adaptation), either as in-
studio productions or by remote broadcast from local theaters and opera houses.

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Serious study of American radio drama of the 1920s and early 1930s is, at best, very
limited. Unsung pioneers of the art include: WLW's Fred Smith; Freeman Gosden and
Charles Correll (who popularized the dramatic serial); The Eveready Hour creative team
(which began with one-act plays but was soon experimenting with hour-long
combinations of drama and music on its weekly variety program); the various acting
troupes at stations like WLW, WGY, KGO and a number of others, frequently run by
women like Helen Schuster Martin and Wilda Wilson Church; early network continuity
writers like Henry Fisk Carlton, William Ford Manley and Don Clark; producers and
directors like Clarence Menser and Gerald Stopp; and a long list of others who were
credited at the time with any number of innovations but who are largely forgotten or
undiscussed today. Elizabeth McLeod's recent book on Gosden and Correll's early work
is a major exception, as is Richard J. Hand's 2006 study of horror radio, which examines
some programs from the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Another notable early radio drama, one of the first especially written for the medium in
the UK, was Danger by Richard Hughes, broadcast by the BBC on January 15, 1924,
about a group of people trapped in a Welsh coal mine. One of the earliest and most
influential French radio plays was the prize-winning "Marémoto" ("Seaquake"), by
Gabriel Germinet and Pierre Cusy, which presents a realistic account of a sinking ship
before revealing that the characters are actually actors rehearsing for a broadcast.
Translated and broadcast in Germany and England by 1925, the play was originally
scheduled by Radio-Paris to air on October 23, 1924 but was instead banned from French
radio until 1937 because the government feared that the dramatic SOS messages would
be mistaken for genuine distress signals.

In 1951, American writer and producer Arch Oboler suggested that Wyllis Cooper's
Lights Out (1934–47) was the first true radio drama to make use of the unique qualities of
radio:

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 Radio drama (as distinguished from theatre plays boiled down to kilocycle size)
began at midnight, in the middle thirties, on one of the upper floors of Chicago's
Merchandise Mart. The pappy was a rotund writer by the name of Wyllis Cooper.

Though the series is often remembered solely for its gruesome stories and sound effects,
Cooper's scripts for Lights Out were well-written and offered innovations seldom heard
in early radio dramas, including multiple first person narrators, stream of consciousness
monologues and scripts that contrasted a duplicitious character's internal monologue and
his spoken words.

The question of who was the first to write stream-of-consciousness drama for radio is a
difficult one to answer. By 1930, Tyrone Guthrie had written plays for the BBC like
Matrimonial News (which consists entirely of the thoughts of a shopgirl awaiting a blind
date) and The Flowers Are Not for You to Pick (which takes place inside the mind of a
drowning man). After they were published in 1931, Guthrie's plays aired on the American

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networks. Around the same time, Guthrie himself also worked for the Canadian National
Railway radio network, producing plays written by Merrill Denison that used similar
techniques. A 1940 article in Variety credited a 1932 NBC play, Drink Deep by Don
Johnson, as the first stream-of-consciousness play written for American radio. The
climax of Lawrence Holcomb's 1931 NBC play Skyscraper also uses a variation of the
technique (so that the listener can hear the final thoughts and relived memories of a man
falling to his death from the title building).

There were probably earlier examples of stream-of-consciousness drama on the radio. For
example, in December 1924, actor Paul Robeson, then appearing in a revival of Eugene
O'Neill's The Emperor Jones, performed a scene from the play over New York's WGBS
to critical acclaim. Some of the many storytellers and monologists on early 1920s
American radio might be able to claim even earlier dates.

Widespread popularity

Perhaps America's most famous radio drama broadcast is Orson Welles's The War of the
Worlds, a 1938 version of the H. G. Wells novel, which convinced large numbers of
listeners that an actual invasion from Mars was taking place.

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 WT
Radio program written and performed in Phoenix, Arizona by children of Junior Artists
Club (Federal Arts Program, 1935).

By the late 1930s, radio drama was widely popular in the United States (and also in other
parts of the world). There were dozens of programs in many different genres, from
mysteries and thrillers, to soap operas and comedies. There were occasional efforts at
more "literary" works, such as Under Milk Wood (1954) and "Play for Voices" by Dylan
Thomas. Many playwrights, screenwriters and novelists got their start in radio drama,
including Caryl Churchill, Rod Serling, Irwin Shaw and Tom Stoppard.

Decline in the United States

After the advent of television, radio drama never recovered its popularity in the United
States. Most remaining CBS and NBC radio dramas were cancelled in 1960. The last
network radio dramas to originate during American radio′s “Golden Age”, Suspense and
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, ended on September 30, 1962.

There have been some efforts at radio drama since then. In the 1960s, Dick Orkin created
the popular syndicated comic adventure series Chicken Man. Inspired by The Goon Show,
“the four or five crazy guys” of the Firesign Theatre built a large following with their

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satirical plays on recordings exploring the dramatic possibilities inherent in stereo. A
brief resurgence of production beginning in the early 1970s yielded The Zero Hour,
hosted by Rod Serling on the Mutual Broadcasting System, NPR's Earplay and veteran
Himan Brown's CBS Radio Mystery Theater, later followed by the Sears/Mutual Radio
Theater, a newly-produced episode of the former 1950s series X Minus One, and works
by a new generation of dramatists, notably Yuri Rasovsky, Thomas Lopez of ZBS and
the dramatic sketches heard on humorist Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion.
Thanks in large part to the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, public
radio continued to air a smattering of audio drama until the mid-1980s. From 1986 to
2002, National Public Radio's most consistent producer of radio drama was the
idiosyncratic Joe Frank, working out of KCRW in Santa Monica. Also, the dramatic
serial It's Your World airs twice daily on the nationally syndicated Tom Joyner Morning
Show.

Radio drama today

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Radio drama remains popular in much of the world. Stations producing radio drama often
commission a large number of scripts. The relatively low cost of producing a radio play
enables them to take chances with works by unknown writers. Radio can be a good
training ground for beginning drama writers as the words written form a much greater
part of the finished product; bad lines cannot be obscured with stage business.

On the BBC there are two ongoing radio soap operas: The Archers on BBC Radio 4 and
Silver Street on the Asian Network. A third soap, Westway on the World Service ended in
October 2005 but continues in re-runs on BBC Radio 7.

The audio drama format exists side-by-side with books presented on radio, read by actors
or by the author. In Britain and other countries there is also a quite a bit of radio comedy
(both stand-up and sitcom). Together, these programs provide entertainment where
television is either not wanted or would be distracting (such as while driving or operating
machinery).

The lack of visuals also enable fantastical settings and effects to be used in radio plays
where the cost would be prohibitive for movies or television. The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy was first produced as radio drama, and was not adapted for television until
much later, when its popularity would ensure an appropriate return for the high cost of
the futuristic setting.

On occasion television series can be revived as radio series. For example, a long-running
but no longer popular television series can be continued as a radio series because the
reduced production costs make it cost-effective with a much smaller audience. When an
organization owns both television and radio channels, such as the BBC, the fact that no
royalties have to be paid makes this even more attractive. Radio revivals can also use
actors reprising their television roles even after decades as they still sound roughly the
same. Series that have had this treatment include Doctor Who, Dad's Army, Thunderbirds
and The Tomorrow People.

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Regular broadcasts of radio drama in English can be heard on the BBC's Radio 3, Radio 4
and BBC 7, on Radio 1 from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and on RTÉ Radio
1 in Ireland. BBC Radio 4 in particular is noted for its radio drama, broadcasting
hundreds of one-off plays per year in strands such as The Afternoon Play, in addition to
serials and soap operas. The British commercial station Oneword, though broadcasting
mostly book readings, also transmitted a number of radio plays in installments until it
closed in 2008.

In the U.S., radio drama can be found on ACB radio, produced by the American Council
of the Blind and on XM Radio, and occasionally syndicated, as with Jim French's
production Imagination Theater. A growing number of religious radio stations air daily
or weekly programs usually geared to younger audiences, such as Adventures in Odyssey
(1,700+ syndicated stations), or Unshackled! (1,800 syndicated stations - the longest
running radio drama of all time), which is geared to adults. The networks sometime sell
transcripts of their shows on cassette tapes or CDs or make the shows available for

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listening or downloading over the Internet. Transcription recordings of many pre-
television shows have been preserved. They are collected, re-recorded onto audio CDs
and/or MP3 files and traded by hobbyists today as old-time radio programs. Meanwhile,
veterans such as Yuri Rasovsky (The National Radio Theater of Chicago) and Thomas
Lopez (ZBS Foundation) have gained new listeners on cassettes, CDs and downloads. In
the mid-1980s, the non-profit L.A. Theatre Works launched its radio series recorded
before live audiences, which maintains a tenuous hold in public radio, while marketing its
productions on compact disc.

With 21st-century technology, modern radio drama, also known as audio theater, has
experienced a revival, with a growing number of independent producers who are able to
build an audience through internet distribution. While there are few academic programs
in the United States that offer training in radio drama production, organizations such as
the National Audio Theatre Festival teach the craft to new producers.

The digital age has also resulted in recording styles that differ from the studio recordings
of radio drama's Golden Age. Not From Space (2003) on XM Satellite Radio was the first
national radio play recorded exclusively through the Internet in which the voice actors
were all in separate locations. XM continues to air modern radio dramas on its Book
Radio channel (formerly Sonic Theatre).

Currently, podcasts are the most promising distribution format for independent radio
drama producers. Podcasts provides a good alternative to mainstream television and radio
because they have no restrictions regarding program length or content.

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Chapter- 8

Sound Recording and Reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-

creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound
effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and

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digital recording. Acoustic analog recording is achieved by a small microphone diaph-
ragm that can detect changes in atmospheric pressure (acoustic sound waves) and record
them as a graphic representation of the sound waves on a medium such as a phonograph
(in which a stylus senses grooves on a record). In magnetic tape recording, the sound
waves vibrate the microphone diaphragm and are converted into a varying electric
current, which is then converted to a varying magnetic field by an electromagnet, which
makes a representation of the sound as magnetized areas on a plastic tape with a magnetic
coating on it. Analog sound reproduction is the reverse process, with a bigger loud-
speaker diaphragm causing changes to atmospheric pressure to form acoustic sound
waves. Electronically generated sound waves may also be recorded directly from devices
such as an electric guitar pickup or a synthesizer, without the use of acoustics in the
recording process other than the need for musicians to hear how well they are playing
during recording sessions.

Digital recording and reproduction converts the analog sound signal picked up by the
microphone to a digital form by a process of digitization, allowing it to be stored and
transmitted by a wider variety of media. Digital recording stores audio as a series of
binary numbers representing samples of the amplitude of the audio signal at equal time
intervals, at a sample rate so fast that the human ear perceives the result as continuous
sound. Digital recordings are considered higher quality than analog recordings not
necessarily because they have higher fidelity (wider frequency response or dynamic
range), but because the digital format can prevent much loss of quality found in analog
recording due to noise and electromagnetic interference in playback, and mechanical
deterioration or damage to the storage medium. A digital audio signal must be
reconverted to analog form during playback before it is applied to a loudspeaker or
earphones.

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History
Origins

The automatic reproduction of music can be traced back as far as the 9th century, when
the Banū Mūsā brothers invented "the earliest known mechanical musical instrument", in
this case a hydropowered organ which played interchangeable cylinders automatically.
According to Charles B. Fowler, this "cylinder with raised pins on the surface remained
the basic device to produce and reproduce music mechanically until the second half of the
nineteenth century." The Banu Musa also invented an automatic flute player which
appears to have been the first programmable machine.

In the 14th century, Flanders introduced a mechanical bell-ringer controlled by a rotating

cylinder. Similar designs appeared in barrel organs (15th century), musical clocks (1598),

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barrel pianos (1805), and musical boxes (1815).

All of these machines could play stored music, but they could not play arbitrary sounds,
could not record a live performance, and were limited by the physical size of the medium.
The first device that could record sound mechanically (but could not play it back) was the
phonautograph, developed in 1857 by Parisian inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martin-
ville. The earliest known recordings of the human voice were phonautograms also made
in 1857. These earliest known recordings include a dramatic reading in French of
Shakespeare's Othello and music played on a guitar and trumpet. The recordings consist
of groups of wavy lines scratched by a stylus onto fragile paper that was blackened by the
soot from an oil lamp. One of his phonautograms of Au Clair de la Lune, a French folk
song, was digitally converted to sound in 2008. While this is an interesting playback that
sounds like a girl singing, the creator of this recording, Patrick Feaster of Indiana
University in Bloomington, reports that phonautograms his team had previously
transcribed, using a laser as a virtual stylus, had been played back at twice the actual
speed. What sounded like a girl singing the French folksong was actually Léon Scott
singing, Feaster concluded in May, 2009. Since the above recording was recovered, the
same team have since recovered a recording of a 435-Hz tuning fork (at that time the
French standard concert pitch for A' — now 440 Hz). The tuning fork is barely audible.

The player piano, first demonstrated in 1876, used a punched paper scroll that could store
an arbitrarily long piece of music. This piano roll moved over a device known as the
'tracker bar', which first had 58 holes, was expanded to 65 and then was upgraded to 88
holes (generally, one for each piano key). When a perforation passed over the hole, the
note sounded. Piano rolls were the first stored music medium that could be mass-
produced, although the hardware to play them was much too expensive for personal use.
Technology to record a live performance onto a piano roll was not developed until 1904.
Piano rolls have been in continuous mass production since around 1898. A 1908 U.S.
Supreme Court copyright case noted that, in 1902 alone, there were between 70,000 and
75,000 player pianos manufactured, and between 1,000,000 and 1,500,000 piano rolls
produced. The use of piano rolls began to decline in the 1920s although one type is still

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being made t0day. The fairground organ, developed in 1892, used a similar system of
accordion-folded punched cardboard books.

Phonograph
Phonograph cylinder

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Frances Densmore recording Blackfoot chief Mountain Chief on a cylinder phonograph
for the Bureau of American Ethnology (1916)

The first practical sound recording and reproduction device was the mechanical phono-
graph cylinder, invented by Thomas Edison in 1877 and patented in 1878. The invention
soon spread across the globe and over the next two decades the commercial recording,

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distribution and sale of sound recordings became a growing new international industry,
with the most popular titles selling millions of units by the early 1900s. The development
of mass-production techniques enabled cylinder recordings to become a major new
consumer item in industrial countries and the cylinder was the main consumer format
from the late 1880s until around 1910.

Disc phonograph

The next major technical development was the invention of the gramophone disc,
generally credited to Emile Berliner and commercially introduced in the United States in
1889. Discs were easier to manufacture, transport and store, and they had the additional
benefit of being louder (marginally) than cylinders, which by necessity, were single-
sided. Sales of the Gramophone record overtook the cylinder ca. 1910, and by the end of
World War I the disc had become the dominant commercial recording format. Edison,

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who was the main producer of cylinders, created the Edison Disc Record in an attempt to
regain his market. In various permutations, the audio disc format became the primary
medium for consumer sound recordings until the end of the 20th century, and the double-
sided 78 rpm shellac disc was the standard consumer music format from the early 1910s
to the late 1950s.

Although there was no universally accepted speed, and various companies offered discs
that played at several different speeds, the major recording companies eventually settled
on a de facto industry standard of nominally 78 revolutions per minute, though the actual
speed differed between America and the rest of the world. The specified speed was 78.26
rpm in America and 77.92 rpm throughout the rest of the world, the difference in speeds a
result of the difference in cycle frequencies of the AC power driving the synchronous
motor) and available gearing ratios. The nominal speed of the disc format gave rise to its
common nickname, the "seventy-eight" (though not until other speeds had become
available). Discs were made of shellac or similar brittle plastic-like materials, played with
needles made from a variety of materials including mild steel, thorn and even sapphire.
Discs had a distinctly limited playing life which was heavily dependent on how they were
reproduced.

The earlier, purely acoustic methods of recording had limited sensitivity and frequency
range. Mid-frequency range notes could be recorded but very low and very high
frequencies could not. Instruments such as the violin transferred poorly to disc; however
this was partially solved by retrofitting a conical horn to the sound box of the violin. The
horn was no longer required once electrical recording was developed.

The Vinyl microgroove was invented by a Hungarian engineer Peter Carl Goldmark. The
vinyl microgroove record was introduced in the late 1940s, and the two main vinyl
formats — the 7-inch single turning at 45 rpm and the 12-inch LP (long-playing) record
turning at 33 1/3 rpm — had totally replaced the 78 rpm shellac (sometimes vinyl) disc
by the end of the 1950s. Vinyl offered improved performance, both in stamping and in
playback, and came to be generally played with polished diamond styli, and when played
properly (precise tracking weight, etc.) offered longer life. Vinyl records were, over-

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optimistically, advertised as "unbreakable". They were not, but were much less brittle and
breakable than shellac. Nearly all were tinted black, but some were colored, as red,
swirled, translucent, etc.

Electrical recording

WT RCA-44, a classic ribbon microphone

Sound recording began as a mechanical process and remained so until the early 1920s
(with the exception of the 1899 Telegraphone) when a string of groundbreaking
inventions in the field of electronics revolutionised sound recording and the young
recording industry. These included sound transducers such as microphones and
loudspeakers, and various electronic devices such as the mixing desk, designed for the
amplification and modification of electrical sound signals.

After the Edison phonograph itself, arguably the most significant advances in sound
recording, were the electronic systems invented by two American scientists between 1900
and 1924. In 1906 Lee De Forest invented the "Audion" triode vacuum-tube, electronic
valve, which could greatly amplify weak electrical signals, (one early use was to amplify
long distance telephone in 1915) which became the basis of all subsequent electrical

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sound systems until the invention of the transistor. The valve was quickly followed by the
invention of the Regenerative circuit, Super-Regenerative circuit and the Superhe-
terodyne receiver circuit, all of which were invented and patented by the young electro-
nics genius Edwin Armstrong between 1914 and 1922. Armstrong's inventions made
higher fidelity electrical sound recording and reproduction a practical reality, facilitating
the development of the electronic amplifier and many other devices; after 1925 these
systems had become standard in the recording and radio industry.

While Armstrong published studies about the fundamental operation of the triode vacuum
tube before World War I, inventors like Orlando R. Marsh and his Marsh Laboratories, as
well as scientists at Bell Telephone Laboratories, achieved their own understanding about
the triode and were utilizing the Audion as a repeater in weak telephone circuits. By 1925
it was possible to place a long distance telephone call with these repeaters between New
York and San Francisco in 20 minutes, both parties being clearly heard. With this
technical prowess, Joseph P. Maxfield and Henry C. Harrison from Bell Telephone

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Laboratories were skilled in using mechanical analogs of electrical circuits and applied
these principles to sound recording and reproduction. They were ready to demonstrate
their results by 1924 using the Wente condenser microphone and the vacuum tube
amplifier to drive the "rubber line" wax recorder to cut a master audio disc.

Meanwhile, radio continued to develop. Armstrong's groundbreaking inventions (inclu-

ding FM radio) also made possible the broadcasting of long-range, high-quality radio
transmissions of voice and music. The importance of Armstrong's Superheterodyne
circuit cannot be over-estimated — it is the central component of almost all analog
amplification and both analog and digital radio-frequency transmitter and receiver
devices to this day.

Beginning during World War One, experiments were undertaken in the United States and
Great Britain to reproduce among other things, the sound of a Submarine (u-boat) for
training purposes. The acoustical recordings of that time proved entirely unable to
reproduce the sounds, and other methods were actively sought. Radio had developed
independently to this point, and now Bell Laboritories sought a marriage of the two
disparate technologies, greater than the two separately. The first experiments were not
very promising, but by 1920 greater sound fidelity was achieved using the electrical
system than had ever been realized acoustically. One early recording made without
fanfare or announcement was the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at
Arlington Cemetery.

By early 1924 such dramatic progress had been made, that Bell Labs arranged a demo-
nstration for the leading recording companies, the Victor Talking Machine Company, and
the Columbia Phonograph Co. (Edison was left out due to their decreasing market share
and a stubborn Thomas Edison). Columbia, always in financial straits, could not afford it,
and Victor, essentially leaderless since the mental collapse of founder Eldridge Johnson,
left the demonstration without comment. English Columbia, by then a separate company,
got hold of a test pressing made by Pathé from these sessions, and realized the immediate
and urgent need to have the new system. Bell was only offering its method to United

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States companies, and to circumvent this, Managing Director Louis Sterling of English
Columbia, bought his once parent company, and signed up for electrical recording.
Although they were contemplating a deal, Victor Talking Machine was apprised of the
new Columbia deal, so they too quickly signed. Columbia made its first released
electrical recordings on February 25, 1925, with Victor following a few weeks later. The
two then agreed privately to "be quiet" until November 1925, by which time enough
electrical repertory would be available.

Other recording formats

In the 1920s, the early talkies featured the new sound-on-film technology which used
photoelectric cells to record and reproduce sound signals that were optically recorded
directly onto the movie film. The introduction of talking movies, spearheaded by The
Jazz Singer in 1927 (though it used a sound on disk technique, not a photoelectric one),

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saw the rapid demise of live cinema musicians and orchestras. They were replaced with
pre-recorded soundtracks, causing the loss of many jobs. The American Federation of
Musicians took out ads in newspapers, protesting the replacement of real musicians with
mechanical playing devices, especially in theatres.

This period also saw several other historic developments including the introduction of the
first practical magnetic sound recording system, the magnetic wire recorder, which was
based on the work of Danish inventor Valdemar Poulsen. Magnetic wire recorders were
effective, but the sound quality was poor, so between the wars they were primarily used
for voice recording and marketed as business dictating machines. In the 1930s radio
pioneer Guglielmo Marconi developed a system of magnetic sound recording using steel
tape. This was the same material used to make razor blades, and not surprisingly the
fearsome Marconi-Stille recorders were considered so dangerous that technicians had to
operate them from another room for safety. Because of the high recording speeds
required, they used enormous reels about one metre in diameter, and the thin tape
frequently broke, sending jagged lengths of razor steel flying around the studio.

The K1 Magnetophon was the first practical tape recorder, developed by AEG in
Germany in 1935. The other major invention in sound recording in this period was the
optical sound-on-film system, also generally credited to Lee De Forest. Although famous
early "Talkies" like The Jazz Singer used a sound-on-disc system, the film industry
eventually adopted the optical sound-on-film system and it revolutionised the movie
industry in the 1930s, ushering in the era of 'talking pictures'. Optical sound-on-film,
based on the photoelectric cell, became the standard film audio system throughout the
world until it was superseded in the 1960s.

Magnetic tape
Other important inventions of this period were magnetic tape and the tape recorder
(Telegraphone). Paper-based tape was first used but was soon superseded by polyester
and acetate backing due to dust drop and hiss. Acetate was more brittle than polyester and
snapped easily. This technology, the basis for almost all commercial recording from the

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1950s to the 1980s, was invented by German audio engineers in the 1930s, who also
discovered the technique of AC biasing, which dramatically improved the frequency
response of tape recordings. Tape recording was perfected just after the war by American
audio engineer John T. Mullin with the help of Crosby Enterprises (Bing Crosby), whose
pioneering recorders were based on captured German recorders, and the Ampex company
produced the first commercially available tape recorders in the late 1940s.

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A typical Compact Cassette

Magnetic tape brought about sweeping changes in both radio and the recording industry.
Sound could be recorded, erased and re-recorded on the same tape many times, sounds
could be duplicated from tape to tape with only minor loss of quality, and recordings
could now be very precisely edited by physically cutting the tape and rejoining it. Within
a few years of the introduction of the first commercial tape recorder, the Ampex 200
model, launched in 1948, American musician-inventor Les Paul had invented the first
multitrack tape recorder, bringing about another technical revolution in the recording
industry. Tape made possible the first sound recordings totally created by electronic
means, opening the way for the bold sonic experiments of the Musique Concrète school
and avant garde composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen, which in turn led to the
innovative pop music recordings of artists such as Frank Zappa, The Beatles and The
Beach Boys.

Tape enabled the radio industry for the first time to pre-record many sections of program
content such as advertising, which formerly had to be presented live, and it also enabled
the creation and duplication of complex, high-fidelity, long-duration recordings of entire
programs. It also, for the first time, allowed broadcasters, regulators and other interested
parties to undertake comprehensive logging of radio broadcasts. Innovations like multi-
tracking and tape echo enabled radio programs and advertisements to be pre-produced to
a level of complexity and sophistication that was previously unattainable and tape also
led to significant changes to the pacing of program content, thanks to the introduction of
the endless-loop tape cartridge.

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Stereo and hi-fi
Magnetic tape also enabled the development of the first practical commercial sound
systems that could record and reproduce high-fidelity stereophonic sound. Experiments
with stereo dated back to the 1880s and during the 1930s and 1940s there were many
attempts to record in stereo using discs, but these were hampered by problems with
synchronization. The first major breakthrough in practical stereo sound was made by Bell
Laboratories, who in 1937 demonstrated a practical system of two-channel stereo, using
dual optical sound tracks on film. Major movie studios quickly developed three-track and
four-track sound systems, and the first stereo sound recording in a commercial film was
made by Judy Garland for the MGM movie Listen, Darling in 1938. The first com-
mercially-released movie with a full surround soundtrack was Walt Disney's Fantasia,
released in 1940. The sound for this production was originally recorded on a completely
separate magnetic film, but because of the complex equipment required to present it, it

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was shown as a road show, but only in the United States. Regular releases of the film
were on standard mono optical 35 mm stock until the film was transferred to
multichannel 70mm stock in the 1970s.

German audio engineers working on magnetic tape are reported to have developed stereo
recording by 1943, but it was not until the introduction of the first commercial two-track
tape recorders by Ampex in the late 1940s that stereo tape recording became com-
mercially feasible. However, despite the availability of multitrack tape, stereo did not
become the standard system for commercial music recording for some years and it
remained a specialist market during the 1950s. This changed after the late 1957 intro-
duction of the "Westrex stereo phonograph disc". Decca Records in England came out
with FFRR (Full Frequency Range Recording) in the 1940s which became internationally
accepted and a worldwide standard for higher quality recordings on vinyl records. The
Ernest Ansermet recording of Igor Stravinsky's Petrushka was key in the development of
full frequency range records and alerting the listening public to high fidelity in 1946.

Most pop singles were mixed into monophonic sound until the mid 1960s, and it was
common for major pop releases to be issued in both mono and stereo until the early
1970s. Many Sixties pop albums now available only in stereo were originally intended to
be released only in mono, and the so-called "stereo" version of these albums were created
by simply separating the two tracks of the master tape. In the mid Sixties, as stereo
became more popular, many mono recordings (such as The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds)
were remastered using the so-called "fake stereo" method, which spread the sound across
the stereo field by directing higher-frequency sound into one channel and lower-
frequency sounds into the other.

1950s and beyond

Magnetic tape transformed the recording industry, and by the late-1950s the vast majority
of commercial recordings were being mastered on tape. The electronics revolution that
followed the invention of the transistor brought other radical changes, the most important
of which was the introduction of the world's first "personal music device", the minia-

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turized transistor radio, which became a major consumer luxury item in the 1960s,
transforming radio broadcasting from a static group experience into a mobile, personal
listening activity. An early multitrack recording made using magnetic tape was "How
High the Moon" by Les Paul, on which Paul played eight overdubbed guitar tracks. In the
1960s Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, Frank Zappa and The Beatles (with producer
George Martin) were among the first popular artists to explore the possibilities of
multitrack techniques and effects on their landmark albums Pet Sounds, Freak Out! and
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The next important innovation was small cartridge based tape systems of which the
compact cassette, introduced by the Philips electronics company in 1964 is the best
known. It eventually entirely replaced the competing formats, the larger 8-track tape
(used primarily in cars) and the fairly similar 'Deutsche Cassette' developed by the
German company Grundig. This latter system was not particularly common in Europe
and practically unheard of in America. The compact cassette became a major consumer

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audio format and advances in microelectronics eventually allowed the development of the
Sony Walkman, introduced in the 1970s, which was the first personal music player and
gave a major boost to the mass distribution of music recordings. Cassettes became the
first successful consumer recording/re-recording medium. The gramophone record was a
pre-recorded playback only medium, and reel-to-reel tape was too difficult for most
consumers and far less portable.

A key advance in audio fidelity came with the Dolby A noise reduction system, invented
by Ray Dolby and introduced in 1966. A competing system dbx, invented by David
Blackmer, found most success in professional audio. A simpler variant of Dolby's noise
reduction system, known as Dolby B greatly improved the sound of cassette tape
recordings by reducing the practical effect of the recorded hiss inherent in the narrow
tape used. It, and variants, also eventually found wide application in the recording and
film industries. Dolby B was crucial to the popularisation and commercial success of the
compact cassette as a domestic recording and playback medium, and became a part of the
booming "hi-fi" market of the 1970s and beyond. The compact cassette also benefited
enormously from developments in the tape material itself as materials with wider
frequency responses and lower inherent noise were developed, often based on cobalt
and/or chrome oxides as the magnetic material instead of the more usual iron oxide.

The multitrack audio cartridge had been in wide use in the radio industry, from the late
1950s to the 1980s, but in the 1960s the pre-recorded 8-track cartridge was launched as a
consumer audio format by Bill Lear of the Lear Jet aircraft company (and although its
correct name was the 'Lear Jet Cartridge', it was seldom referred to as such). Aimed
particularly at the automotive market, they were the first practical, affordable car hi-fi
systems, and could produce superior sound quality to the compact cassette. However the
smaller size and greater durability — augmented by the ability to create home-recorded
music "compilations" since 8-track recorders were rare — saw the cassette become the
dominant consumer format for portable audio devices in the 1970s and 1980s.

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There had been experiments with multi-channel sound for many years — usually for
special musical or cultural events — but the first commercial application of the concept
came in the early 1970s with the introduction of Quadraphonic sound. This spin-off
development from multitrack recording used four tracks (instead of the two used in
stereo) and four speakers to create a 360-degree audio field around the listener. Following
the release of the first consumer 4-channel hi-fi systems, a number of popular albums
were released in one of the competing four-channel formats; among the best known are
Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells and Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. Quadra-
phonic sound was not a commercial success, partly because of competing and somewhat
incompatible four-channel sound systems (e.g., CBS, JVC, Dynaco and others all had
systems) and generally poor quality, even when played as intended on the correct
equipment, of the released music. It eventually faded out in the late 1970s, although this
early venture paved the way for the eventual introduction of domestic Surround Sound
systems in home theatre use, which have gained enormous popularity since the introduce-
tion of the DVD. This widespread adoption has occurred despite the confusion introduced

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by the multitude of available surround sound standards.

The replacement of the thermionic valve (vacuum tube) by the smaller, cooler and less
power-hungry transistor also accelerated the sale of consumer high-fidelity "hi-fi" sound
systems from the 1960s onward. In the 1950s most record players were monophonic and
had relatively low sound quality; few consumers could afford high-quality stereophonic
sound systems. In the 1960s, American manufacturers introduced a new generation of
"modular" hi-fi components — separate turntables, pre-amplifiers, amplifiers, both
combined as integrated amplifiers, tape recorders, and other ancillary equipment (like the
graphic equaliser), which could be connected together to create a complete home sound
system. These developments were rapidly taken up by Japanese electronics companies,
which soon flooded the world market with relatively cheap, high-quality components. By
the 1980s, corporations like Sony had become world leaders in the music recording and
playback industry.

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Digital recording

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Graphical representation of a sound wave in analog (red) and 4-bit digital (black)

The invention of digital sound recording and later the compact disc in 1982 brought
significant improvements in the durability of consumer recordings. The CD initiated
another massive wave of change in the consumer music industry, with vinyl records
effectively relegated to a small niche market by the mid-1990s. However, the intro-
duction of digital systems was initially fiercely resisted by the record industry which
feared wholesale piracy on a medium which was able to produce perfect copies of
original released recordings. However, the industry had to bow to the inevitable, but not
without using various protection system (principally Serial Copy Management System, or
SCMS).

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 WT A digital sound recorder from Sony

The most recent and revolutionary developments have been in digital recording, with the
development of various uncompressed and compressed digital audio file formats,
processors capable and fast enough to convert the digital data to sound in real time, and
inexpensive mass storage. This generated a new type of portable digital audio player. The
minidisc player, using ATRAC compression on small, cheap, re-writeable discs was
introduced in the 1990s but became obsolescent as solid-state non-volatile flash memory
dropped in price. As technologies which increase the amount of data that can be stored on
a single medium, such as Super Audio CD, DVD-A, Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD become
available, longer programs of higher quality fit onto a single disc. Sound files are readily
downloaded from the Internet and other sources, and copied onto computers and digital
audio players. Digital audio technology is used in all areas of audio, from casual use of
music files of moderate quality to the most demanding professional applications. New
applications such as internet radio and podcasting have appeared.

Technological developments in recording and editing have transformed the record, movie
and television industries in recent decades. Audio editing became practicable with the
invention of magnetic tape recording, but digital audio and cheap mass storage allows
computers to edit audio files quickly, easily, and cheaply. Today, the process of making a
recording is separated into tracking, mixing and mastering. Multitrack recording makes it

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possible to capture signals from several microphones, or from different 'takes' to tape or
disc, with maximized headroom and quality, allowing previously unavailable flexibility
in the mixing and mastering stages for editing, level balancing, compressing and limiting,
adding effects such as reverberation, equalisation, flanging, and much more.

Digital recording and processing software

There are many different digital audio recording and processing programs running under
several computer operating systems for all purposes, from professional through serious
amateur to casual user.

A comprehensive list of digital recording applications is available on the digital audio

workstation page.

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Digital dictation software for recording and transcribing speech has different require-
ments; intelligibility and flexible playback facilities are priorities, while a wide frequency
range and high audio quality are not.

Voice to note
Voice-to-note refers to the capability of personal computers to be able to recognize notes
that are sung, hummed, or whistled into a microphone. The pitch and duration of the
notes are then calculated and converted into MIDI music files.

Legal status
UK

Since 1934, sound recordings are treated differently from musical works under copyright
law. Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 defines a sound recording to mean (a) a
recording of sounds, from which the sounds may be reproduced, or (b) a recording of the
whole or any part of a literary, dramatic or musical work, from which sounds repro-
ducing the work or part may be produced, regardless of the medium on which the
recording is made or the method by which the sounds are reproduced or produced. It
thus covers vinyl records, tapes, compact discs, digital audiotapes, and MP3s which
embody recordings.

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