Post by Eric T. Jones on Mar 28, 2008 12:15:38 GMT -5
For a few years I'd say that out of pure boredom I might do what some other people already did at least once, which is to pull out one of their DVDs and watch it in French or something with English subtitles.
So I decided to test Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters", also to get a taste of what exactly goes into a "Music and Effects" soundtrack for foreign film dubbing, therefore I started with the Spanish dub.
Well, just like depicted in "All About My Mother", there is a voiceover reading the title in Spanish (along with the intertitles in "Hannah"). The other thing I notice is that lip-sync is never, ever attempted, and in a Woody Allen film where multiple people are in a shot, it's difficult to find who's actually saying what. They also only have the music intact and in five minutes I noticed only two sound effects- no footsteps, no placing dishes on the table, and maybe one or two placing of coffee cups. No ambience whatsoever, in terms of the crowded party.
My ears couldn't stand any more of this, so I switched to the French track to see how different things were. As it turns out, very. No, still not as much ambience or sound effects as the English audio track (which in a Hollywood rarity- but I'm sure is regular for Allen- probably production sound), most of the footsteps and other sounds were very exaggerated and emphasized, but at least there WAS ambience. Lip-synch isn't perfect in this one, either, although on some occasions they do get it. After two minutes, the French-language track is very easy to get used to.
...until Woody Allen's role comes in; everyone else had appropriate voice actors, but for Allen, not so much. The voice doesn't match him to the point where I didn't even see if the lip-movements synchronized well- the voice didn't even match his exaggerated neurotic gestures.
Now I know why I'm disappointed to see, even on Canadian DVDs, only a French dubbed track and no French subtitles. Fortunately, the "Hannah and Her Sisters" DVD I tested DID give foreign-language viewers any choice they wanted, with both subtitles and dubs for all three languages. (some Woody Allen DVDs- since MGM is weird like this- don't include English subtitles or captions. Bothersome)
Then, the last part of this test- how much of the film holds your attention when you have to rely on the subtitles? For foreign films, duh, but for English-language films, we take it for granted that we can understand by looking at the characters.
For a Woody Allen film, primarily driven by dialogue, it's arguably a better experience, and it helps that Allen's own lines always shine.
I'll be looking at something more recent (like the "Michael Clayton" DVD I just bought) to see if the situation has improved over 22 years. I honestly hope the quality of foreign-language dubs still isn't this poor.
...or worse, in that people actually get used to it.
So I decided to test Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters", also to get a taste of what exactly goes into a "Music and Effects" soundtrack for foreign film dubbing, therefore I started with the Spanish dub.
Well, just like depicted in "All About My Mother", there is a voiceover reading the title in Spanish (along with the intertitles in "Hannah"). The other thing I notice is that lip-sync is never, ever attempted, and in a Woody Allen film where multiple people are in a shot, it's difficult to find who's actually saying what. They also only have the music intact and in five minutes I noticed only two sound effects- no footsteps, no placing dishes on the table, and maybe one or two placing of coffee cups. No ambience whatsoever, in terms of the crowded party.
My ears couldn't stand any more of this, so I switched to the French track to see how different things were. As it turns out, very. No, still not as much ambience or sound effects as the English audio track (which in a Hollywood rarity- but I'm sure is regular for Allen- probably production sound), most of the footsteps and other sounds were very exaggerated and emphasized, but at least there WAS ambience. Lip-synch isn't perfect in this one, either, although on some occasions they do get it. After two minutes, the French-language track is very easy to get used to.
...until Woody Allen's role comes in; everyone else had appropriate voice actors, but for Allen, not so much. The voice doesn't match him to the point where I didn't even see if the lip-movements synchronized well- the voice didn't even match his exaggerated neurotic gestures.
Now I know why I'm disappointed to see, even on Canadian DVDs, only a French dubbed track and no French subtitles. Fortunately, the "Hannah and Her Sisters" DVD I tested DID give foreign-language viewers any choice they wanted, with both subtitles and dubs for all three languages. (some Woody Allen DVDs- since MGM is weird like this- don't include English subtitles or captions. Bothersome)
Then, the last part of this test- how much of the film holds your attention when you have to rely on the subtitles? For foreign films, duh, but for English-language films, we take it for granted that we can understand by looking at the characters.
For a Woody Allen film, primarily driven by dialogue, it's arguably a better experience, and it helps that Allen's own lines always shine.
I'll be looking at something more recent (like the "Michael Clayton" DVD I just bought) to see if the situation has improved over 22 years. I honestly hope the quality of foreign-language dubs still isn't this poor.
...or worse, in that people actually get used to it.