Dubbing films into foreign languages. A few questions!

Cafe Society
1

Okay, a few questions…

I read somewhere that it is the law in France for a motion picture to be dubbed into French first and then can also be released in its original language, normally English.

So,

1, do these voice artists who dub the original audio (whether they are French, German, Russian or any other nationality) get a credit at the end of the movie?

2, on a film like “Toy Story” (or any other animation) would it still have the main actors name (Tom Hanks in this example) splashed about in the publicity, the posters and would he still bother going to the premier? (Since his voice would obviously be changed into the native language and he would effectively cease to have any participation at all). To me it would be madness to have a poster like this one(http://web.ukonline.co.uk/keith.dumble/hopper/toystory2.jpg) if their voices no longer appear in the movie!

3, would the same voice artist do all the dubbing for the same actor. So is there a person walking around whose sole job it is to dub Tom Cruise into German? Could/does this voice artist do one than one person? Ben Affleck as well as Harrison Ford (lets say). Now what if these two actors appeared in the same movie together in the future, I doubt this voice artist would continue to do both voices in this movie as it would be confusing for the audience, wouldn’t it? (Speaking of screen etc)

4, now in a film like “Saving Private Ryan” you have scenes where American Soldiers are speaking to German soldiers and not understanding each other. But when that film was released in Germany, the American voices would be dubbed into German and the German characters would need not be dubbed. So, in the German release, were the American soldiers and the German soldiers both speaking German to each other but not understanding each other? I would find that pretty funny, but also annoying (If I were German).

5, I read on (www.imdb.com) that Jodie Foster does her own dubbing in her films into French, are there any more instances like this, (any language)?

6, how much fame does these voice artists enjoy? Dan Castellaneta (Homer etc) on The Simpsons has been seen doing cameo’s in things like Friends and as appeared on the Biography Channel’s “In the Actors Studio”. Do the voice over artists enjoy any such things like this or do they have relative anonymity?

7, does it pay well?

I think that is all the questions I have for now! Any insight would be interesting.

2

To # 3, yes. Countries most of the time have consistent voice doubles for specific actors. And yes to #5 too; Roberto Beningi does his own dubbing into English, at least since Life is Beautiful. Oh, and of course for #1!

3

Just a little aside - this is not the case with Poland, all foreign language movies are released with subtitles. Foreign shows and movies on tv get dubbed, but all the voices are done by the same guy. It sounds like an announer speedreading the script, and it’s one of the most irritating things I’ve encountered.

4

I can answer some of your questions as far as Germany is concerned.

  1. Usually not. I have seen this in TV programs but can’t remember a movie.

  2. The names of the original voices are not listed but some animated films have German “celebrity” voices instead and those are listed.

  3. The dubbing studios try to use consistent voices. Therefore the better known actors have a “regular” voice but this is not always the case.
    Especially if actors are active over many decades voices can change a few times.
    Some speakers simply die like e.g the German Darth Vader.
    Often actors have different voices in their early minor roles.

And yes, many (most?) actors do voices for several original actors.
eg. Ewan McGregor, Christian Slater, and Johnny Depp share one voice and Robert DeNiro and Harvey Keitel another one.

  1. This happens alot, especially in war movies. If the nationality of the people involved is not obvious (ignoring the language) it is sometimes simply changed in dubbing. Unfortunately this is not always done carefully enough and many references and jokes are lost.