/ARTS WEEKLY/ ARGENTINA: Voices for Hire

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 26 2003 (IPS) - Light-headed from so much panting, the woman takes a break. She removes her headphones and leaves the sound studio to get a drink of water, but she is gone just a few minutes because in Argentina the high demand for film and video dubbing is keeping voices like hers busy.

From erotic films to children’s cartoons, and everything in between – documentaries, dramas and advertising – the demand for voice-overs is too much for the approximately 100 voice professionals in Argentina.

Since the peso was devalued in January 2002, the Argentine voices have become attractively inexpensive for the international audiovisual market.

Dubbing in Argentina is still a long way from competing with Mexico, considered the Mecca of the industry, but the equipment imported by Argentine businesses in the late 1990s and the rates charged since the currency depreciation are bringing more and more major production companies – including Disney – to Argentina, and are putting the small studios to the test.

"Dubbing erotic films is not very complicated, but it’s tiring because the constant panting can make you dizzy," voice artist and actor Ricardo Alanis told IPS with a mischievous laugh.

Alanis is also a professor at the School of Dubbing, which instructs actors, announcers and others to speak with the so-called "neutral" Spanish accent heard in films and on television.

Neutral Spanish is a form of the language developed to exclude local terms and country- or region-specific pronunciations so that all Spanish-speakers can understand what is said. This is the same approach to Spanish used by international news agencies..

Experts in neutral Spanish translate the original dialogue of movies, cartoons and television programmes, even those produced in Spanish, and the dubbers supply the neutral voice.

A "good" neutral Spanish avoids, for example, the aspirated pronunciation of the "s" that is common in Argentina. This often proves difficult for dubbers from this country to do.

They also have to use "tú" for "you", instead of the "vos" common to the Rio de la Plata dialect, and must make other changes to speak the "non-region-specific" Spanish sought for films and videos to be seen by international audiences.

According to the calculations of Patricio Rabufetti, president of the Argentine dubbing company Non Stop, one of the five in the country, the business of translating film and video to neutral Spanish moves some 10 million dollars a year, and Mexico is "without a doubt" the world leader.

"The Mexicans are the masters. We can only compete with them because of our low costs," Rabufetti admitted in a conversation with IPS.

In Mexico there are around a thousand top-level voice-over artists, covering all age ranges and voice types, while the industry in Argentina is in the nascent stage, with its approximately 100 professionals.

But the currency devaluation triggered an abrupt increase in demand for Argentine dubbing artists, especially for programmes on cable and satellite TV networks.

Then Non Stop opened its dubbing school, to train actors and announcers to fill the rising demand. The instructors select the students with the most promise and train them. The new voice-over artists hardly have to look for work. In Argentina, work is waiting for them.

"In order to absorb more projects we need to train more people, because if we get a client like Disney and then can’t fulfil their requirements and deadlines, it will be the end of this industry in Argentina," says Rabufetti.

For the time being, the entrepreneur is content with focussing on the area in which Argentina already stands out: narrating documentaries. Alanis himself is the Spanish voice of most of the documentaries produced by the U.S.-based Discovery Channel.

He also works on shows for Discovery Health and Discovery Kids, and for the British People and Arts.

The firm Videorecord competes with Non Stop in dubbing programmes for subscriber television, and this year made a name for itself with the Japanese feature "Spirited Away" (The Voyage of Chihiro).

Diego Lerner, Disney director for Latin America, says the technical capacity and low costs of Argentine voice-over services lay the groundwork for a strong industry here, and could absorb the work needed by his company.

This rosy outlook for the short term prompted Rabufetti to open the dubbing school. "Everyone is welcome, because we need a broad range of voices, but we especially need young people and women who can dub children’s voices," he said.

The Argentine Actors Association considers dubbing an attractive alternative for the numerous professionals on its roster, most of whom are currently unemployed. The association has provided voice-over courses in recent years, training many who are working in the industry today.

When there is demand for specific projects, the voice-over companies have to have the "right fit". But while they train the necessary voices, the relatively few professionals do what they can, moving from recording studio to recording studio, inventing new voices on the run.