Dubbed TV content opens up new avenues for voice-over artistes

One of the most notable effects of the lockdown, as far as entertainment is concerned, is the opening up of Kannada general entertainment channel programming to dubbed content. In the last month or so, a steady stream of shows from other centres have been dubbed for telecast on Kannada GECs, the downside of which has been cancelled original shows and loss of work for several actors an technicians.But it has also opened up a new job market for dubbing artistes.
‘Dubbing is lucrative’
Yashwanth Bijoor, who has also acted in serials and movies, has been a voice-over artiste for films for a while and has now included TV to his skillset. He is currently the voice of Karna in the dubbed version of Mahabharata. “I usually dub for 10 episodes at a stretch. Apart from knowing the language, one needs to have a good voice and diction. It helps if you have acting experience to get the emotions of the onscreen character right in your voice over.”
Theatre person and actor Suman Jadugar, who has taken up dubbing as a part time job, says, “There is a huge demand for dubbing artistes, which makes it a reliable job in the current scenario. Even in films, when actors from other industries who don’t know the language are on board they need the right dubbing artists to breathe life into the character.”
“Payment for dubbing pay depends on the number of scenes and episodes. If the budget of the serial is higher, remuneration is also likely to be good,” says Yashwanth. Sumanth adds that while dubbing is lucrative, knowledge of other languages like Tamil and Telugu are additional assets that can assure opportunities in those industries as well.
Established dubbing artistes bypassed for new talent
Actress and senior dubbing artiste Deepa Bhaskar, who had acted in Subbalakshmi Samsara, which went off air recently, says, “Dubbing artistes especially newcomers are getting plenty of opportunities due to the sudden inflow of other language shows. Right now, no one knows for how long this trend will continue. There are many like me, who are professional voice-over artistes for years, and have been dubbing even for original Kannada shows, but are being sidelined in the new scheme of things. As far as I know, senior artistes are not being approached for dubbing.”
'Translating dialogues for dubbed shows is quite a task’
Director and writer Krish Joshi who has written the Kannada script of Mahabaratha says, “Even when a line is rather long in Hindi it can be translated in Kannada with just two and then lip synchronization becomes difficult; so we need to put in extra effort to translate with words that when spoken are almost in sync with the lip movements. The other issue is finding appropriate alternates for Hindi words like Kant Shastra; it took me hours to find the right translation.”
The longer the serial, the more money to be made
Although remuneration for voice-over artistes is entirely dependent on the budget of the serial, on average, a newcomer could get between Rs 300 and Rs 500 per episode, if he or she is dubbing for a recurring character. The amount may also depend on the the total number of episodes a particular character is present on the show. If a senior actor dubs for the show for a popular character, he/she may get paid between Rs 1,000 and Rs 1,500 per episode.