Spanish dubbers are desperately seeking stardom of their own

Desperate Housewives in Spanish


Spanish dubbers are desperately seeking stardom of their own

01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, February 22, 2006
BY MIREYA NAVARRO
New York Times News Service
http://www.projo.com/tv/content/projo_20060222_dubbers.1270592e.html

LOS ANGELES -- In a small sound studio late on a Wednesday night, Larisa Asuaje is channeling Teri Hatcher. She sighs, giggles and gesticulates wildly with her hands, speaking in the halting, nervous ways of Hatcher's character, Susan, in Desperate Housewives, only in Spanish.
She looks up at Hatcher's lips on a screen, which are saying, "I need an operation on my spleen, and I just found out I don't have medical insurance."
"Is there anyone I can sue?" Susan asks. "Hay alguien a quien pueda demandar?" Asuaje repeats simultaneously.

Asuaje describes dubbing as "translating the essence of the person into another language." It is what she does for other actors while she herself -- an actress who has theater, film, soap operas and television commercials to her credit -- waits for her own big break.
"I'm honored to do that voice," she said of Hatcher's vulnerable Susan. "But to be honest, there's a part of me that says, 'I wish I could be there.' "
In Los Angeles there are those who wait tables, those who park cars and those who find other ways to pay the rent while pursuing their Hollywood dreams. Bilingual actors like Asuaje, 36, have another option: following others' speech tics, mimicking their emotions and matching their m's and p's, so voices do not come out of closed mouths.
Performing in anonymity -- no credits, always heard but never seen -- the actors who dub movies and television shows into Spanish here are a fringe group even among the people who do the voiceovers for television commercials and, more prestigiously, animated feature films and television series such as The Simpsons.

To dub in Spanish, say those who do it, usually means earning a modest $12 to $20 an hour, being heard mostly in other countries and scrambling for work. Most dubbing jobs have migrated to places such as Venezuela and Mexico.
But things are looking up for Asuaje and her fellow dubbers. Last fall ABC announced that it would dub such top-rated shows as Desperate Housewives and Lost to attract the growing audience in the United States of Spanish-language networks such as Univision. The Spanish translation of these network hits is heard through the Secondary Audio Program option on television sets, which is available to more than 85 percent of American households.
The secrecy surrounding the story lines of the ABC shows, and the tight deadlines for broadcasting each episode in both languages, has meant the dubbing must stay home, specifically Burbank. But more important to dubbers such as the Spanish-speaking Desperate Housewives, whose pay has been bumped up to $25 an hour, being connected with a hit brings the hope that some of the success will rub off.
They are thinking about exposure, meeting the right producers and ultimately winning a role that would pluck them out of the shadows.

"There's that saying, 'You may not be a thoroughbred, but if you're a fly on the tail of a thoroughbred, you're a thoroughbred fly,' " said Marabina Jaimes, the voice of Brenda Strong's character, Mary Alice, the dead narrator of Desperate Housewives.
"We'd like producers to realize we're actors and can do these roles in front of the camera," she added.
What Spanish dubbers -- who are also playwrights, translators and stunt doubles, and give their voices even to car navigation systems -- may have over the rest is a tight-knit fellowship in which everybody knows one another and learns about dubbing work strictly through word of mouth.

Dubbers like Jaimes and Asuaje dub only a few hours a week and draw most of their income doing ads for companies such as Bally Total Fitness, AOL and Home Depot, in both English and Spanish. It's not a bad living, but they couldn't be farther from the glamour of such red carpet awards shows as the Golden Globes.
There was not a stylist in sight last weekend when the Spanish-speaking Desperate Housewives gathered in Griffith Park for a photo shoot. Gabriela del Carmen, 43, who dubs Felicity Huffman's Lynette, walked around carrying her own plastic bag of makeup. Purses and other belongings went not into a trailer but the Honda SUV of Jaimes, also in her 40s, who said jokingly, "I don't have champagne, but I have water."

Among the seven women, some had known one another from years of freelance dubbing work, even roomed together, and all easily fell into laughter and gossip about ex-husbands (only two remain married). So small is their Hollywood subculture -- the working ranks of Spanish dubbers number in the dozens, by most estimates -- that the Spanish-speaking Edie, Bree and Gabrielle of Desperate Housewives can also claim to have been Huey, Dewey and Louie on dubbed Disney cartoons.
Rocio Gallegos, 51, a career dubber from Mexico who directs some of the dubbing sessions of Desperate Housewives and herself dubs Betty Applewhite, the mysterious housewife played by Alfre Woodard, says that for the actors, dubbing is a form of performing-arts school where they can learn technique from the best.
"I love Alfre Woodard," said Gallegos, who has also dubbed Kathy Bates in movies and whose own son, Humberto Amor, 31, dubs Betty's son, Matthew. "That seriousness. She's dramatic without raising an eyebrow."Gallegos does not physically resemble Woodard.

As it turns out, blue-eyed del Carmen is vivacious like Huffman, and Asuaje is thin and brunette like Hatcher. Marcela Bordes, who dubs Edie on the show, is a blonde (who won't reveal her age) much like Nicollette Sheridan, the actress who plays Edie; Ana Grinta, also ageless, has the cool sexiness of Marcia Cross; and Ivette Gonzalez, 42, has the smile and perkiness of Eva Longoria, although she herself notes that after two children "I'm twice the size of Eva."
Their love life may not be as convoluted as the going-ons on Wisteria Lane, but these desperadas come with their own eccentricities.

"You meet someone, and you're, like, 'My God, what a horrible voice,' " said del Carmen, who is divorced and, unlike the others, has no children. "I'm thinking, 'Why doesn't he breathe with his diaphragm?' "

Thai film adaptation gives breath to innocent love

Cinta Pertama (First love), the Indonesian title for the 2003 Thai movie called "My Girl"


Thai film adaptation gives breath to innocent love
Kenny Santana, Contributor, Jakarta
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailfeatures.asp?fileid=20060219.P02&irec=35

The film opens, the faces looks familiar, they speak like any Indonesian and one might think this is a typical local movie. But it is not -- it just looks like one. The film is Cinta Pertama (First love), the Indonesian title for the 2003 Thai movie called "My Girl".

For the first time ever, a foreign film has been adapted into a Bahasa Indonesia-dubbed version with local songs.

Dubbing a foreign film maybe off-putting for a lot of moviegoers. Here, audiences are used to watching foreign fare in their original version or at least, in English. Many moviegoers assume that dubbed films are either telenovela or Bollywood fare for TV consumption. However, this didn't deter Fiesta Films -- which has distributed some of the more popular Thai films like Shutter, The Eye and Iron Ladies -- from making the first Indonesian-language film adaptation with My Girl.

"The film's background has a lot of similarities with Indonesian culture, and we believe the film's moral message can touch all audiences. This is why we dared to take this project onboard," said Devi Luciana, PR representative of Fiesta Films. "Not all films can be adapted to fit Indonesian audiences."

The journey began in 2003 when the six-director My Girl emerged a huge hit in Thailand. As Fiesta Films bought rights to the film, Fiesta's sister company Musica Group, with its extensive library of Indonesian music, made an offer to collaborate on making an adaptation with an Indonesian soundtrack. The next step was to find the right adaptation director -- and this was when Rizal Mantovani entered.
"We've known Rizal for a while because of his work on music videos with Musica Group. When the project was offered to Rizal, he watched the original (film) first and took it because he was inspired by the movie," Devi told The Jakarta Post.
"He's passionate about films, very frank and keen to give suggestions to make the adaptation better and better," she said.
The choice was a bull's eye. Rizal, whose repertoire includes the acclaimed Kuldesak -- which he co-directed with three peers -- and horror blockbuster Jelangkung had made for highly enjoyable entertainment.
Rizal's Indonesian script uses colloquial language that it feels real to viewers. Just listen when the children talk, play and mock each other. The dialog reminds us of the lovely, and sometimes sad, childhood we all experienced.
The film opens to Jeamy as he receives a wedding invitation from his childhood friend, Nina. Then the plot flashes back to the good times they shared during those early years. The boys versus the girls, the bullies, their blossoming love -- such key childhood moments are featured in the movie.
Rizal himself confessed to having fallen in love with the story: "I am so amazed how the structure of the film could be so simple, the characters so natural and how the directors managed to capture every detail to enhance that simplicity into this wonderful piece. Brilliant."
However, the process to bring it closer to Indonesian audiences was not easy. "The translation could get tricky in some parts," he said. "I think the trick here is to have the audience immerse themselves in the world of these grade-schoolers. Indonesian grade schoolers have an their own 'lingo'. I tend to not have these kids talk like grown-ups. They should speak their language and act their age."

The film's dubbing was handed to Ferry Fadli, who is considered the master in the Indonesian dubbing industry. And he did whatever necessary to make the film as true to the original -- even to the point of using a woman vocal actor for the role of Jack.
"I had a hard time finding the voice of Jack, a pivotal character that had to be handled delicately. Eventually, a woman actor was chosen as the perfect voice for Jack. As long as the audience finds nothing wrong with the voices, then I think we did our job right," Rizal said.
It took about 10 months to produce the adaptation, starting with the translation, casting the right vocal actors for each character, dubbing, mixing and finally to finding the right nostalgic songs to substitute the original Thai soundtrack.
The use of local songs from the opening scene to the credits is one of the highlights of the adaptation. From 1975's Jatuh Cinta by Emilia Contesa to Chrisye's Hip Hip Hura Hura and to Ku Menanti by Iwan Fals, the songs are undoubtedly an homage to Indonesian pop songs of the 1980s and 1990s.
The selection team, which included Rizal and several Musica people, chose the songs based on the mood of the scene instead of on the lyrics. Rizal then matched the songs to the scene, timing it exactly -- sometimes the songs had to be altered to fit the scene, creating a longer intro or even a new song to achieve the right mood.
In the end, whether you tap your feet to Hetty Koes Endang's Demi Cinta Niye or cry your heart out to Chrisye's Pergilah Kasih, the movie's soundtrack is a real treat, bringing back the good old days.
But can a good thing come around twice? Devi of Fiesta said: "This is the first time for us and we want to see the market's reaction, if such a film can be accepted. So far, we haven't found any new script that's 'perfect' enough for an adaptation like this."
When asked if he'll make another adaptation, Rizal hinted that there might not be a second time around: "It's a once in a lifetime project. I really love the movie and want to share that experience with everybody."
The colloquial dialog and nostalgic songs complete the simple, heartbreaking story and wonderful performances in the original, making the movie's charm accessible for audiences of all age groups.
Children will love to see themselves mirrored on screen, seniors will chuckle at memories that still linger in the past, and young couples will remember "their song". All in all, it is a tribute to that childhood love we all remember and cherish for a lifetime.