 |
| Team Phanthamit |
That's the jaundiced view, of course. Many Thais have an emotional attachment to dubbing artists, because they grew up with dubbed soundtracks, particularly for Asian action movies.
Perhaps the best-known voice actors who provide dubbing are those from the so-called Phanthamit team, who are renowned for adding their own jokes to Asian comedies and slapstick action films, to make them more 'in' with Thai audiences.
Still, it's always good to have a choice. Even in parts of Bangkok - never mind the provinces - it can be hard to find a rental VCD of a foreign film with the original soundtrack in place. Some provide subtitles in Thai running along the bottom, but many film studios remove the original soundtrack altogether, and replace it with a dubbed one.
A lively debate broke out on the Pantip webboard when one poster grumbled about the quality of Thai dubbing on Western films. 'Do you ever listen to yourselves?' he asked. 'Why the hammy stuttering, the funny accents, the lack of spoken clarity, and the flat jokes? How do you feel - embarrassed?'
He mentioned dubbing for the movie Babel, starring Brad Pitt. In one scene his wife is shot, and he calls out for a doctor. In the Thai soundtrack, someone from inside his car responds: 'Will a midwife do?'
The poster responds sarcastically: 'Thanks so much to those who inserted those jokes. They go so well with the situation being depicted, don't they?'
The poster says he is not sure who dubbed the soundtrack, but he didn't see the need for the script to be altered. It was a dramatic scene, but someone in the dubbing studio decided to throw in a joke of his own to make it 'funny'.
Other posters jumped in to defend Phanthamit (ทีมพากย์พันธมิตร), which the author singled out for criticism. They said Phanthamit's voice artists could make a film more humorous. When you were watching a film dubbed by the Pantamit team, you could be sure of a good laugh.
The tradition of Thai dubbing goes back to the advent of the talkies, when voice artists would provide a simultaneous translation in the cinema as the film was being screened. They would provide all the roles in the film, and even simulate sound effects such as animal noises, cars and gunfire. Some became stars in their own right.
As recently as the 70s, local film-makers still resorted to dubbing.
They used relatively inexpensive 16mm film, which required post-production studio dubbing, or, if they were unable to afford sound equipment, made films with the intention that live dubbing would be provided by performers reading from a script. A Wiki entry on Thai dubbing says live dubbing remained common until recent years, especially for outdoor screenings of films at temple fairs in rural areas.
Another Wiki entry reveals the extent to which dubbing is practised worldwide, to 'localise' foreign films or television shows. In the Russian, Spanish and Italian-speaking markets, virtually all movies are released only in dubbed format. Nor are 'creative translations' so uncommon: in Hungary, for example, translators compose Hungarian text to rhyme for comedies and cartoons.
In Thailand, voice artists have changed scripts to make a political point, not just to entertain. In the wake of the 1973 uprising, voice artists performing upcountry used to rename the villains in foreign and local movies to identify them with contemporary political or military leaders.
Pantamit's reputation for injecting humour into comedies and slapstick action movies can pose problems when its voice artists go to dub more serious films.
Sometimes, a voice artist will play a dramatic scene 'straight' - but will still draw a laugh from audiences, who think they have heard something funny, not serious.
The company's head, Poripan Wacahranon, (โต๊ะ -ปริภัณฑ์ วัชรานนท์), started Phanthamit 15 years ago, after working as a voice artist for Channel 3. In an interview with the Manager newspaper, he admits the company's voice artists have made fools of themselves on some dubbing efforts.
now, see part 2
now, see part 2
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are welcome, in English or Thai (I can't read anything else). Anonymous posting is discouraged, unless you'd like to give yourself a name at the bottom of your post, so we can tell who you are.