Hacker News Reader

Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

I've been watching "Babylon Berlin" on Netflix which is pretty good. But I was annoyed at the dubbing, it just felt out of place.

I finally found a switch to switch to the German soundtrack with English subtitles. I'm much happier with that.

I wonder why each scene is not just shot twice, once with the German dialog and once with English. It would work much better than dubbing.

View on HN

> I wonder why each scene is not just shot twice, once with the German dialog and once with English.

Because this would require an exclusively bilingual cast, dialog that works equally well in both languages, and would drastically increase the production cost.

> an exclusively bilingual cast,

Not really. First off, most Germans seem to know English passably well. Even if one doesn't know English well, one can still memorize/recite dialog. There isn't that much dialog in a show. And lastly, one can always dub the ones who can't do it, as a last resort.

> dialog that works equally well in both languages,

A requirement anyway if it is being dubbed.

> and would drastically increase the production cost

Increase it, sure, not so sure about drastically. Why spend a lot of money on the production (as is obvious in Babylon Berlin) only to make it sound crappy to the biggest market (English speaking)? An English soundtrack makes it accessible to most of the world.

It's not just a matter of shooting it 2x. It's a matter of getting the scene right the second time. Each final shot that makes it in has many that don't. In contrast, dubbing is relatively cheap.

Because that's super expensive. Just bless netflix for always providinh original version and subtitles.

I don't see why. Multiple takes are often done anyway. The setting is all there, the actors in place, the lighting - just do another take. It doesn't have to be done for all the scenes.

I also wonder why the original actors didn't do the dub voices.

If you ever did acting before you would understand how difficult it is to get a scene just right and how misguided your statement is.

Nope, I've never done any acting. But Director Clint Eastwood has a reputation for "one take" and seems to disagree with you:

"Everybody's heard those nightmare stories of somebody doing a take 20, 30, 40 times. Other than obvious errors like forgetting a line, often I can't see any difference between take one and take 20."

https://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/0309-Sept-2003/C...

That’s great that Clint Eastwood personally prefers that style, but that doesn’t make it universally true nor does it mean that other directors would have the same results with one take. The negative effects of stifling a director by placing this artificial constraint would probably counteract any positives of having two versions.

Agreed. All the directors I have worked with have required multiple takes for certain scenes. The cost of an additional take is small and the reward of a better shot greatly outweighs that cost.

> The cost of an additional take is small

Exactly my point!

> the reward of a better shot greatly outweighs that cost

My point, too, the "better shot" being the improvement of the lips and voice matching the movement and action. Consider that the English language market is most of the world.

I get what you are saying but to retake a well shot scene in order to have a better dubbing experience doesn't make sense. I encourage you to make a film to test your idea, though :)

> doesn't make sense

I've seen it done, don't recall which movie it was.

> make a film

I'd love to do that. Wanna finance me?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com