Your Voice is precious!

Ever wondered what it would be like to be the voice of Superman? Or even an actor whom you really like? Won’t that be awesome? A career in voice dubbing would grant you an opportunity to do the same. Voice dubbing is a reproduction of voice by imitating a character’s speaking style, their mannerisms, gestures, characteristics, and idiosyncrasies.

With a boom in the television industry, the avenues for voice dubbing artistes have increased tremendously. Some of the larger film and television production houses nowadays have their own dubbing departments where they produce a single program in number of languages to cater to the entire world. Many major TV serials or films originally made in Hindi are dubbed into various regional languages. Even South Indian films are being dubbed in Hindi. All new Hollywood films also are dubbed in Hindi and other languages. The options do not stop here, there are number of video and radio program, documentaries, presentations, radio/TV jingles, spots, etc. where voice dubbing artiste can exhibit their talent. As a result, the prospects for voice dubbing artistes are immense.

To quote Noel Keymer, Mumbai-based entrepreneur and radio jockey, “Anyone who doesn’t have a speech hiccup,” can take up this profession. To be a voice dubbing or voice over artiste, you need to have a good, clear voice, clear diction, firm command over one or more languages, and an ability to emote through voice. A good voice isn’t enough but an ability to emote properly is very significant.  Cartoon dubbing need lot of variation in voice and a single artist can perform dubbing for many characters. Since we are used to hearing cartoon voices in broken, jarred voice; lot of modulation and stretch of voice is required. Mimicry artistes have a good advantage  in this case.

Even though considered as an offbeat career, the voice dubbing artistes are paid pretty well. A fresher can earn Rs 300-500 per hour for dubbing and a more experienced person can earn Rs 5,000-7,000 an hour. It can even be Rs 30,000 for a whole feature. More popular people of this field may even charge Rs 10,000 for a unit (around 10 minutes). Voice-overs for e-books and presentations get paid Rs 250-500 an hour. Not bad at all!

So if you think you have a good voice and an ability to speak authentically and entertain people, then you should definitely consider a career in voice dubbing.