Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on media such as movies, TV shows, or interviews. The voices of the actors shown on the screen are replaced by those of different actors who translate the original audio into a different language.

Dubbing localizes material to a foreign market using a voice artist or voice actor. The actors who record often aren’t famous and generally remain unknown, with few exceptions. In some cases, actors develop a fan base when they continuously dub the same characters or actors.

After a movie is wrapped and moves to post-production, it is time to localize. Translators who reside in- territory create a translation, which is then conformed, so the words fit better with the actor’s lip movements. Next, voice-over actors are cast with sensitivity to matching characteristics of the original actor’s voice to maintain the original integrity.

In one method of recording, actors read from a script while watching the video and wait for a beep to indicate that their line is coming up. Another technique is “rythmo band” where the movie plays and lines of dialogue scroll across the bottom of the screen, stretching and compressing in different places, indicating how to time words with the character’s mouth.

To finish the process, once the foreign actors’ voices are recorded, sound editors fine-tune the foreign lip-synched. Sound mixers then blend the dialogue with the M&E so that everything syncs perfectly.