From talking birds to chatty woodland creatures, a voicing or dubbing artist can breathe life into a variety of animated characters. For English entertainment channel Zee Caf?, the process of selecting a voice-over artiste turned out to be so interesting that channel officials decided to showcase it as a reality game show. However, despite the abundance in dubbing and voice-over work, the recognition garnered by voicing artists is minimal.
Sujay Kutty, Business Head, Zee Studio says, ?Voice-over artists in India definitely deserve more recognition. They are an extremely talented lot who contribute in unimaginable ways into shaping entertainment on television.?
Last year, dubbing artists had participated in the strike called by the Federation of Western India Cine Employees over the disagreement over the remuneration of TV technicians and workers. When the strike ended in December, 2008, the remuneration of most technicians were raised but very little attention was paid to the needs of voicing artists. Ankur Zaveri, President, Association of Voice Artistes says, ?Most of the artists are not paid on time, some of the dubbing artists are not paid at all.?
Show me the money
Says a voice-over artist, ?The pay structure is almost the same as it was two decades ago. Sometimes television shows do not feature our names in the credits. Though advertising agencies tend to pay better than most film makers and television production houses, there is rampant favouritism and very little scope for newcomers.?
Voicing artist Meena Gokuldas, who has been in the profession for over 23 years says, ?The kind of money that some artists get paid is as low as Rs 750. It is shameful.? She adds, ?There are too many people in the voicing industry these days as there is a sudden surge in the number of nondescript institutes, teaching dubbing and voicing. Most dubbing artists do not take this profession seriously and feel it is a gateway to acting in TV shows or films. ? Media analyst Amod Mehra feels, ?The scenario today is different and much better than that of 1990s. Prominent dubbing artists like Arvind Mehra, Pratap Sharma and radio personality Amin Sayani have made a mark for themselves.? While earlier a dubbing artist was paid as less as Rs 500 for an assignment, they can earn anywhere between Rs 10,000 and Rs 1, 00,000 these days.
Zee Caf??s talent hunt show like Mic Testing not only gives a cash prize of up to Rs 1 lakh but the winner also gets the opportunity to lend his or her voice to all promos on air. Kutty says, ?A lot of channels go the extra mile and invest in creative voice-over artists to ensure on-air content is reflective of a brand personality that the channel is known for.? The 24-hour music channel banks on characters like Bheegi Billi, Bade-Chote and the recently launched Badshah Bhai.
Good returns
INX Media?s music channel 9XM has an array of animated characters as hosts. Officials at the channel feel that the return on investment on an animated character is much higher as the intellectual property rights for the characters belongs to the channel itself. According to Vikas Varma, Head, 9XM, ?The creation of animation characters is a long and tedious process. Once the personality of each of our characters is decided, we do countless auditions to get the voice-personality that matches the character?s personality.?
An analyst says, ?Many celebrities, especially cricket players who endorse several brands, do not have the time to return to a recording studio and dub for the TV commercials that they appear in. Thus, it is usually a voicing artist who fills in and impersonates the apt voices.? A debutant actor may sometimes lack the right diction, pronunciation and tonality required for good dialogue delivery, accordingly voicing artists are hired to lend a seasoned voice for a film. Despite these, voicing artists are yet to receive their due credit, sums up Zaveri.
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