Voice Over – DeafCat Studios

Arabic Localization, How it All Started!

Deafcat Studios — Mon, 18 Jun 2018 11:27:58 +0000

History of Arabic Localization

Through history, both human communication and the evolution of Arabic Localization using expression and dialogue were regarded as the main trigger for the elevation of human civilization. The use of writing through newspapers followed by photography, enabled communication to shift beyond. Reaching the 20th century, which was the dawn of media after the invasion of radio and film (TV) where people had the chance to see what others across the world looked like. Both, considered the most powerful aids of communication, source of information and entertainment. They made their way into homes becoming immensely a major component in everyone’s daily life routine. With a late, came the Internet, the latest assertive of all mass media linking the globe.

Globalization vs Arabic Localization

In today’s world of globalization, and with the expansion of broadcasting audiovisual sector. People are on daily basis coming in contact with films, TV programs, music and video games, many of which originated in foreign countries and with different languages. To make this contact possible and efficient, screen translations were used. Later on, came dubbing, one of the screen or audiovisual forms of translation, which involves the replacement of the original speech by a voice track. It attempts to follow as closely as possible the timing, phrasing and lip movement of the original dialogue. This became the upcoming trend. Pushing thus, translation, adaptation and localization in the US and Europe to their highest apex for the good of global interaction.

The Ages of Localization

Meanwhile, in the late 70s, the Middle East, distant from localizing foreign content, came Nicolas Abu Samah, a renowned Lebanese film director, introducing “Arabic dubbing” and establishing his own company FILMALI in Lebanon to eventually become the first entity of the region that kick-started the industry of dubbing in Arabic to the Arab world. Hence, and for the past four decades, FILMALI, followed by DeafCat Studios, a company established in 2006 due to the expansion of services offered. Hence, fully determined to provide consistently the highest quality of localized productions and services. Deafcat Studios, specialized in Arabic VO recording, Arabic translations, dubbing into Arabic, Arabic voice over, music production, 2.0 and 5.1 mixing as well as mastering. More recently, a boom of the video game industry, DeafCat Studios positioned itself to be one of the top companies to offer Arabic video game localization services to the biggest developers in the world.

Which Arabic Voice Over Talent is Right for You?

Deafcat Studios — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 20:01:49 +0000

Arabic Voice Over

You have a movie, cartoon, advert, radio spot or any project that needs Arabic Voice Over and you are not quite sure how to go about it? You ask around and the feedback around you just makes things more complicated because you realize that there are too many factors that come into play when choosing the proper Arabic voice over talent that would ensure a great final product? Well, we have compiled a couple of best practices that might help you take the proper decision.

1- Understanding the project type and the requirements: That is a no brainer really, but choosing the proper Arabic voice over talent is still a very important part of the project. A good director can help you cast the right talent since he/she usually knows the strengths and weaknesses of the talents that they work with. For example, some talents are really good for cartoon based projects and some are better for drama and others are really good at recording ads. It is very important to understand the project requirements very well and trust the director’s recommendations for a successful project.

2- Identifying your target audience: Every Arabic voice over job is supposed to speak out to a certain target audience; literally. Hence it is essential to be able to speak the target audience’s language. If you are talking to kids, you need to be able to speak their lingo, and if you are talking to business men you should be able to convey confidence etc. Consequently, adapting the translation to your target audience’s style is a very important aspect in delivering a powerful voice over project.

3- Choosing the right Arabic dialect: There are 300+ million Arabs in the Arab world who speak hundreds of different dialects. However, the good news is that modern standard Arabic is common for all. Hence, if you want to reach a vast majority of Arab speakers, you should always pick modern standard Arabic for your projects. Nevertheless, modern standard is not always the best option since it is very heavy and a bit classical and definitely is not the first choice for a comedy series for example. Instead you can opt for a lighter local dialect such as Lebanese that is still understood by the majority of Arabs.

4- Preserve the essence of the original reference video track: The majority of voice over projects that we work with at the studio usually have original English reference and M&E tracks. We find it extremely essential to preserve the essence of the original reference while working on the Arabic voice over track. Our job at the end of the day is to make sure that we are properly communicating the client’s message in as much authenticity as possible.

5- Provide clients with exceptional mixing and mastering services: Last but not least, mixing and mastering are the glue that holds the final project together. When poorly performed, mixing and mastering can easily turn a great voice over project into a major flop. Hence, it is important to work with mixing and mastering engineers that have experience in Arabic voice over projects.

Knowledge & Information about Arabic Language

You have to understand the the Arabic language is very hard sounding and can create a lot of sibilance, hence a talented sound engineer needs to be able to properly deal with the sibilance while making sure that the words are understandable and without affecting the overall audio track quality.

5.1 Mix for Arabic Dubbing Movies

Deafcat Studios — Sun, 03 May 2015 09:55:39 +0000

It’s always exciting to work on cool Arabic dubbing projects. That’s exactly what we have been doing recently at the studio and it’s just great!
The whole team is buzzing with energy, putting long hour and having a blast especially with a couple of 5.1 projects that we’ve been working on. Mixing a 5.1 movie is very different than mixing a 2.0 movie there’s no doubt about that. It gets even more complicated when you add to the equation Arabic dubbing.

First of all, our casting director needs to find the perfect Arab voice over talents that can match the original English cast. This is an art form by itself and we are very lucky to have a superb director with more than 20 years of experience that does that for us.

When the cast is done, and the Arabic scripts are ready, we start with the recording sessions. Now this is where the magic happens! We are so lucky to work with extremely talented and experienced Arab actors that can easily dub any class. An international supper star! That’s really comforting to know. When the recording sessions are done, our editing team make sure to clean up all the recordings and make the session file ready for our mix engineer. Our mix engineer is by far the superstar of the studio!

It is hard enough mixing all the Arabic dubbed tracks in 2.0, but doing it in 5.1 is a different ball game all together. Our mix engineer needs to make sure that all the Arabic tracks are mixed in to match the same quality of the original movie which is usually a multi-million dollars Hollywood production. How do we do it? Well it is simply talent and dedication! It all starts with a proper analysis or the original movie audio tracks. Sound discrimination, spectrum analysis, timber of sound identification, spatial analysis, volume mix, re-verbs etc. This thorough analysis allows our mix engineer to plan the 5.1 mix properly and to better understand the scope of work.
From that point over, it is basically talent and experience that gets the job done. We are very lucky to have a great team working in synergy together, for that the performance of one team member affects the overall quality of the project.

For more information about 5.1 mixes for Arabic dubbing movies, feel free to drop us a line and get in touch!

Modern Standard Arabic Voice Over for Cartoons!

Deafcat Studios — Sun, 22 Feb 2015 21:49:03 +0000

A couple of days ago a producer at a TV network contacted me for a potential business collaboration. The project at hand was dubbing into Arabic cartoon series and animated movies. During our conversation, he asked me a few questions that you can find below in this Q&A.

Q: What is the difference between all the various Arabic dialects and which one in your opinion is the best sounding?

A: There are more than 30 dialects in the Arabic language and they are very different from each other. Some dialects are really heavy and influenced by other languages and other dialects are light and closer to the modern standard Arabic, hence the lighter the dialect the more understandable by the majority of Arabs. If you look at mass media in the MENA region, they usually opt for anchors who speak a lighter dialect like Egyptian, Lebanese, Syrian or even Tunisian so that all Arabs can understand. It is very difficult for me to choose the best sounding dialect since it is very subjective; however, if I was to pick one, I would select a dialect that is light and modern such as Lebanese or Egyptian.

Q: Should Arabic voice over for cartoons be performed in modern standard Arabic or in a specific dialect?

A: Well if the cartoon is to be broadcasted to a mass regional audience, then it would make more sense to record it in modern standard Arabic and not a specific dialect.

Q: Do you think modern standard Arabic can be used for comedy roles or would it be better to opt for the local slang?

A: There is no doubt that some Arab regions are more relaxed than others, and people of these regions are usually very sociable and have a great sense of humor. Therefore, their local dialects can also be perceived as humorous. However, modern standard Arabic can be equally humorous if not more. We have dubbed funny cartoon series into modern standard Arabic and they were highly successful. I would definitely recommend it over a local dialect.

You can watch below some of the cartoons that have been dubbed with modern standard Arabic voice over.

Get in touch with us today and we’ll provide you with the most comprehensive offering while committing to high quality service at a smart cost.

Arabic Voice Over, Finding the Right Talent!

Deafcat Studios — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 09:38:34 +0000

Finding fresh talents in the Middle East for Arabic voice over projects is becoming more and more difficult. We live in an age where the broadcasting and the whole media industry in general reached its lowest in terms of its quality of content production and more specifically Arabic content production! There’s no doubt that some clients choose to produce cheap content just for the sake of maximizing their profits. Yet it is without a doubt that those who care enough to produce higher quality content reap the benefits. Consequently finding talent that can deliver high quality content for Arabic voice over projects is becoming a very difficult task.
However, there’s always amazing talent out there, and we at the studio are lucky to work with a few. Yet talent comes with a cost, and over the years we learned that paying a little extra brings indisputable added value for our projects.

It is without a doubt that a well spoken actor with experience who masters the Arabic language is always a delight to work with especially for Arabic voice over projects. At the end of day, the objective of most VO projects is to communicate a message, and that’s simpler said than done. For that reason, a talented and experienced actor can facilitate the process and turn the project into a success.

We have a database of over more than 1,000 Arab talents from all ages and genders. Get in touch with us today and we will cast the right talent for your projects.

Arabic E-Learning Project

Deafcat Studios — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 19:27:24 +0000

So it seems that E-Learning is a multi-billion dollar industry, and we had no clue. Well that’s until we were approached by a very cool client who was tackling this growing sector in the Middle East. Apparently, big corporations in the MENA region and more specifically in the GCC (UAE and Saudi Arabia), invest a lot in their HR departments and encourage employees to take extra curricular educational lessons to improve their knowledge and skills. That’s where my client’s company plays a bridging role between international educational institutions and regional companies by providing E-learning solutions in Arabic for employees. We provide him with high quality recording and mastering for the Arabic scripts.
Not to mention that the whole team at DeafCat Studios is very excited to work on these e-learning projects for two reasons:

1- They allow us to cater to a relatively new e-learning industry in the Middle East.
2- We are actually learning from these courses… for free.

VO request from Dubai turns out to be quite challenging

Deafcat Studios — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 19:14:48 +0000

Technically, voice over (VO) projects are quite simple to do. However it gets a little bit complicated when the delivery date is very short and when the script is not available. The last voice over project I got from a small production house in the United Arab Emirates (Dubai) and it was quite a fun challenge where I had to do script writing of 7 short videos (reportage) to which the main protagonist was a French guy speaking in English. That alone took quite a lot of time because I couldn’t understand what the French guy was saying in English. It was funny but the team and I did it.

After that, we had to translate the script from English to classical Arabic and then we had to find out the right talent to do VO. After recording the scripts, the mixing engineer did a fantastic job mixing the voice over with the original audio track so that all the videos had a uniformed master track. Taking on small projects like that is always fun because you never know what you might expect but most importantly because the studio can cater to the needs of smaller production houses with limited budgets.

Recording studio for Arabic projects

Deafcat Studios — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 18:55:36 +0000

For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been receiving quite a few emails from foreign clients asking us about how to choose which dialect they need to adopt for the dubbing projects in Arabic. It also seems that all the soaps that are being dubbed into Arabic c are being done in the Syrian dialect. Well, ten years ago, the most popular soaps were dubbed in classical Arabic and they had as much impact if not more than the Syrian ones. In my opinion, Syrian dialect has picked up in the dubbing of soaps in Arabic, just because the production houses found it very cost effective to go to a Syrian company with highly competitive cost.

At DeafCat Studios, we believe that in order to reach the highest number of Arabic speaking people in the region, it is better if a soap is dubbed in a classical Arabic and not the Syrian or any other dialect. Classical Arabic is a beautiful and very rich language and it brings a lot of value and class to any project.

Imagine if all those Turkish soaps were dubbed in classical Arabic, wouldn’t have they sounded better?

Arabic voice over for corporate presentations

Deafcat Studios — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 16:45:47 +0000

It seems that there are a lot of companies internationally that are looking to translate and add Arabic Voice Over to their corporate presentation. We at DeafCat Studios have a wide selection of Female and Male Arabic talents and copywriters that are more than qualified to cater to our clients’ needs. Voice Over in Arabic can be a little bit tricky since there are many dialects, therefore it is always advisable to go for the proper Arabic or the written one since it is common in all Arab speaking countries.