Art or Industry? Working conditions and quality in dubbing

Abstract

This thesis compares and contrasts dubbing in the four biggest European dubbing countries (France, Italy, Germany and Spain - FIGS) and dubbing in the Netherlands, which is a subtitling country. The central question in the thesis is how the position of dubbing in a country, i.e. whether it is or is not the dominant mode of audiovisual translation, affects working conditions and quality in dubbing. Viewers who grow up with dubbing become so habituated to it that they fail to see or ignore its shortcomings, including flaws in dubbings that could have been prevented. Because of this uncritical audience, clients of dubbing studios in the FIGS are able to impose low budgets and tight deadlines on dubbing studios, which cause less-than-ideal working conditions and poorer quality. One might expect the Dutch audience to be more critical, but the Dutch audience of dubbing mostly consists of children who are not very critical of dubbing at all either. Thus, it is no wonder that the Dutch dubbing industry also struggles with low budgets and tight deadlines.