In my last post, Fun with Kidneys!, you heard about the new informational short I produced for the non-profit Renal Support Network, featuring the animated Kidneys Neff and Nuff. Pleased with the results, Lori Hartwell at RSN asked to have it dubbed into Spanish.
Actor and comedian Sandra Valls was brought in to translate the script and to do the voice of Neff. She, in turn, brought her friend - actor and one-time Mr. Colombia (no lie!) Andres Mejia to voice Nuff.
I booked time at Outloud Audio in Burbank for last Thursday. Because of COVID protocols, only one actor at a time was allowed inside. The closest I could get was a bench in their parking lot, where I set up my laptop to Zoom into the session. The Outloud folks were super helpful in getting me set up, even scrounging up a power cord when the session went overtime and my battery was running out.
The session itself consisted of a line-by-line recording to picture with timecode. Engineer Kyle provided a three beep lead-in cue to each line. Through Zoom, I could see both the footage and the actor, and we could speak to each other. Sometimes there was a bit of a delay in playback because of wi-fi connection, but it was never a major problem.
Before the session, Sandra wanted to go over the scripts, because some of the lines ran much longer in Spanish. She brainstormed with Andres about shorter translations. It was fun watching them hash out the differences between his Colombian Spanish with her Mexican variety. There was a comical chemistry between them, Sandra being quite hilarious. For my part, I sat nodding my head, understanding none of it. Needless to say, I could not have done this session without their collective input.
Gratias Sandra and Andres!
-Steve
