Dubbers — Jørn Tomter

DUBBERS: portraits of invisible Hollywood stars

These portraits capture the faces of the German voices given to some of the world’s most famous actors – shining a light on these invisible stars.

Voice dubbing actors are big business in many European countries and DUBBERS delves behind the scenes of this industry in Germany, to uncover the hidden kudos and find out who these people are.

This ongoing project took root after I lived briefly in Berlin and found that every time I went to the cinema, the characters’ voices were dubbed. Like many of us who are used to foreign language films with subtitles, I had no idea that Germany has the largest revoicing market in Europe. I became fascinated with the subject, its history and today’s high level dubbing culture.

It is a culture that stems from the Second World War. Though it existed earlier, post 1945, America wanted west Germans to get as much American culture as possible and it knew that if films were all in English, the locals would have little to do with it. So the US heavily subsidised the German dubbing industry post-war to give all American films a high value place in Germany.

As a craft, it requires real talent. Synchronisation has to be spot on: if the dubbing actors end just a second late, the whole scene has to be redone. And not only are they lip syncing German lines, they also have to mimic the inflections of the original actor.

Audiences also get used to the authenticity of a particular voice, so if they’re ever dropped in favour of someone new, there’s generally uproar in Germany.

With this long tradition of dubbed dialogue for films and TV programmes, many of these voice actors are household names, but others remain unsung heroes, working in what can be an isolating and underappreciated profession. DUBBERS brings some of them to light.