Workforce Language Services

A fascinating article in AZ Central’s online newspaper describes the history of movie dubbing and voice overs and how Mexico City is no longer the nexus for this field.  Mexican Spanish has long been lauded as being the most “generic” with regard to accent and speaking conventions.  This, along with Mexico’s rich movie and TV history, had once made it the capital of the dubbing industry.

But now the world’s second-biggest metropolis is losing this distinction. More and more, studios are sending work to other countries, drawn by lower costs and a new generation of Venezuelan, Colombian and Argentine actors who have mastered the generic Spanish accent.

From 1999 to 2004, profits from Mexico’s dubbing industry fell 73 percent, from $11.2 million to $3 million, according to government figures. Although Mexico is still the location of choice for film translations, TV work is going elsewhere, said Magdalena Questa, managing director of Grabaciones y Doblajes, S.A.

The article also highlights some of the challenges to dubbing films, how Mexico has lost a good deal of dubbing and voice-over business, and the countries which have been picking up this work in recent decades.

To read the entire article, click here.