The train is on and it is picking up its pace. Artificial intelligence (AI) already makes it possible to dub actors in all languages, while retaining their original voices. All of this is done in the name of the actors’ artistic integrity. But to the detriment of a profession that employs nearly 4,000 people in Quebec.
See for yourself. Tom Cruise interviews Jack Nicholson in the French version of the film A Few Good Men, by Rob Reiner, retouched by the artificial intelligence experts at Flawless AI. But it’s her voice with its intonations that we clearly recognize… quite well synchronized with the movement of her lips. The result, which can be seen in their promotional video, is remarkable.
This company, which has a storefront in Hollywood and London, was co-founded by English producer and director Scott Mann, who notably directed the films Heistwith Robert DeNiro, Final Score And fallreleased in 2022, which is the first film to benefit from TrueSync technology.
Thanks to this software, Scott Mann succeeded in replacing the approximately 30 F*** words of the two main actresses by re-recording other words over it in post-production. It is thanks to this process – commonly called deepfakewhere the movement of the mouth is altered to accommodate new phrases being spoken – that it has been given the ‘PG 13’ rating…
A technology that raises, it must be said, some concerns, and that the American artistic community would like to see framed, since it makes it possible to rewrite the dialogues from scratch, and therefore, in theory, to make the actors say what they never said.
fall could have been doubled using this same software, but for now TrueSync is still running. Clearly, it is a question of modulating (subtly) the movements of the mouth in order to secure them with the translated dialogues, delivered with the voice of the interpreter – of which the system has archives.
A process that we were able to appreciate in the documentary The Andy Warhol Diaries (offered on Netflix), which Andy Warhol narrates himself, despite the fact that he has been dead for 36 years! A work carried out by the firm Resemble AI over a period of several months.
Nevertheless. Flawless AI is getting closer to its goal: to put an end to human dubbing in the name of the actors’ “artistic integrity”. In an interview with the magazine Time, Scott Mann believes that the dubbed dialogue is “rarely in sync” with the facial movements of the actors. Second, “they sacrifice the meaning and nuance” of dubbed content, he believes.
The American movie Every Time I Dieby Robi Michael, released in theaters in 2019, was the first film to benefit from this technology from A to Z. An initiative of the young Israeli company Deephub, which dubbed the film using AI in 2022 – using the original voice of each of the actors.
Another project that was launched this year with this same technology: an advertising campaign led by the firm Synthesia to eradicate malaria, which featured footballer David Beckham. Again, the dubbing was done in several languages, with the voice of Beckham.
Quebec on the alert
In Quebec, despite these impressive advances from the viewer’s point of view, there are far more fears than excitement about AI dubbing. Because if – or rather when – the American steamroller really gets going, this profession and this know-how risk disappearing.
According to the Union des artistes (UDA), 44% of the 8,450 active members declare income from dubbing, but also from narration (whether documentaries, audio books or video descriptions), video games or advertisement. So many sectors targeted by artificial intelligence software. We are therefore talking about more than 3,700 people directly affected.
“Dubbing with artificial intelligence software represents a serious challenge”, confirms the management of the UDA, who intends to meet the Minister of Culture and Communications, Mathieu Lacombe, “in the very short term”. . “It’s an issue, precisely because it’s a sector that employs nearly half of our members, but also because it affects our Quebec cultural identity. With synthetic voices, we lose the specificity of our language. »
Frédérik Zacharek is an actor who does a lot of dubbing. To the point of now being a set director for dubbing projects. He is worried about the prospect that his workplace – there are around 750 actors who specifically dub films and series, according to the UDA – will be replaced by synthetic voices.
We must not forget that the actors who do dubbing and narration in Quebec help finance the social safety net of the UDA. Without this contribution, what are we going to do? Synthetic voices are a threat over which we have no control, which we do not see coming and which is difficult to assess, but we must adopt a protectionist law for the cultural environment now. . Thereafter, it will be impossible to avoid that.
Frederik Zacharek, actor
For the past week, a petition has even been posted on Facebook by Frenchman Olivier Barbery, editor-in-chief of the magazine sync, specializing in dubbing. As of Thursday, the petition Dubbing: against AI to replace actors had collected nearly 7,500 signatures, in particular thanks to the participation of several hundred Quebec signatories.
act now
“Lowering the production costs of dubbing in France and in French-speaking countries such as Belgium or Quebec can encourage the majors and streaming platforms to use AI in this sector, and thus put a whole section of the profession out of work. writes Olivier Barbery.
The dubbing specialist invites signatories to “act now”, before it’s too late.
From the viewer’s point of view, not everyone wonders who is behind the speaking voice, but Frédérik Zacharek believes that Quebecers identify with local voices. When the actress Béatrice Picard, who was the voice of Marge Simpson for 33 years (in the French version of the series The Simpsons), bowed out last January, she also received several tributes.
As soon as a film or series needs to be dubbed, the five main Quebec studios get busy – Difuze, Cinelume, Pixcom, La Belle Équipe and Mel’s. The texts are written by adapters, then the actors enter the studio to record their voices.
For example, Alain Zouvi is the Quebec voice of Brad Pitt; Bernard Fortin, that of Tom Hanks; David Laurin, that of Leonardo DiCaprio; Aline Pinsonneault, that of Reese Witherspoon and Natalie Portman; Guy Nadon, that of Dustin Hoffman; Isabelle Leyrolles, that of Jennifer Aniston and Eva Mendes; Gilbert Lachance, that of Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp.
When the projects of Flawless AI, Deephub, Resemble AI, Synthesia and others multiply, unless a legislative framework is put in place, these voices will die out.