As Subtitling and Dubbing Booms for Global Series, Experts Urge Productions to Plan in Advance

variety.com:

Manori Ravindran International EditorAs programming becomes increasingly international in scope in the streaming age, experts are urging the international drama community to allow plenty of time for accurate subtitling and dubbing.

But as Netflix found out with “Squid Game,” sometimes a show can become a global hit overnight and leave you scrambling.Netflix’s Catherine Retat, the streamer’s Paris-based director of international dubbing, told Series Mania delegates about the steep learning curve required for the service to properly accommodate the subtitling and dubbing needs for its volume of shows.“‘Squid Game’ is a wonderful series but no one expected [more than] 100 million viewers in the first 28 days,” said Retat. “We realized we didn’t dub in Italian.

We had a suite of languages but not Italian…The content team was like, ‘Please, please hurry!’ but we took our time and we did it right.” Retat said her team is “learning as we go” and “identifying the best languages so the team puts in effort at the right time and in the right way.”A big part of the process, she said, is working “upstream” with creatives, meaning her team gets involved earlier on to allow the group to evaluate what the subtitling and/or dubbing needs will be.

On one German show in the works (Retat didn’t elaborate on its title), the dubbing team saw a first cut back in November that allowed them to get some context on the show.“This is where we must be in sync with our content team and the producers and creatives,” said Retat. “We have to work very closely with them.