subject: Half An Hour Rec. Session For Just Four Words ? [print this page] Oh, certainly that's the minimum if you want to record the real thing !
And that's precisely what we are showing in this video clip: the recording session actually lasted for a whole day, because we recorded nine language versions in a row of a one single 5'' billboard. Time and dedication were invested not just because it's about a very famous and prestigious brand, but also due to the fact that this advert is showing on a well-known international TV station.
So it's a kind of rule: the smaller the text, the longer the time devoted to recording.
How can that contemplation can be justified? Well, everything starts with the translation, not easy either, because here you rather adapt a text for a target audience, instead of a simple conventional translation that could ruin both the original meaning and spirit of the slogan or advert. Once the text is validated by the client, we then have to choose the right voices. In this case, the keyword was elegance, because both the brand and the program that is sponsored have that in common: culture, refinement, status and prestige. So Grazia our artistic director chose not just another deep voice, but a distinguished voice like that of our friend Jean-Claude. Like his other colleagues (Spanish, English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic and Turkish) Jean-Claude had to convey in those four words the right elegant pitch, the vocal vibrations that prompt in your mind those brand values the client wants to convey. Sergio, our engineer, equalized the voice track with some good old tube sound to highlight warmth and proximity. Then normalized and exported the track in the right broadcasting format.
So as you can see in our main characters of the video, Jean-Claude, Sergio and Grazia, recording a billboard is not a factory process, it's a delicate operation that needs patience, care and also sense of humor.
