What Determines the Price of a Dubbing Voice-over?

Step 1: Preparing the translation and lip synchronisation

Lip-sync dubbing is where the translated dialogue exactly matches the original on-screen performance. This includes syllables, mouth movements, and breathing pauses.

This preparation work largely determines how successful your recording session will be. A literal translation rarely fits a character's lip movements. For example, if an English-speaking character says 'absolutely', a Flemish 'ongetwijfeld' (undoubtedly) has a different mouth closure than 'absoluut' (absolutely). In our studio in Flanders, we see adapters spend most of their time on this: lengthening or shortening sentences without losing meaning.

• Text analysis: We determine time codes and stresses for each sentence.
• Rhythmic adjustment: We choose words that feel natural with the on-screen mouth movements.
• Voice casting: We find voices that match the original in tone and acting style.

A tip from the director: make sure the translator knows beforehand if you need strict lip-sync or time-sync. Time-sync means the voice just needs to fit within the shot's duration. This saves a lot of correction time during the recording session.

Step 2: Selecting and booking your voices

A voice actor brings a character to life. Some roles naturally require more experience than others. Our selection of 140 professional voice actors includes people who know exactly how to perform on screen with a cue line.

The booking process for this type of production follows clear steps:

1. Contact us and provide your source material.
2. Choose a voice from our selection, or we can make a trial recording for specific characters.
3. Confirm your recording session booking and direction.

Step 3: Understanding the fee structure

The final cost has a clear structure. For non-commercial productions, such as internal training videos or educational projects, we usually base our pricing on the word count or the total project duration. When a production is used commercially or through paid media channels, the approach changes:

A commercial voice-over always includes a fixed base rate for the studio recording. We add a buy-out for the usage and broadcast rights. This buy-out depends on the medium (for example, regional television, national radio, or online advertisements) and how long the production will be broadcast.

Step 4: Managing the recording and direction

Every minute counts during the recording session. An experienced voice actor does not just focus on pronunciation. They also anticipate the on-screen actor's breathing. As a director, I pay close attention to ensure emotion is not lost due to the technical focus on lip movement. In the studio, a voice actor might be technically perfect with the mouth movements, but the spontaneity can disappear. We then refine a word on the spot to make it sound natural.

Tip for this phase: always schedule an extra fifteen minutes per scene. A character crying, sighing, or laughing naturally takes more recording time than a quiet conversation at a meeting table.

Step 5: Audio post-production and final mixingAfter the voices are recorded, we move to post-production. The audio needs cleaning. We soften distracting breaths and remove mouth clicks. We also match the voice's tone to the scene's acoustics. If a character is outside in a forest, their voice shouldn't sound like they are in a soundproof booth. Then, the voice is mixed with the original music and sound effects, known as the M&E track.

Tip for the final mix: Always provide separate music and effects tracks. Without individual audio files, the voice cannot be credibly integrated into the overall sound.