Why Arent' Actors Dubbed In Movie Musicals Anymore?- Page 2

[sundaymorning6am]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 3:34pm

Because it looks effing ridiculous, that's why.

[MusicSnob1]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 3:37pm

"If I remember right, that note is pretty high, and I don't know that she actually sings that high at any other point in the movie."

That's irrelevant. Auto-tuning can manipulate any original pitch to sound like a newly desired note, regardless of how close you were to it (in vocal proximity).

There's just no way you can make that assumption considering the technology we now have.

[Pgenre]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 3:44pm

Gostopper was replying to my post about Molaskey singing the one note in "All That Jazz" credited to Renee.

That being said, CHICAGO was not heavily auto-tuned, if at all. Sweetened, yes, but auto-tuned, no. And, yes, there is a difference.

P

[Gobstopper]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 4:35pm

Pgenre's right about that "sweetening" vs. "autotuning" thing. People completely overuse the phrase "autotuning" to the point of being utterly ridiculous.

As far as Winston's statement Zac Efron being able to sing the higher notes in Hairspray, wouldn't that have to do with the amount of falsetto used in Link's songs. I'm not especially familiar with High School Musical, but I don't recall a lot of those songs being in falsetto.

[dayao]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 6:10pm

The practice of dubbing vocals in films was not always done because the actor was unable to sing for themselves. Sometimes the studio felt that the star's singing voice did not match their on screen persona. Eleanor Powell, one of the greatest film dancers of all time had an accomplished Broadway belt singing voice but in the mid 1930s Alice Faye was the rage so MGM dubbed Powell's vocals with a sultry voice similar to Faye's.

Composer Doris Fisher insisted that Rita Hayworth had a more than adequate singing voice but Harry Cohn insisted that she be dubbed because her own singing voice did not match Hayworth's Love Goddess persona.

Dana Andrews was an operatically trained baritone but no one at Fox bothered to ask him if he could sing when he was cast in the 1945 State Fair and by the time of the film's shooting pre-recordings of his songs had already been done with a vocal double.

In the best of all possible worlds actors with appropriate singing talent would be cast in musical films but this has rarely been the case and the fact that it is not done with the regularity that it was done in the past is because today actors have more clout and if they insist on doing their own singing, no matter how embarrassing the end result or how it hurts the film, that's the way things are in the current film industry or, for that matter almost equally true of today's Broadway musical stage.

As far as auto tune and other sweetening practices go, as Pierce Brosnan proved in Mamma Mia, it only works up to a point and only if the actor in question has at least a minimal natural ability to carry a tune.

[MusicSnob1]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 6:15pm

"Pgenre's right about that "sweetening" vs. "autotuning" thing. People completely overuse the phrase "autotuning" to the point of being utterly ridiculous."

I'm aware, as I work in the music industry. I know the difference and I am specifically referring to the post-production process known as Autotuning. I could give many similar examples if you'd like (to prove my point).

It doesn't matter how high a note is. Any pitch can be manipulated to become THAT note, without another voice dubbing in for it. We do that in the Autotuning process. Autotuning is a process that contains many steps - not just cleaning up sharp & flat pitches.

[Basely Tearful]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 6:17pm

If someone dubbed Zellweger in Chicago for every note I'd immediately take them to court for failure to perform their job properly.

Sweetening on a couple notes makes more sense.

[Eris0303]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 6:21pm

The practice of dubbing vocals in films was not always done because the actor was unable to sing for themselves.

Or how about Ava Gardner in Show Boat. Having heard her version of "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" I can honestly say that it's very good. But it doesn't have the "oomph" the studio wanted so they dubbed her and she was very upset over it.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 6:25pm

"Or how about Ava Gardner in Show Boat. Having heard her version of "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" I can honestly say that it's very good. But it doesn't have the "oomph" the studio wanted so they dubbed her and she was very upset over it."

Wasn't it dubbed more than once?

[winston89]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 6:33pm

Gobstopper, its not an issue of falsetto v not falsetto, both roles were written for tenors so therefor it was a little strange when he said that he could sing one but not the other.

[Eris0303]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 6:34pm

That I don't know. I recall Lena Horne speaking about it in That's Entertainment III


Ava's voice

[dayao]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 6:35pm

In Ava Gardner's case it was more than "oomph" that concerned MGM. Even as late as 1951 Julie's songs were associated with Helen Morgan, who had originated the role on the stage and 1936 film versions of Show Boat. Morgan had a dark distinctive mezzo-soprano sound and Annette Warren, whose vocals are used in the 1951 film, sounded similar to Morgan. I love Gardner's rawer version of Julie's songs, especially "Bill", which has a tragic poignancy appropriate to Gardner's still unsurpassed acting in the role.

Ironically, Gardner's sultry singing voice would have been considered an asset had she been around in the 1930s at MGM.

[BrianS]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 7:09pm

Pgenre, how do you know they didn't use auto-tune on Chicago? And when you talk about "sweetening" are you talking about adding filters beyond reverb?

Musicsnob, I agree with you though I have seen auto-tune used in real-time. But you are right about the extreme pitch shift abilities. Several of the Christines in Phantom could not hit the high E (or whatever it is) in the title song and they had her sing it lower and corrected the note in post.

[Pgenre]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 7:12pm

Marshall said they didn't. And I believe him. And what we now call auto-tune was somewhat different and nowhere near as widely used almost 10 years ago when the soundtrack for CHICAGO was recorded. Yes, using filters is the same as "sweetening".

P

[BroadwayBenny]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 7:45pm

I personally cannot stand it when I know an actor isn't singing to their own tracks. It almost kills my enjoyment of movies like My Fair Lady, The King and I and West Side Story which are otherwise brilliant films, but once I hear Marni Nixon's voice coming out of nearly every woman in those films I find it very offensive on the film maker's part and feel that they are completely undermining my intelligence as an audience member.

It's bad enough that 99.9% of the time film musicals are not sung live as it is, but that is forgivable because it is the nature of the medium. As long as the actor is syncing to their own voice it doesn't grate me.

I don't think a film like Phantom of the Opera would have been more watchable had it been dubbed across the board, it would just switch to a different kind of unwatchable.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 9:29pm

You know what really weirds me out? When someone's speaking voice is dubbed in a movie.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 10:06pm

^^^
Like when Andie MacDowell's lines were dubbed by Glenn Close in GREYSTOKE?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 10:12pm

Yes! And there's a scene in Terms of Endearment where some random dame that Jack Nicholson's character is screwing talks with Mary Kay Place's voice! The opening of The First Wives Club has four young women voiced with the older actresses' voices. It gives me the willies.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 10:18pm

How about translated dubbing? Personally, that annoys the fvck out of me. I much prefer to read the subtitles, thank you very much.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 10:28pm

Yeah, I'm usually the same way, although I find it very hard to watch subtitled movies at home, because I am easily distracted and it's hard to glance away even for a second if it's a dialogue-heavy movie.

I made an exception with Persepolis and watched the dubbed version, but since it was animated (and voiced by several of same actors who voiced the French version) I felt it was justified.

[MusicSnob1]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 10:29pm

"And what we now call auto-tune was somewhat different and nowhere near as widely used almost 10 years ago"

That's really not true or accurate.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 10:52pm

The First Wives Club had the older actresses' voices dubbed in at the beginning? I had no idea! I always thought they sounded similar.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 11:04pm

I just thought of another instance. In A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN Old Dottie's voice is dubbed by Geena Davis, who played Young Dottie. For the longest time I thought it was Geena in old-age make-up. The similarities are uncanny, and so (I thought) was the voice. That is until I watched the Special Edition and they mentioned it in "The Making of..." featurette.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 11:05pm

YES! I was just thinking about League of Their Own. They look exactly alike!

[StageManager2]

Posted: 12/3/09 at 11:18pm

Then, of course, there's the retching scene at the end of Part I of GONE WITH THE WIND, when Scarlett returns to Tara after the war and attempts to eat a radish. For whatever reason, Vivien refused to heave on-camera so Olivia dubbed that part for her.