As I wrote in my previous article, the dubbing industry is undergoing a radical transformation.

While some studios still work traditionally, disruptive methods are becoming increasingly common. Much of today’s dubbing work happens remotely.

🎭 Many actors self-record from home, without a director or engineer.

💻 Engineers and directors produce entire dubbed content using synthetic voices.

What seemed impossible a few years ago is now everyday practice.

I’ll share some anecdotes and experiences from recent years, continuing from my previous post and diving deeper into what I’ve observed in each field I’ve worked in:

📚 Audiobooks
I’ve worked with narrators in-studio, operating and directing, but there were also projects where narrators self-recorded from their home studios.

Self-recording had its hiccups (missing lines, disjointed phrases), a notable advantage: while the narrator recorded, my team and I could edit simultaneously, speeding up production.

For many actors, this approach was also a plus: no fixed schedules or commutes, they could record whenever and however they wanted.

🎚️Courses and Workshops
During the pandemic, I taught many colleagues how to self-record. I held in-person workshops at educational institutions as well as online classes.

This allowed voice actors who lacked technical knowledge and skills to start working from home.

Over time, though, I began to wonder:

👉 Was I helping sustain the industry?

👉 Or was I contributing to a model where the roles of directors and engineers were losing importance?

🔎 Self-Recording in Fiction
Early in the pandemic (and the rise of self-recording), while I directed remotely, some actors told me they were sent series and films to dub on their own.

I remember seeing an Instagram post from an actor showcasing a clip of his self-recorded performance for a police series during the pandemic.

When I heard the result, it felt off:

Voices in different planes, inconsistent projection, like a puzzle with mismatched pieces. Not just technically (mixing, EQ issues) but also in terms of acting and interpretation.

The actor who shared it was proud of his work.

I, on the other hand, listened and thought:

👉 Is this the standard many clients now consider “good enough”?

👉 Or are clients just being lenient until the pandemic situation stabilizes?

🎥 Self-Recorded Documentaries
In my experience, documentaries followed a similar pattern to audiobooks.

In one project I did for a company, self-recording allowed me to work faster alongside other jobs. But I also ran into inconsistent pronunciations, even after giving clear guidelines.

Production speed and artistic quality seemed to be in constant tension.
🤖 AI in Dubbing + Actors
I also worked for a company that used actors to record various characters, then altered their voices with AI (Speech-to-Speech).

The result? Episodes with different voices but oddly similar cadence and intonation.

👉 Different timbres, but the same “internal rhythm.”

Everything ended up sounding too alike, and this client did notice.

🤖 AI Dubbing, Synthetic Voices
I’ve observed that when synthetic voices are used, having a single person handle both artistic and technical decisions can create consistency in quality, but it also means one individual bears the entire workload.

It’s similar to a director’s role, minus the coordination and schedule of actor recordings.

As for the result? It’s not bad. Though synthetic voices can’t truly ‘feel,’ the emotions are still conveyed clearly in the delivery.

📌 What We Believed vs. Reality
The artistic logic, and what colleagues used to say years ago:

“Fiction should never be self-recorded, or done with synthetic voices.” “Those workflows should only be for flat documentaries or low-quality informational content.” “For a film there must be artistic directors and professional actors.”

But reality has taken a different path.

I’ve seen major films and series made with AI, using synthetic voices, or self-recorded by real actors, no director involved.

In both cases, the result was “good enough” for clients.

At the same time, I’ve seen infomercials or simple YouTube videos (purely informational) dubbed with extreme care, as if they were top-tier productions, with directors, engineers, and actors doing fifteen takes of a single ‘yes’.

Final Reflection
Technology advances, and with it, production models. What was once unthinkable is now reality, forcing us to adapt.

There are a few questions to ask today:

Where’s the line between efficiency and quality?

Are we sacrificing interpretive richness for speed and low cost?

Are we simply discovering new ways to create, where “good enough” becomes the new standard?

Is it wrong not to use actors for dubbing, but it is okay not to use directors?

I think, as professionals, we must decide what role we want to play in this transformation. We can resist, or we can learn, innovate, and find a balance between the technical and the artistic.

💬 I’d love to hear:

If you’re an actor, director, engineer, or work in dubbing…

What do you think? Where do you see the industry heading?

How are you experiencing these changes?