Jesus Will Speak in 100 Tongues, Thanks to Man Who Helped Disney’s Elsa Sing in 41 Languages

INTERVIEW BY GISELLE SEIDEL|JULY 10, 2024 -- Christianity today

CT recently spoke with Dempsey about his transition from Disney, the arduous process of translation and localization, and how The Chosen is connecting with unreached people groups and places where sharing the gospel can cost people their lives. A few quotes will give you an idea of what this interesting interview is about.

"As the company grew internationally, Disney began to translate its work and sought to guarantee consistency and integrity with character voices in theme parks and consumer products, as well as our films, around the world. For the last 20 years of my career there, I led this and was also in charge of running the entire international localization for Disney, including Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and, as I was leaving, the Fox brand as well. I had a great run there.

"A lot of people would refer to that as translation, but we call it localization because there’s so much more to it than just translating a script. Localization means trying to get the nuances of the dialogue—it’s an idiomatic adaptation of the original content, meaning we are trying to get the local idioms and phrases and colloquialisms of a language into the dialogue, just like we have done in the original language.

"Lately, numerous media companies have been pushing for more AI-assisted translations. From doing predominantly literal word-for-word translations, AI has come a long way producing more natural translations. Do you think AI will ever be able to do the job of localization?

Right now, for many languages, we are at what I call an 80-20 model that is 80 percent AI, 20 percent human. I think we will get to a point where AI will get a pretty good idea of how to do translation, but we will always need to tweak it with some human touches.

I’m sure someone can churn out an AI script for a film. But it’s gonna be very sterile. There’s something about the human emotion that we will never get from AI—you have to have that human touch to make it resonate and to make it real.

"Are there elements or characteristics of The Chosen that make it particularly hard to localize?

Definitely. Every colloquial phrase or idiom used in English is a challenge to ensure a good translation. We also have to figure out how to communicate biblical and Jewish phrases. Even some of the Roman government titles are difficult to translate at times.

"We make sure our translators are Christian believers, but that’s not a requirement for voice actors. And specifically in Muslim communities, we’ve had actors walk out on us once they understand the material and the subject of the show. Dubbing has been a real challenge in parts of the world where they’re very anti-Christian.

"And it’s important to say we are doing all the translations and dubbing in the market itself, in the region where the language is spoken. That’s the only way it can be done, in my opinion. That’s the way we did it at Disney, because I believe working locally is the only way it will resonate with local audiences. You need the idioms and colloquialisms of the people of that market."

(https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2024/july-web-only/disney-chosen-localization-translate-language-rick-dempsey.html?utm_source=CT%20Daily%20Briefing%20Newsletter&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_term=991286&utm_content=17188&utm_campaign=email)