DUBBING STUDIOS

One of the most consistent money spinners in the Audio Engineering industry in India, is when you have a bunch of little Voice Dubbing Studios, in one complex. The three Studio businesses I list here are extremely busy, sometimes doing two 12 hour shifts a day. Typically they work with channels like Disney, National Geographic, The History Channel; as well as several smaller channels with dedicated audiences who like to consume content in the language they are familiar with. Not to mention the significant amount of work on offer in dubbing feature films into regional languages.

None of these clients is comfortable with images of their setups being available to the public. Data security is of primary importance to them, and their privacy is audited regularly by their clients.

Meraki Studios, owned and managed by I Ahmed. The last I know, they do work exclusively for Disney. Despite having directed and produced successful feature films, he is ‘hands-on’ with his dubbing studio business, as he is rooted in practical sensibility. In a candid conversation with me, he revealed that a feature film takes months, if not years to take from concept to completion, and the financial returns are far from assured or consistent. But the dubbing business churns out regular monthly income which is reassuring for financial security. We built 3 dubbing studios, a highly secure server room and a ‘QC’ room in Nungambakkam, and after running multiple shifts and still falling short of facilities for executing the available work, we were commissioned to build 8 more dubbing studios (!), a server room, a ‘QC’ room and a 5.1 mix room, in a nearby locality. Now all of these are continuously busy and we are looking to squeeze additional rooms into the nooks and crannies we can find.

Lip Sync Studios, owned and operated by Magesh Palaniappan, is a five dubbing studio operation including two 5.1 surround sound capable control rooms, and as usual, secure server and ‘QC’ rooms. Magesh has over a 30 year history in the dubbing industry, having been a vital part of Seventh Channel Communications, one of the most prolific production houses of it’s time.

Frames Entertainment, owned and managed by Veerendra Reikwar has a succesful 25 year history in the dubbing industry. As I type this, we are building three studios in Chennai and three more in Hyderabad for this company. Fingers crossed, we are trying out some new build techniques with these, we hope that they will pan out as expected.