last updated June 15, 2025Comments? Send email to: fny@freenewyork.net
Episode #1017: Watch it Twice
First Broadcast: 3/31/25
Repeated: 6/16/25
To quote from the article "AMC Premiering Swedish Movie In English Using AI-Powered 'Visual Dubbing'" on Gizmodo:
AMC Theaters, always one to hop on the latest trend, is premiering a Swedish movie that uses a new form of AI-based dubbing to make it appear as if the actors are speaking in English. Instead of merely replacing the voice tracks with ones recorded by actors in another language, the movie Watch the Skies will additionally see actors' facial movements altered to make it appear as if they are speaking in English.
As you might expect, we here at Free New York have some strong feelings about this idea, not the least of which is: Doesn't technology like this continue to make it more difficult to know when you're seeing something that's "real" or not? Instead of trying to make a foreign film more localized, shouldn't we instead be more embracing of a foreign film's foreignness? Don't techniques like the above ignore how some concepts are difficult--if not impossible--to adequately translate from one language to another? If you're not going to watch something with subtitles so that you can hear the original audio, shouldn't more respect be given to the art of dubbing to fit the action as it is on screen? Does this increase the possibility that such techniques will be used to reanimate dead actors on screen, or create even more convincing "deepfakes" to deceive people? Excusez-moi de vous déranger!
So, what is Free New York anyway? The simple answer is that it's a
this neat little
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tremendous help of my camerawoman/editor/everything else,
Kim. The complicated answer
is that it's a project of mine to broadcast opinions and events which
don't always appear within "the mainstream media" (like The New York Times,
the major networks, local radio, etc.), and so far I think it's been working.
If you think I'm doing a good job--or not--and you feel
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Free New York
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last updated June 15, 2025
Comments?
Send email to: fny@freenewyork.net