educational voiceover

Honoring Cheech Marin

October 5, 2016 by Rosi Amador Leave a Comment

CHCI Gala Awards Video Voiceover: Cheech Marin, Latino Role Model

Every now and again a project comes in that dovetails so perfectly with our mission of building cross-cultural bridges using our voices that I jump up and down for joy. This is definitely one of them. I had the honor and privilege of recording the voiceover for this video honoring actor, comedian, visual artist and activist Cheech Marin (of Cheech and Chong) for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s recent Awards Gala ceremony!

Click on the video to learn some secrets about Cheech’s interesting family roots, plus all he has done to break down cultural stereotypes, promote arts as a tool for social change and mentor Latino youth. He is truly an extraordinary role model, as CHCI asserts so eloquently in this video. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed voicing it.

CHCI’S Mission

For nearly 40 years, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) has forged a critical pathway to Educate, Empower, and Connect our nation’s future Latino leaders, creating a transformative and lasting Impact on Latino youth and our nation. Learn more at CHCI.org. It was my pleasure to collaborate with seasoned producers O’Keefe Communications, who really captured the essence of the honorees’ contributions and histories. I also voiced videos honoring Ana María Chávez and Arnaldo Avalos. The timing was perfect, as this awards gala took place during Hispanic Heritage Month.

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month

As you may know, each year, Americans observe National Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 to October 15, celebrating the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America. The observation started in 1968 under President Lyndon Johnson and was extended to a month by President Ronald Reagan in 1988. It was enshrined in law on August 17, 1988.

Two Sides to “Bilingual”

May 18, 2016 by Brian Amador 2 Comments

The growth of the Hispanic population in the U.S. (17.4% of the population in 2014) has brought with it an increased demand for Spanish and bilingual content in all genres of voiceover, from commercials and explainer videos to Elearning, corporate narration, promos and more. And the increase in demand has brought an expansion of VO talent offering services in Spanish, from eloquent native speakers to people who took a little Spanish in high school.

I think anyone serious about doing Spanish or English-Spanish bilingual voiceover work would agree that a person shouldn’t sell themselves as Spanish-speaking talent if they’re not able to speak the language fluently, expressively and with an impeccable accent. In this regard, there are obvious advantages to hiring talent who were born and educated in a Spanish-speaking country.

But it’s not an absolute necessity. There are U.S. born Spanish speakers who are completely bilingual – native speakers of both English and Spanish, and able to switch effortlessly between the two.

Fully Bilingual = Value Added

In my career as a bilingual voice actor, my standard when voicing in Spanish is exactly the same as in English: perfect, native pronunciation and expression. I find that sometimes being a native English speaker is as important as being a native Spanish speaker. Being fully bilingual has its advantages.

It’s important to recognize a bad translation and to be able to make suggestions for correcting it. Sometimes English expressions are translated directly into Spanish; being familiar with the colloquialisms in English can make it easier to find the best way to express them in Spanish.
Some translation problems are due to grammatical errors or ambiguities in the source text. Having a complete command of written English makes these errors easy to recognize and correct.
In overdubs, translation errors can be due to the translator having misunderstood spoken English words due to the speaker’s accent or dialect. Being a native speaker of English enables me to understand many different accents (although I still watch “Masterpiece Theatre” with the subtitles on!)
For projects that need to fit into a specified duration, having a full command of both languages makes it easier to adjust translations to fit in time and still retain the meaning of the source copy.
It’s an extra perk for the client to be able to use the same voice in English and Spanish, and for both to sound natural and conversational.

Quality is What Matters

Given the number of Spanish-speakers in the United States, and as a matter of principle, the standards for Spanish and bilingual voiceover should be every bit as high as they are for English. For producers of content in Spanish, as in English, it’s important to find voice talent that speaks the language perfectly, whether that talent is “domestic” or ”imported”. There are two sides to “bilingual”. In some projects, mastery of English may be just as important as mastery of Spanish.

Voiceover for Educational Justice

March 30, 2016 by Rosi Amador Leave a Comment

**Rosi & Brian Selected for Spanish version of eye-opening documentary, Raising of America, on PBS**

Spanish Version of Raising of America

Brian and I recently had the immense honor of once again being chosen as part of a select cast of narrators to overdub a documentary in Spanish and raise our voices for educational justice. “Raising of America,” is an extraordinary and revealing 5-part documentary featured on PBS stations nationwide and online.

“We needed to fit the Spanish into the English perfectly. Rosi and Brian always paced their delivery so it matched as closely as possible and nailed it. They were also adept at matching the emotions of the original characters. Plus, these two are always on happy drugs!” –Sabrina Avilés, Spanish Version & Associate Producer, Raising of America’s “Wounded Places” segment.

Educational Inequity
Both Brian and I feel passionately that this is an issue that needs to be an urgent priority in the United States. This series addresses the questions of why so many children in America are faring so poorly and how might we, as a nation, do better.

One of Our Passions
While we frequently overdub web videos in Spanish, working on documentaries is a passion for us. We voiced many different characters throughout the five segments in neutral Latin American Spanish, from social workers and researchers to parents and doctors, which is always a welcome challenge as actors. Brian even got to be the voice of Vice President Walter Mondale!

Let Us Know What You Think and Share This
By blogging about this, we hope to inspire people to use The Raising of America as a tool to improve children’s well-being. Information is available at www.raisingofamerica.org. Please spread the word by sharing this with your friends. We’re thrilled to tell you that the full Spanish version is still available online at this link.

This series was produced by California Newsreel and Vital Pictures. Special thanks to longtime friend and awesome producer Sabrina Avilés.

Honoring Cheech Marin

CHCI Gala Awards Video Voiceover: Cheech Marin, Latino Role Model

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month

Two Sides to “Bilingual”

Fully Bilingual = Value Added

Quality is What Matters

Voiceover for Educational Justice

**Rosi & Brian Selected for Spanish version of eye-opening documentary, Raising of America, on PBS**

Rosi Amador

Brian Amador

Alisa Amador

Zia Amador

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