December 13, 2005 – Getting 'Housewives' To Speak Spanish Can Turn Desperate Hit Show's Slangy Dialogue Is Tricky to Translate Practice Kisses on Hands -By Brooks Barnes, The Wall Street Journal

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL -- At almost 1 a.m., the cast and crew of ABC's "Desperate Housewives" were frantically working to finish a new episode. Only a few scenes were ready, and the clock was ticking: The show had to air in five days, and they had yet to start on the scene where Bree sleeps with the pharmacist who killed her husband.

TV programs, especially big hits like "Desperate Housewives," typically finish episodes weeks in advance to guarantee uninterrupted delivery. But most shows aren't simultaneously produced in English and Spanish. Those gathered here were putting out the dubbed version. "It's like running a race every week, and my feet hurt," said dubbing actress Gabriela del Carmen. The 43-year-old actress provides the voice of the character Lynette, a harried mother-turned-businesswoman played by Felicity Huffman.

ABC decided last summer to become the first old-line network to make its entire prime-time lineup bilingual -- a move that stands to boost ad revenue for parent Walt Disney Co., but one that has strained the network's production cycle. Most of ABC's shows are now subtitled in Spanish, but four high-profile shows are dubbed each week.

The Hollywood infrastructure can pull off just about anything. Need a 30-foot ape and a Roman army? Done. But dubbing shows for U.S. audiences, with a tight turnaround time, is presenting the networks with a formidable new set of obstacles.

ABC and its sister studio, Touchstone, face thorny questions about how to translate slang-heavy "Housewives." Producers, translators, studio executives and ABC's standards and practices department can spend hours arguing over the translation of a single phrase.

For instance, a character in a recent episode, fed up with her misbehaving children, said the word "crap" five times in a row to express frustration. ("That word is kind of a signature of our show," says co-producer Stephanie Hagan.) But translating the word into Spanish results in a much cruder expression. The team needed to come up with a suitable substitute on the fly. The result: The actress said, in English, "Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot."

Casting the dubbing actresses presented major challenges. "It was very important to find actresses who can convey body language in their voices," says Ruben Veloso, an executive vice president at CCI Digital, the company handling the dubbing. They also needed to be good kissers: To dub the show's frequent sex scenes, Mr. Veloso says the voiceover actresses, all of whom work alone in separate booths, need to know how to make the right noises by kissing their hands.

"We practice a lot at home," says Ms. del Carmen.

American shows have been dubbed into other languages for decades for sale overseas. But TV studios typically ship long-finished episodes to foreign stations and leave the dubbing to the locals, who in many countries are old pros. Voiceover actors must be cast, and writers must translate scripts, aiming for wording that fits the lip movements of the actors on screen. To avoid the laughably out-of-sync look of old Kung Fu movies, script translators often work in front of mirrors.

Because most TV dubbing is done overseas, ABC ended up hiring voiceover actresses with more experience in movies, both live-action and animated. Ms. del Carmen, who has been dubbing since 1991, has been the Spanish voice of Susan Sarandon and Winona Ryder, among other actresses. Voicing Donald Duck's nephew Dewey is one of the claims to fame of Ana Grinta, hired to dub Bree, a prissy perfectionist played by Marcia Cross. Ivette Gonzalez, who provides the Spanish-language voice for the "Housewives" character of Gabriella, a saucy shopaholic played by Eva Longoria, has also voiced Flounder, a fish in "The Little Mermaid," and the Cabbage Patch dolls.

There have been a few bugs with the simultaneous broadcasts. In October, a wildfire outside Los Angeles forced Adelphia Communications Corp. to use an alternate delivery system to broadcast "Desperate Housewives." But instead of picking up ABC's audio in English and Spanish, the system picked up only Spanish. Some 240,000 subscribers in Los Angeles were only able to get the Spanish version. A spokesman for Adelphia says, "Obviously, we regret the error."

Among the startled viewers: Michael Eisner. The recently retired Disney CEO, according to several people familiar with the matter, later called the company to quip that this sort of thing didn't happen when he was at the helm. Mr. Eisner declined to comment.

ABC doesn't know how many people are watching the Spanish version of "Desperate Housewives." Nielsen Media Research isn't yet able to slice ratings data that finely. But ABC knows the potential audience is huge and growing fast. According to the Census Bureau, the Hispanic population in the U.S. was 35 million in 2000, or 13% of the total population. It estimates the Hispanic population will be 48 million in 2010. Also not lost on ABC: Univision, the nation's No. 1 Spanish- language broadcaster, saw ad commitments rise 15% last year to $850 million amid a flat market.

Over the summer, Stephen McPherson, ABC's president of entertainment, decided the network would air dubbed versions of "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" -- both monster hits watched by over 20 million people a week. Two comedies with Hispanic stars, "Freddie" and "George Lopez," would also get dubbed, while the rest of ABC's prime-time schedule would be subtitled.

Almost all U.S. viewers can switch to the Spanish-language versions by pushing the "separate audio programming" button on their remotes. (Some viewers may have this button on their cable box or on the back of older sets.)

"I was tired of watching the Spanish-speaking audience slip through the cracks," says Mr. McPherson.

ABC had a hard time finding a local company willing to take on the task. Several firms wanted to send footage and scripts to Mexico, dub episodes with Mexican talent, and ship them back. "We vetoed that right away," says Ms. Hagan. "We're very protective of the plot secrets on our shows. All of that back and forth would almost guarantee leaks."

ABC hired CCI Digital, located just two miles from the elaborate "Desperate Housewives" set. It's a long two miles: While the English- speaking actresses receive lofty salaries, gourmet meals and lavishly appointed trailers, the dubbing actors, paid by the hour, earn paychecks of a few thousand dollars at best, depending on how many lines they have. They don't get on-screen credit. "Nobody except my friends and family will ever know it's me," says Ms. Grinta.

On a recent night, Ms. del Carmen trudged into the tiny recording studio carrying a coffee thermos and a cooler filled with her dinner. Waiting for sound engineers to prep her scenes, she yawned and answered her cellphone. It was her agent, asking if she could go to an audition the next day at 3 p.m. "We don't get paid a whole lot for this so I don't mind working at night," she said. "Most of us have to work other jobs during the day."

Around midnight, Ms. del Carmen headed into a soundproof room equipped with a flat-screen TV and a microphone. The actors must simultaneously listen to English lines through a set of headphones, speak the lines in Spanish, and watch the scene on TV to make sure the timing is right. A two-minute scene usually takes about eight minutes to dub.

"Can I have a playback?" Ms. del Carmen asked the sound engineer after she dubbed a scene where her character defends her outdated wardrobe to a group of co-workers. Ms. del Carmen watched the recorded footage. "Nope," she said. "Let's go again. I sound like I was running out of air."

At 1:20 a.m., Ms. del Carmen finished her scenes and started gathering her belongings. "Tonight's script was a little blah," she said. "Maybe next week the writers will give my character a good catfight."

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