How These Singers Around the Globe Pushed 'Frozen' Over the Top

How These Singers Around the Globe Pushed 'Frozen' Over the Top

Over the weekend, Disney's "Frozen" became the very best-grossing animated film of all time, topping $one billion worldwide and provoking a #CongratulationsFrozen hashtag on Twitter.
One reason for the film's runaway success? That infectious Oscar-winning song that says it's okay to be yourself — after all, let it go and belt it out from a snow-lined mountain top while you are at it. It's a message that has proven deeply resonant around the world.
The truth that the House of Mouse tailored its snowy movie for several non-English speaking audiences, dubbing it in forty one languages total, didn't hurt a thing. Indeed, fervent audiences in Japan were who pushed "Frozen" into the billion-greenback club this weekend, creating it the No. 1 movie there three weekends in an exceedingly row (and counting).
This new in-studio version of "Let It Go" in twenty five languages (seen here first on Yahoo Movies), offers a peek into the arduous process of dubbing the film and its songs into forty one tongues, and shows many of the singers who stepped up to the plate to try to to their dead-on "Adele Dazeem." (A previous verion of the video, that does not show the real-life "Let It Go" singers, went viral in late January.)
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Translating "Frozen" into so several completely different languages is exceptionally challenging, says Rick Dempsey, a senior exec at Disney's Character Voices International unit. "It's a tough juggling act to get the correct intent of the lyrics and also have it match rhythmically to the music," he told Yahoo during a recent email exchange. "And then you have got to go back and modify for lip sync! [It]… requires a heap of patience and precision."
Casting the correct singers and actors then becomes another challenge. "Idina's voice (or Kristen's voice for Anna) becomes our blueprint. We attempt to match it as shut as potential," said the Disney exec.
2 hundred singers tested for 41 slots. And not all vocalists were match to act the half for which they were singing. "Sometimes we have a tendency to realize a nice vocal match with a singer and a nice acting match with a different actress," said Dempsey. "There are shut to 15 versions out there that have two completely different talent performing the role."
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The casting process was significantly complex as a result of native speakers were required. "It's the sole manner to actually guarantee that the film feels 'local,'" Dempsey said.
With all the painstaking work that went into the making of "Frozen," translating included, at least we tend to now recognize it was worthwhile.