5. People in the Picture

Foreign video becomes more complex when people appear in your video speaking on screen.

With a new video, you can simply avoid this problem by sticking voiceover and avoiding talking heads..

With an existing video, or where you need to show an interview with, say, the CEO, or show a sales drama, you have a variety of options:

• For an interview, either use subtitles or let the audience hear the first few words of the original, then dip the sound and voiceover a translation. Use whichever technique is preferred in tv news programmes in your target country.
• For drama: either use subtitles or lip-sync actors’ voices in the new language. Lip-sync is a specialised and expensive procedure. Again, use the technique the local tv audience expects.
• For a front-of-camera presenter, treat this as an interview or, better still, shoot a new presenter, speaking the new language. There are plenty of foreign presenters and tv reporters working in the UK.