There are untapped markets in the performance industry: voicing over videos created originally in other languages. There is a surprising demand for translating video voices from Chinese to English, Russian to Spanish, Kazakh to English, Korean to English, and so on.

For so many years, assuring the correct voice timing for such a voice-replacement prevented actors, particularly home studio actors, from aggressively approaching producers and directors around the world whose languages were far from the actor's own language. If the voice actor cannot understand the original language, he/she cannot match the performance timing.

Now, the Global Actor, part of the Global Director Center, developed by @International Services, offers a new way for a foreign producer/director to work directly with home studio talents. And the home studio talent is enabled to properly time their performance to the original language, no matter how far that original language may be from the actor's native language.

Using the timecoding feature, the native speaking producer/director of the original video or a native speaking linguist simply clicks online to set markers that define where sentences or paragraphs begin in his/her own language. Then the translation is performed right online or imported from a file. The translation can be performed by the producer's translator, by the actor, or by @International Services. Because the translation coordinates with original language, the timecodes (markers) are also correct.

The script to be recorded by the voice actor passes across the screen according to the timing of each sentence, rather like subtitles, but the text is full sentences. This technique has been the mainstay of professional lip sync and voice replacement but on a grander scale. The technique of a timed script playing over the movie is used in the major lip sync dubbing facilities around the world, the movie actor stands in a tiny glass room in the middle of a large theater room. The actor reads his/her script as the movie passes across a huge screen.

The Global Actor is based upon the same principle, but on a much smaller scale. And because the Global Actor is on the web, there can be collaboration between people anywhere around the world. The timecodes can be set in China, the translation performed in London or in the USA, and the voice recorded in the U.K., Canada, or the United States. That is what is new - the global aspect - only made possible since broadband has become available almost everywhere in the world.

For more on the Global Actor, visit the Global Director Center.