The post-sync stage of the dubbing process is where actors, guided by an artistic director, re-perform the show in a recording studio. Such studios are specialized and must have several essential pieces of equipment to meet expected standards, though individual setups will vary widely and will depend on the choice of operating system, audio and dubbing software.
In the studio, the adaptation produced at the previous stage scrolls in sync with the picture, and the text is read and performed by an actor. Since it is almost never possible - nor desirable - to have all of the actors in the studio at the same time, the script is recorded out of sequence in short intervals called loops, of about 30 seconds in length on average.
A few preparatory steps take place prior to booking the studio, namely breaking down the show into loops, sorting them by dramatis personae, and then creating a recording schedule based on actors’ availabilities. A typical 90 min. romantic comedy takes 5 days; a Bollywood epic can take almost twice as long for the dialogue recording alone.7
In the studio, after the artistic director explains the scene to the actors, a loop is played back in the original version. Then the picture is played back without sound, and the actor reads his or her lines as they scroll along the rythmo band, and tailors his or her performance to match the on-screen image as closely as possible. Two or three takes should be sufficient8, and if there are no issues with the performance or the recording, the team proceeds to the next loop.