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Client contacted us with compliance training which was originally developed in English with 12 voices. After a quick character analysis we determined that 6 voices per language would do the job cutting the production cost nearly by half. Overall, the project involved 259 people: starting with 192 foreign language voice over talents (six per language), 32 linguistic directors, 32 linguistic QA specialists, 4 sound engineers, and one project manager from JBI Studios.
According to 2009 survey of public and private sectors by Elearning! Magazine, 98% of all businesses surveyed have an existing e-learning initiative or plans on putting one in place. The survey underscores eLearning as the logical solution for most organizations to enhance the quality and accessibility of training courses so their employees build the confidence and skills required to accomplish their job effectively. The same survey identifies ‘Compliance Training’ as the top content priority.
These results didn’t come as much of a surprise to JBI Studios. In terms of multimedia localization, Compliance training seems to be on the rise, always involving a significant amount of audio, and typically rolled out, with minor customizations, to most subsidiaries of multinational corporations. In partnership with one of our eLearning clients, we recently completed the foreign language audio localization of a compliance training at one of the world’s largest food company which sells in approximately 160 countries. With its large employee base and the importance of food safety, the company prepared a timely compliance training program around a code of conduct, which has been translated into 32 languages and distributed to locations around the world.
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Client
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Food Company
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Product
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eLearning
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Content
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Compliance
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Languages
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32
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Foreign voice over talents
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192
(6 per language)
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Total people involved
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259
- 32 linguistic directors
- 32 linguistic QA
- 4 sound engineers
- 1 project manager
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Studio time
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300 hours
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Turn around time
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6 weeks
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The original audio had 5,000 words, therefore roughly 35 minutes of audio. In 32 languages, and taking into account language expansion, which ended up ranging from none (in Mandarin), to 32% (in Japanese), this added to nearly 300 hours of studio time, including post production.
The entire project was completed in 6 weeks.
How was this done?
- Voice talent pre-selection:
Although the client originally wanted to select the 6 voices in each language, and specify role distributions, last minute talent unavailability could have jeopardized the entire schedule. To alleviate this risk, JBI Studios offered a pre-approval system, where the in country subs would rate the voice talents with an order of preference. That allowed to us to promptly replace unavailable voice talent with backup choices, using most of the preferred voices, while staying on schedule.
- Customized macros:
Every task being repeated 32 times, it made sense to invest early on in streamlining the process. The source – English – script was formatted ahead of translation. Our script formatting macro was adapted to extract and print all 6 talent-only scripts, as well as one complete script with dialogs (for the language director), from the translated document. Separately, our audio file-naming macro was also customized in order to rename the audio files in all 6 talent folders at once.
The bottom line: by using innovative tactics around work-flow and technology, as well as setting reasonable client expectations in terms of voice selection, JBI Studios was able to expedite the process and eliminate time consuming errors. The client feedback: “This project was a great success”
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