Dubbing Contest

Last night, several of the department English teachers were asked to help judge a movie dubbing contest. The contest was sponsored by students from the student union (an extracurricular organization) and was open to English and non-English majors. Small groups of students had to choose a film clip and dub over the clip in English.

When we arrived in the small auditorium, almost all the seats were full. Our six judges' seats were in the front, with a name card, a judging sheet, and a bottle of water on each of our desks. After each group performed we would give them a score from 1-10, which would be announced as soon as it was calculated. Here were some of the highlights and lowlights of a very entertaining evening:

*The winning English major group did a fantastic job with "Lion King," even dubbing a bit of the song "Hakuna Matata."
*Several other groups tried their hands at dubbing songs, with less than melodious results.
*Titanic was featured... twice. One of the scenes was when Jack is dying in the cold water, and the boy voicing him made shuddering breaths, just as if he was freezing to death. (He was also reading his lines off a piece of paper and was about 5 seconds off on the dub.) Another of the Jacks was voiced by a female -- a little disconcerting!
*At the end of the evening, all the groups received a prize, and the winners were announced.