Business
Will AI make language dubbing easy for film and TV?
Technology Reporter
XYZ FilmsFinding international films that might appeal to the US market is an important part of the work XYZ Films.
Maxime Cottray is the chief operating officer at the Los Angeles-based independent studio.
He says the US market has always been tough for foreign language films.
“It’s been limited to coastal New York viewers through art house films,” he says.
It’s partly a language problem.
“America is not a culture which has grown up with subtitles or dubbing like Europe has,” he points out.
But that language hurdle might be easier to clear with a new AI-driven dubbing system.
The audio and video of a recent film, Watch the Skies, a Swedish sci-fi film, was fed into a digital tool called DeepEditor.
It manipulates the video to make it look like actors are genuinely speaking the language the film is made into.
“The first time I saw the results of the tech two years ago I thought it was good, but having seen the latest cut, it’s amazing. I’m convinced that if the average person if saw it, they wouldn’t notice it – they’d assume they were speaking whatever language that is,” says Mr Cottray.
The English version of Watch The Skies was released in 110 AMC Theatres across the US in May.
“To contextualise this result, if the film were not dubbed into English, the film would never have made it into US cinemas in the first place,” says Mr Cottray.
“US audiences were able to see a Swedish independent film that otherwise only a very niche audience would have otherwise seen.”
He says that AMC plans to run more releases like this.
FlawlessDeepEditor was developed by Flawless, which is headquartered in Soho, London.
Writer and director Scott Mann founded the company in 2020, having worked on films including Heist, The Tournament and Final Score.
He felt that traditional dubbing techniques for the international versions of his films didn’t quite match the emotional impact of the originals.
“When I worked on Heist in 2014, with a brilliant cast including Robert De Niro, and then I saw that movie translated to a different language, that’s when I first realised that no wonder the movies and TV don’t travel well, because the old world of dubbing really kind of changes everything about the film,” says Mr Mann, now based in Los Angeles.
“It’s all out of sync, and it’s performed differently. And from a purist filmmaking perspective, a very much lower grade product is being seen by the rest of the world.”
FlawlessFlawless developed its own technology for identifying and modifying faces, based on a method first presented in a research paper in 2018.
“DeepEditor uses a combination of face detection, facial recognition, landmark detection [such as facial features] and 3D face tracking to understand the actor’s appearance, physical actions and emotional performance in every shot,” says Mr Mann.
The tech can preserve actors’ original performances across languages, without reshoots or re-recordings, reducing costs and time, he says.
According to him, Watch the Skies was the world’s first fully visually-dubbed feature film.
As well as giving an actor the appearance of speaking another language, DeepEditor can also transfer a better performance from one take into another, or swap a new line of dialogue, while keep the original performance with its emotional content intact.
Thanks to the explosion of streaming platforms such as Netflix and Apple, the global film dubbing market is set to increase from US$4bn (£3bn) in 2024 to $7.6bn by 2033, according to a report by Business Research Insights.
Mr Mann won’t say how much the tech costs but says it varies per project. “I’d say it works out at about a tenth of the cost of shooting it or changing it any other way.”
His customers include “pretty much all the really big streamers”.
Mr Mann believes the technology will enable films to be seen by a wider audience.
“There is an enormous amount of incredible kind of cinema and TV out there that is just never seen by English speaking folks, because many don’t want to watch it with dubbing and subtitles,” says Mr Mann.
The tech isn’t here to replace actors, says Mann, who says voice actors are used rather than being replaced with synthetic voices.
“What we found is that if you make the tools for the actual creatives and the artists themselves, that’s the right way of doing it… they get kind of the power tools to do their art and that can feed into the finished product. That’s the opposite of a lot of approaches that other tech companies have taken.”
Natan DvirHowever, Neta Alexander, assistant professor of film and media at Yale University, says that while the promise of wider distribution is tempting, using AI to reconfigure performances for non-native markets risks eroding the specificity and texture of language, culture, and gesture.
“If all foreign films are adapted to look and sound English, the audience’s relationship with the foreign becomes increasingly mediated, synthetic, and sanitised,” she says.
“This could discourage cross-cultural literacy and disincentivise support for subtitled or original-language screenings.”
Meanwhile, she says, the displacement of subtitles, a key tool for language learners, immigrants, deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers and many others, raises concerns about accessibility.
“Closed captioning is not just a workaround; it’s a method of preserving the integrity of both visual and auditory storytelling for diverse audiences,” says Prof Alexander.
Replacing this with automated mimicry suggests a disturbing turn toward commodified and monolingual film culture, she says.
“Rather than ask how to make foreign films easier for English-speaking audiences, we might better ask how to build audiences that are willing to meet diverse cinema on its own terms.”
Greggs has delayed the appointment of incoming board director Robert Moorhead due to a review into a major accounting error at his previous firm, WH Smith.
The high street bakery chain said Mr Moorhead – the former finance chief at WH Smith – had asked to delay his appointment until a review by Deloitte into the blunder at WH Smith is completed.
He had been due to start at Greggs on October 1 as an independent non-executive director and chair of the audit committee.
Mr Moorhead left WH Smith in 2024 after more than 20 years at the chain.
The delay to his appointment comes after WH Smith saw nearly £600 million wiped off its stock market value last week when it revealed a review of its finances had discovered trading profits in North America had been overstated by about £30 million.
It warned that annual profits would be lower than expected as a result, sending shares down by more than 40% at one stage during the day.
WH Smith said it had found an issue in how it calculated the amount of supplier income it received – leading it to be recognised too early.
It means the group is now expecting a trading profit for the US of about £25 million for the year to August – a cut from the previous £55 million forecast.
As a result, the company lowered its outlook for annual pre-tax profits to around £110 million.
Greggs said Kate Ferry will remain as a non-executive director and will continue as chair of the audit committee in the interim.
Pritti MistryBusiness reporter, BBC News
FordThe first electric vehicles (EV) eligible for the £3,750 discount under the government’s grant scheme have been announced.
The Department for Transport confirmed Ford’s Puma Gen-E or e-Tourneo Courier would be discounted as part of plans to encourage drivers to move away from petrol and diesel vehicles.
Under the grant scheme, the discount applies to eligible car models costing up to £37,000, with the most environmentally friendly ones seeing the biggest reductions. Another 26 models have been cleared for discounts of £1,500.
Carmakers can apply for models to be eligible for grants, which are then automatically applied at the point of sale.
More vehicles are expected to be approved in the coming weeks and the DfT said the policy would bring down prices to “closely match their petrol and diesel counterparts”.
The government has pledged to ban the sale of new fully petrol or diesel cars from 2030.
But many drivers cite upfront costs as a key barrier to buying an EV and some have told the BBC that the UK needs more charging points.
According to Ford’s website, the recommended retail price (RRP) for a new Puma Gen-E starts from £29,905 while a petrol equivalent is upward of £26,060. With the reduction applied, buyers would be looking in the region of £26,155 for the EV version.
The grants to lower the cost of EVs will be funded through the £650m scheme, and will be available for three years.
There are around 1.3 million electric cars on Britain’s roads but currently only around 82,000 public charging points.
Full list of EVs eligible for the £1,500 discount
- Citroën ë-C3 and Citroën ë-C3 Aircross
- Citroën ë-C4 and Citroën ë-C4 X
- Citroën ë-C5 Aircross
- Citroën ë-Berlingo
- Cupra Born
- DS DS3
- DS N°4
- Nissan Ariya
- Nissan Micra
- Peugeot E-208
- Peugeot E-2008
- Peugeot E-308
- Peugeot E-408
- Peugeot E-Rifter
- Renault 4
- Renault 5
- Renault Alpine A290
- Renault Megane
- Renault Scenic
- Vauxhall Astra Electric
- Vauxhall Combo Life Electric
- Vauxhall Corsa Electric
- Vauxhall Frontera Electric
- Vauxhall Grandland Electric
- Vauxhall Mokka Electric
- Volkswagen ID.3
The up-front cost of EVs is higher on average than for petrol cars.
According to Autotrader, the average price of a new battery electric car was £49,790 in June 2025, based on manufacturers’ recommended prices for 148 models.
The equivalent for a petrol car was £34,225, but the average covers a broad range of prices.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said the grant scheme was making it “easier and cheaper for families to make the switch to electric”.
Edmund King, president of the AA, said drivers “frequently tell us that the upfront costs of new EVs are a stumbling block to making the switch to electric”.
“It is great to see some of these more substantial £3,750 discounts coming online because for some drivers this might just bridge the financial gap to make these cars affordable.”
Business
Donald Trump tariffs: Why did Nifty50, BSE Sensex tank in trade? Top reasons stock for market fall – The Times of India
Stock market today: Nifty50 and BSE Sensex, the Indian equity benchmark indices, crashed in trade on Thursday, a day after Donald Trump’s 50% tariffs on India came into effect. While Nifty50 closed at 24,500.90, down 211 points, BSE Sensex ended at 80,080.57, down 706 points or 0.87%.The newly imposed tariffs emerged as the main factor affecting market performance, whilst investors simultaneously grappled with additional challenges, including unfavourable global market indicators and continuous withdrawal of foreign investments. These factors collectively intensified the market decline, causing the benchmark indices to fall further.The severe downturn resulted in BSE-listed companies losing Rs 4.14 lakh crore in market capitalisation, bringing the exchange’s total market value down to Rs 445.80 lakh crore.
Why did the stock market fall today? Top reasons
50% US tariffs on IndiaThe new 25% additional tariffs from Washington on Indian goods became effective on Wednesday, creating uncertainty for exporters and overall market sentiment.Dr. V.K. Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Investments, believes these duties will affect equities temporarily but shouldn’t cause widespread concern.“The 50% tariff imposed on India, which has already come into effect, will weigh on market sentiments in the near-term. But the market is unlikely to panic since the market will view these high tariffs as a short-term aberration which will be resolved soon,” Vijayakumar said, noting US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant’s statement that “at the end of the day India and US will come together.”Additionally, Vijayakumar identified high valuations and poor earnings performance as ongoing issues. He expects export-focused industries to experience short-term difficulties, whilst suggesting investors consider moving towards reasonably priced domestic consumption sectors. He recommends transitioning from volatile small-cap investments to more stable large-cap consumer stocks for better risk management.FII sell-off continuesForeign institutional investors extended their selling momentum for the third consecutive session. Exchange data showed that on August 26, FIIs sold shares valued at over Rs 6,500 crore. Conversely, domestic institutional investors emerged as net buyers, investing Rs 7,060 crore.The selling pattern has affected multiple sectors. In early August, FIIs withdrew approximately Rs 31,900 crore across eight sectors, with financial and technology sectors experiencing the highest outflows. Net equity sales reached Rs 20,976 crore in the first half of the month, following July’s withdrawals and pushing the total outflows for the year to Rs 1.2 trillion.Earlier this month, Jefferies reported that foreign portfolio investor presence in India had reached its lowest level in a decade. Despite consistent domestic inflows providing support, analysts suggest that any market recovery could remain unstable.Dr. V.K. Vijayakumar of Geojit Investments emphasised the importance of domestic institutional support. “The strong pillar of support to the market is the aggressive buying by DIIs flush with funds,” he noted, explaining that domestic investments are helping balance the foreign outflows.Global markets in redAsian markets displayed weakness on Thursday as investors weighed Nvidia’s exceptional earnings against growing worries regarding the company’s business interests in China.The MSCI Asia-Pacific index, excluding Japan, fluctuated throughout the session before declining 0.2%. Similarly, US stock futures declined during extended trading hours, with S&P 500 e-minis dropping 0.2% and Nasdaq futures declining 0.4%. Despite reporting outstanding results, Nvidia’s shares retreated as uncertainties persisted over its Chinese operations amidst ongoing US-China trade tensions.Japanese markets showed volatility following news that Tokyo’s chief trade representative cancelled a planned visit to Washington, postponing discussions about a recently concluded trade agreement. The Nikkei 225 registered a 0.4% increase. In contrast, Hong Kong’s market performance weakened, with the Hang Seng Index recording a 1% decline.Market sentiment further deteriorated following US political developments, as President Donald Trump announced the removal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. This decision raised questions about the central bank’s autonomy, although Cook has indicated her intention to legally contest the dismissal.Technicals show market weaknessTechnical indicators suggest market weakness ahead, although some strategists anticipate a potential short-term recovery.At Geojit Investments, Chief Market Strategist Anand James observed bearish conditions, identifying 24,071-23,860 as target levels. He acknowledged that the sharp 2% drop over four sessions could spark a recovery, with 24,780 and 24,870 acting as resistance points. “Inability to float above 24,630 or clear 24,900 will signal that bears continue to have the upper hand,” he said.(Disclaimer: Recommendations and views on the stock market and other asset classes given by experts are their own. These opinions do not represent the views of The Times of India)
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