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by
Thomas Nötting, published in"Cinechart", a journal of the ProSiebenSAT1-Media
AG, December 2001
The twin
brothers Arne and Hilmar Kaul from Kamen (in the northwest of Germany) are the
unofficial chroniclers of the German dubbing industry. Their database is said
to be the best of its kind. Here’s a story about watching and listening.
Everytime he
sees Sandra Bullock on tv, Arne has to think of Bettina - of Bettina’s likeable
soft voice. Not too many men are likely to think of another woman when looking
at this Hollywood beauty. Arne Kaul does. Most people would hear “some” voice.
But Kaul knows exaclty that Bettina Weiß ist the German voice of Sandra Bullock.
He would be able to name all 13 movies for which the Berlin actress lent her
voice to her famous American collegue. Plus the Hollywood star’s two other films
which were dubbed using another voice. Arne wouldn’t even have to consult his
database for this.
No one knows
more about German dubbing voices than Arne Kaul. In a small attic room in Kamen
the 36-year-old has been “surveilling” Hollywood for more than 15 years now.
“This is, as it were, my office,” he murmurs a little embarrassed while climbing
the narrow stairs. Kaul doesn’t receive visitors too often. He spends most of
his time alone in front of one of the four screens. In front of the old television
set, which has been used exclusively as VCR display monitor for a long time,
or in front of one of the computers. In the past, this room in his parents’
house was his playroom. Now it is the ArKa-Soft head office. Arne does not care
about appearance. The only thing he cares about is embedded within the screens
and cables: thousands of names, dates, movie titles, years. Kaul knows them
all. They are all saved here on the grey computer. But also in his head.
The name
Kaul stands for reliability
"By now we
have exactly 4,865 voices ", says the pale man and with a hint of pride he looks
at the screen showing the title „Multimedia movie and series library of dubbing
voices“. This number marks the probably most comprehensive but even most remarkable
German dubbing voices database ever. Within the dubbing industry it is simply
called the “Kaul Database”, because the name Kaul stands for reliability. However,
there is a story behind this number that is at least as remarkable as is “Filmlib”,
the “Kaul Database”. It is the story of Arne Kaul and as well that of his twin
brother Hilmar.
Arne and Hilmar
Kaul would protest against anyone calling them remarkable. For they actually
make every effort to appear as normal and inconspicuous as possible. There isn’t
even a trace of Hollywood glamour here in a former housing estate for coal miners
in Kamen with front gardens, clean cut hedges and colourful garden gnomes, where
there are still diesel trains carrying coal through underground tunnels to the
next shaft. But Arne Kaul has one incredible ability. He is able to distinguish
3,000 dubbing voices by ear. “That’s nothing special really,” he tries to play
it down. “It is all a question of practice. Basically, everybody might learn
this with enough training.” The only thing is... who else would have committed
him- or herself completely and this seriously to this subject? For him the dubbing
voices library is more than a profession, even more than passion. It is his
life-task.
Thousands
of names, dates, movie titles, years. Kaul knows them all. They are all saved
here on the grey computer. But also in his head.
The story begins
in 1972, almost 30 years ago. Arne and Hilmar were 7-year-old boys and they
never missed the Saturday night episode of “Star Trek”. “And at some point I
recognized these voices in another movie“, Arne remembers, “the voice of Captain
Kirk.” Soon he found out that it actually was the voice of dubbing legend Gert-Günther
Hoffmann. Since then he listened carefully when watching tv and he collected
any type of information he could get about the “second voices”. He cut out information
from tv guides and archived them. Later, when his schoolmates went into raptures
about the “Dallas” or “Dynasty” stars, Arne already knew who the German voices
of J.R. (Wolfgang Pampel), Bobby (Hans-Jürgen Dittberner), Alexis (Ursula Heyer)
and Krystle (Gisela Fritsch) were. Everything taken down neatly in countless
notebooks. “It started out as a hobby.” In his early 20s, when Arne was already
doing his professional training to become a merchant, he had the idea of
applying to “Wetten dass...”, one of Germany’s most famous Saturday night game
shows (where the candidates make bets on their special abilities)".
Most probably
Arne Kaul might have won his bet as well as the show easily. However, he wanted
to be absolutely sure and thus contacted dubbing studios and went to Berlin
to ask for information personally. One can only conjecture as to how exotic
the boy from Kamen must have appeared to the movie people. “But then they realized
how much I already knew.” Since then, Arne’s collecting activities became more
systematic. At some point, somebody suggested “Why don’t you do this commercially?
It’s a gap in the market.” For information about dubbing voices was hard to
get hold of. Except for a few stars who had their own permanent voices, every
studio and every distributor hired different voices for the same Hollywood actors.
„Wetten dass…“
did not accept Arne Kaul as a candidate for the show, but later during his business
management studies he set up ArKa-Soft. His twin brother Hilmar, the computer
specialist, wrote the programme for “Filmlib”.
The heroes
of his youth still hang in Arne’s room under the roof.. Some of the star posters
of Heather Locklear, Kirk and Spock and Sylvester Stallone are already a bit
yellowed.
Some things
have changed since then, but a lot of things have also remained unchanged in
the lives of the Kaul brothers. Meanwhile, numerous dubbing companies and some
tv stations are among Kaul’s clientele. They use the database to draw up the
cast. Arne still lives with his parents, Hilmar lives a few streets away in
his grandmother’s house. The heroes of his youth still hang in Arnes room under
the roof. Some of the star posters of Heather Locklear, Kirk and Spock and Sylvester
Stallone are already a bit yellowed. “They’ve been hanging there for 20 years,”
Arne says. He did not find it necessary to remove them, just like the light
veneered kids’ bedroom furniture still in use.
Every film
is subject to audiometry
The twins do
not look their 36 years of age. "People often think we’re younger," says Hilmar.
Indeed, with their pleated trousers, their neatly parted hair and their smooth
faces they seem like oversized boys. Everything in two-fold, as Arne and Hilmar
Kaul belong to the type of twin brothers that have approximated optically due
to their lifelong symbiotic relationship. Their “tv room” contains a high performance
hi-fi system and a modern video projector to project the perfect movie experience
onto the especially plastered wall. In here, Arne and Hilmar re-live a bit of
their childhood when they devoured the latest “Star Trek” episode with sparkling
eyes.
Generally,
time in the world of the Kaul brothers seems to have been preserved. Arne preserves
German dubbing history for future generations. Hilmar, who is mainly working
as a computer specialist for a day-care centre for handicapped people, preserves
the computer history. A more than 15-year-old Apple IIgs is still being used
as an input terminal. “It is still an unbeaten entry mask and much easier to
handle,” Hilmar explains. Even otherwise hardly anything is thrown away. Not
the more than 20-years-old harddrive, a collectible from the stone age of computing
(“So big and only five megabytes! That’s a real rarity!”) and definitely not
the numerous “Star Trek” spaceship models originating from childhood times that
are stored here in Arne’s office room.
Twice a year
Arne and Hilmar get into the white family camper and drive to the east towards
Berlin, where most dubbing studios are located. “We spare ourselves the hotel,”
says Arne. “Because we do not yet make our fortunes with the database.” In fact
only very few hotel rooms might be able to keep up with the Kaul mobile. A state-of-the-art
satellite tv system enables them to receive any tv station. According to Arne’s
opinion “you need to be able to watch tv even when you are on holidays.” They
are carrying with them the latest version of “Filmlib”. Hilmar installs the
software and saves the studios’ records. Arne assists him and takes care of
business.
Twice a
year Arne and Hilmar get into the white family camper and drive to the east
towards Berlin.
The studios’
cast lists are the basis of Kaul’s movie library. However Arne Kaul does not
adapt any data without checking. Every movie is being checked, every voice examined
acoustically in front of the screen. “Very frequently the studios recast the
supporting actors’ voices at the last minute.” And even those voices have to
be classified correctly, this he owes the Kaul name. When asked about the other
countless dubbing voice reference works available online or elsewhere, his only
response is a shy, boyish smile. Comparing them to “Filmlib” would be as inappropriate
as placing a slide rule on the same level with a high performance computer.
Although this shy man would never say something like this, there is one thing
he knows: Those who want to know who dubbed whom when and where have to consult
Kaul.
"Alf"
calling
For this he
spends about 50 hours per week in front of the computer, Kaul reckons. He listens,
takes notes and enters the data into the old Apple Iigs. The Kaul brothers are
well-known within the dubbing scene in Berlin and Munich. Although they may
not seem to fit into this colourful small group of dubbing people they have
become a part of it. Hilmar enjoys travelling to Berlin and Munich and he doesn’t
mind taking a few weeks of holiday for this. “For me this is more or less a
hobby, the database is Arne’s project.” Some dubbing speakers like Irina Wanka,
the German voice of Sophie Marceau, have already met the brothers for coffee.
Dubbing speaker still is a profession with little prestige. “Some are just happy
to hear that there are people who appreciate their work,” says Arne. Just recently,
Tommi Piper (“Alf’s” German voice) called out of interest for the Kaul database.
“He had heard about us through a director of photography.”
One time, Arne
and Hilmar Kaul were offered to face the mic themselves. They could have done
the voice-over for small supporting roles in an episode of “Star Trek”, the
space saga of which the two brothers are very likely to know every season in
detail. Arne’s eyes still seem to reflect some of the shock that made his legs
turn to jelly in that very moment. “No, we won’t do that, we said. We are not
actors.” They want others to be in the limelight. Arne Kaul has found his place.
He prefers to listen.
Translation
05/2004 Katrin Stein
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