Reproducing_Children_s_Voices_for_Educational_Projects_Respeecherz_Voice_Cloning_Software

Reproducing Children's Voices for Educational Projects

 

Child actors make movies unique. However, filming and recording children can be difficult, especially with regard to speech and dialog for multiple scenes. 

Our recent client, Atomic Entertainment, is an Emmy award-winning production company that creates and produces fun, information-driven shows for children and their families. Since the content they produce is children-specific podcasts and videos, they often require recordings of children's voices. After years of experience working with children, Atomic was looking to alleviate the different challenges they were facing while filming and recording children for their programs. That’s when the company turned to Respeecher. 

"We’ve been aware of voice cloning for the past few years from press and media articles. We learned about Respeecher in particular while researching solutions for some of our projects", says Jerry Kolber, CEO of Atomic Entertainment. The company found Respeecher's technology to be advanced and able to satisfy the needs of its project.

The Challenge

 

Sound engineers face a variety of challenges when filming and recording a child’s speech, the most common include:

  • As a child grows up, their voice changes. If the situation arises where a  re-recording becomes necessary, the young actor's voice may not be the same as when it was recorded. 
  • Acting skills. Young stars who excel on set often fail to get into character while in the studio.
  • Scheduling. Children attend kindergartens or schools and can't be expected to devote the number of hours to a project that an adult can. For Atomic Entertainment, this was the biggest challenge.

"We work with many child actors for whom scheduling and availability can be an issue, particularly with the demanding logistics of our fast-paced publishing schedule," explains Kolber.

The Solution

 

With Speech-to-speech technology, children don't have to be present in the studio for hours on end. You need only record one hour of a child actor's voice, and an adult actor can then read the required dialog. Using this hour-long recording, any voice can be synthesized into the child's while retaining all the shades of emotion, accent, and speech characteristics. 

Instead of a child, a professional dubbing actor can dub different scenes, thereby saving the nerves of parents, children, and the entire production team.

"We appreciate the fact that Respeecher's voice cloning still requires a human actor to record the material, allowing us to transpose voices without reducing the aggregate working hours of human actors," notes Kolber.

The Result

 

Atomic Entertainment brought in Respeecher as a productive tool for high-volume audio productions. With the help of our platform, the company was able to reduce the complexity of the process of reproducing children’s voices while adding flexibility to the entire operation.

At the same time, Atomic Entertainment focused on preserving the role of voice actors while creating content. 

"We are a very human-centric organization that uses technology and AI to support and expand our ability to have the greatest educational impact on the biggest addressable market. It was important to us that any voice cloning technology we adapted would not eliminate or reduce the need for human actors. One concern would be a situation where human actors were no longer necessary — we'd consider that a real loss," explains Kolber.

The Atomic Entertainment team was pleased that their collaboration with Respeecher allowed them to involve human actors and leverage their voices for smoother content production.

Replicating_Children’s_Voices_for_Educational_Projects_Respeecher_Voice_Cloning_SoftwareThe client was also concerned about the security of the source voices, which was addressed immediately as Respeecher sticks to a strict code of ethics regarding the use of individual voices. 

Our collaboration with Atomic Entertainment proves that if you need children's voices for your project — it's better to reproduce them using AI. You will save your time and the time of the little actors while eliminating production headaches and hassle.

Reviews

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Halsey Burgund

Co-Director In Event of Moon Disaster

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Bear Gryllz

TV presenter and adventurer

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Ryan Steelberg

President and co-founder of Veritone

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David Romberg

Media, Communication & Film Studies, Muhlenberg College

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Abigail Savage

Sound Designer and Supervisor, Actress

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Tim Jones

Emmy Award Winning Animation Producer

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Michael York

Actor, Producer

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Joseph López Osorio

Marketing Technology Director, DDB Latina

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Edgardo Rivera

President & CEO, DDB Puerto Rico

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Joshua Madoff

Composer, Actor

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James Tumminia

Producer & President at Italus Films

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Sophie Robinson

Director, 141 Productions

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Steve Isaacs

EVP, Legion Creative

We worked with Respeecher on a film called ‘In Event of Moon Disaster’ first shown at the Amsterdam Documentary Film Festival 2019. They helped us create a synthetic voice of Richard Nixon to bring to life a never-read contingency speech in case the Apollo 11 mission went badly. We created a highly realistic film, in a large part due to their work. ‘In Event of Moon Disaster’ shows the creative possibility of voice replacement technology as well as highlighting just how realistic deepfake technologies can be, acting as a civic engagement project for the public along with contextual and educational resources.
We worked with Respeecher to recreate my voice in Ukrainian to as part of our education initiative ‘BecomingX Ukraine’. The technology is phenomenal and the result is astounding – I never thought I’d hear myself speaking fluent Ukrainian! Well done and thank to all the team for all your incredible work you are doing. We’re forever grateful and proud to partner with you.
For Veritone, the most important thing is ensuring our clients get access to technology without compromising on the ability to protect, the delivery speed and quality, and in this case, of the generated content. Respeecher's technology meets both requirements and has a proven track record of working with tier one projects.
When I approached the team at Respeecher with a very sensitive and personal documentary project, I didn't know what to expect. I’m happy to say that it has been an amazing experience. They are extremely professional, ethically minded and are genuinely passionate about bringing their innovative technology to the world. Their approach to the voice cloning process is highly personal and transparent. As a documentarian, it was important to me that the approach was ethical and human focused. The Team at Respeecher delivered on their promises and I could not be happier with the results.
Respeecher is a remarkable tool for Sound Editors. It delivers very high-fidelity recreations of a target voice, with transparent performance-matching of its source. It blows text-to-speech out of the water! The effect is uncanny and incredibly effective and I can imagine a whole slew of uses going forward. I am very excited to have discovered Respeecher, and it will be my go-to for voice recreation in the future, without question.
Respeecher's source/target conversion of Mr. York's speaking voice demonstrably opens doors for the entertainment, education, and healthcare fields. Suffice it to say, it was an absolute honor to collaborate with them. Their brilliant accomplishment and timely delivery have allowed our humble project to be a success, exceeding our expectations for what's even possible.
I am very grateful to Respeecher for giving my words and work a whole new lease on life. The technique involved is as ingenious as it is amazing, and promises a great future for all those involved in voice work. With Respeecher, the quality of the re-worked passages is indistinguishable from the original. History comes almost miraculously alive again. I heartily endorse this product.
Discovering Respeecher was the highlight of our project. They agreed to work with the task even when our training data was not of the best quality. The result was fantastic, and the level of detail was just outstanding.
Working with Reespecher was a unique experience. Their attentiveness to detail and dedication to this project allowed us to reconnect with one of our lost narration idols in Puerto Rico "Manuel Rivera Morales" on a new level. It gave his family and PR a glimpse of what could have been if he was still alive and narrating all sorts of Olympic sports games. It was truly magical to see this project come alive.
Working with Respeecher has been incredible. Their team was meticulous and patient, walking us through the process of developing an accurate model... and the final result was nothing short of miraculous. It really sounds like we’re hearing our (deceased) subject speaking again. Something I never would have thought was possible.
From the introduction to Respeecher’s innovative and state-of-the-art products to the thorough and quick technical support, I immediately felt that I found the perfect partner and technology for my projects’ needs. During our discussions, the team offered other creative options that assured me we were on the same page and had my project’s success as a top priority. The Respeecher team members are consummate professionals.
Making a film which was so sensitive we needed a company who understood the sensibilities and ethical issues we were dealing with. From the first meeting with them, Respeecher acted with respect and professionalism, delivered what we wanted brilliantly, efficiently and to spec.
When Legion Creative took on the challenge of bringing MTV’s Kurt Loder back to his mid ’90s glory for the Showtime original Yellowjackets, we needed a resource to bring his voice in line with his de-aged visual appearance. Respeecher worked quickly, with clear communication and helped us achieve the time-warping magic we were looking for.
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