How are TV series dubbed in other languages while keeping the sound effects and ambient noises?

Question

I’m talking about actual fully fledged dubs where the original voices are completely gone and replaced with matching voice actors, NOT voice-over dubs where they lower the volume of the original audio and have someone speak over the video in a different language.

I’ve always wondered how the original voices were removed and separated from the rest of the ambient sounds. I know for animated shows, everything is recorded on separate tracks, for example for a scene where two characters are having lunch in a busy restaurant,
the conversation would be recorded on its own track,
the sound effects the characters make ( picking up forks and knives, glasses, drinks being poured, footsteps etc…) would be on a separate track
and the ambient noises (other customers talking, distant traffic sounds from the road etc…) would be on a separate track.

Now for the same scene being filmed instead of animated, wouldn’t all of these end up on the same track? The actors would be talking while creating their own sound effects by moving plates, pouring drinks and all that, the background actors would be talking in real time around them and everything so wouldn’t the microphones pick all the sounds up at the same time?

I’m rambling but I guess my question is, how are they able to isolate and remove ONLY the voices of the actors talking and leave the sounds of everything else around them intact?

Again sorry for rambling but I’m terrible at explaining

In: Technology

Answer 1

>Now for the same scene being filmed instead of animated, wouldn’t all of these end up on the same track?

Generally speaking, no. Special microphones are used to capture the vocals, and those mics are designed to capture very little else. There might be _some_ ambient noise in the background, but they try to keep that to an absolute minimum. Ambient noise is captured separately using different mics or added after the fact in post-production.

They do this because they want to be able to control the volume of everything independently. Voices need to be crisp and clear, which means you need a clean recording of the voices you can adjust separately from other noises; if everything was on one track, increasing the vocal volume would _also_ increase the volume of the stuff you don’t want.