Radioactive people [translators of the VHS era]

More recently, the news surfaced that David Sandberg, the director and leading actor in the short -range “Kung Fury”, created using crowdfunding on Kickstarter, is going to shoot the full -length sequel “Kung Fury 2”. In this connection, I wanted to revise the short film of 2015. As far as you know, this picture is a tribute to the drug addict eighties, films about police everyday life, films about martial arts, and other Terminators of America. I looked this masterpiece even when it exit. Then there were no translations, and naturally I watched in subtitles. But you know … I somehow did not get through. Of course, I understood all the salt of what was happening and how much this masterpiece work, and how much they shoved into it, but I did not feel a nostalgic impulse. I understood the whole stem and every joke, but I didn’t even smile much, not feeling emotional interest. This time, I looked at Kung Fury in the translation of Comrade Volodarsky and Mr. Goblin. It was then that my nostalgi burst! And now I just can’t help but pour it on you 🙂

The translations themselves were for me the quintessence of my whole VHS childhood and not only. And the memories just couldn’t have flooded. About those very times when the films were not swinging from torrents, when there were no GOGs yet, when I and my father went to the market and begged for a row where Uncle Zhora sells cartridges for a dandy. And all films and games were stored on shelves, not on a hard drive. Eh, romance … Perhaps that is why I still buy games in the store 🙂

But back to our rams … As for the inhabitants of the USA, “Kung Fury” became a nostalgic post about the crazy 80s, for me, as in principle, for most of my peers, the translation of Volodarsky became a nostalgic message about the Generals, and not very, intonations that sounded outside the frame of each film recorded on VHS. And now I just want to recall the great and terrible translators of the era of video piracy, paying them their tribute to respect 🙂

We drove!
Oddly enough, it all started back in the late 70s, when, along the black paths, in the then Soviet Union, VHS and other new-fangled strabels of the West were imported by VHS.

Then the first Soviet pirates began their https://nodepositbonuscasinos.co.uk/review/love-casino/ activities, and their accomplices – translators. Naturally, all our favorite translators simply tried to make money … km … km … illegal activity … as he says Corlion Volodarsky: “It was just a business.”Of course, with the advent of” democracy “, all this became” more officially “and even some studios began to appear. Perhaps you remember West Video, SP Company and others. But, as you know, no one has observed copyright, although no one was called to the prosecutor’s office. But in the early 80s, the KGB was chasing translators and their workers. Here I am now seriously! And sometimes the point was not even that the Soviet Union showed “Western propaganda”, it happened that almost international scandals unfolded. For example, our pirates copied the film “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” right in Hollywood, followed by transportation to their homeland, and people of the post -Soviet space saw a film earlier than it was shown in US cinemas. Nonsense! (Although this case occurred after perestroika, 1991). Therefore, the work of translators and installations, mainly in the basements. And these notes were often extremely poor-quality, although … as if in the 90s it was better. )

But oh well, we will not complain about the quality of the recording today. Still, it is not a matter of not a desire to write a sound qualitatively. In those temporary, everything rested against the ability and opportunities to get the necessary equipment, because there was money, and there was nothing to buy on them. It is also worth saying that after the collapse of the USSR, when the studios of translations and sound recording began to appear, tough competition between the studios began. Then the quality of the recording increased, but the quality of the translations themselves fell significantly (as usual under capitalism … even with a pirate. ), because translators to work were given 3, or even 2 hours. And most of the translations (coarse -budget paintings) were from several studios at a time. The same “Terinator 2” was voiced by almost all translators below. But to get these translations is not possible now, since VHS is still: most of them have been lost, but what is not lost is unlikely to get into the network.

Then I just in general terms will present you the most outstanding translators (in my opinion) and what they remember in the era of VHS piracy.

Mikhalev Alexey Mikhailovich

Now the deceased Alexei Mikhailovich, for the most part, is considered the greatest actor of ordinance, his time. Unlike most translators of those years, his linguistic specialization was more narrowly directed, and not in English, but to Farsi (Persian dialect). In connection with which he worked as a translator in the embassies of the USSR in Afghanistan and Iran, and when visiting these countries then the “General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU,” was attached by his personal translator. But with his talent for synchronous translation and transfer of the most accurate intonation, he reached the meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Foreign Ministry), at the institute of which he studied. Followed by moving to Moscow, often became a translator under Brezhnev. It was then, or rather in 1979, they began to apply to him with requests from translations and voicing foreign cinema, in Persian and English. But still official films brought to the USSR to the Moscow International Film Festival and not only.

But as you understand, Mikhalev gained his fame, among ordinary people, precisely when he began to conduct “pirate activities”, so to speak. Alexey Mikhailovich was one of the first to do this, with his first translated and voiced film “Flying over the Nest of the Cuckoo” of 1979. As the translator himself said, for the most part he voiced those films that he liked personally, but as he admitted, first of all it was work, and it was not always possible to refuse work. He worked at home, and only a microphone, headphones and a recorder from the equipment, and the rest of the installation and soundtrack stickers were carried out, were carried out by third parties, which apparently were engaged in the distribution of film cassette. In 1992, when foreign paintings were already brought to all (without restrictions) to the newly formed Russian Federation, Alexei Mikhailovich came out of the shadows, giving his first interview.

The interview is just given as a link. Its most significant points are emphasized in the blog.

At the same time, an already recognizable translator began to work at the Night Taxi studio, in fact, the same pirates who acquired official status. He worked on translated until 1994, until he died of leukemia at the age of 49. Having managed to translate more than five hundred films during this time. Against the backdrop of the rest of the mastodons of sunbeam, it does not look very impressive, but Mikhalev approached his works extremely meticulously and with great love, trying to translate most accurately and understandable for Soviet people. In this connection, his work on such paintings as: “Kreytoy Father”, “Apocalypse today”, “Amadeus”, “In jazz only girls”, “Airplane, train and car”, “I don’t hear anything,“ ominous dead 3: the army of darkness ”and“ Mizeri ”are still considered to be standard and most accurate, not in need of re -sounding. And how for the whole world these films became classics, taking its place on the pedestal of eternity. So the translations of Alexei Mikhailovich took this place in the hearts of the inhabitants of the post -Soviet space. What is there to add … Bright memory!