Lilly Paez
The Kitchen is fully prepared for its participation in Content Americas and NATPE Global. During both events, the company will also open the doors of its Miami studios to welcome colleagues and friends. Paez spoke about this strategy, as well as the growth of their Spanish-language services, highlighting their commitment to the region.
What sets The Kitchen apart in the dubbing and subtitling service it offers in Spanish?
“What sets us apart from many of our competitors is our focus on client services. Being a privately owned, independent service provider gives us the ability to respond quickly and efficiently to our client needs and to move swiftly on adopting processes that enhance the client experience and take advantage of technology advancements as they become available. Twenty-four years ago, The Kitchen was founded as a division of one of the largest media conglomerates in South America. From the onset, The Kitchen has provided Latin Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and English translation, dubbing and subtitling services for many of the major networks, studios, distributors and producers throughout the region. At the beginning, our services were all recorded with native speakers in our Miami facilities. As demand grew, The Kitchen joined forces with a number of operations in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, specifically to increase both capacity and depth of our talent pool. We’ve also maintained and grown our Miami-based, native language dubbing teams, primarily for US English localization.”
What is the company's current situation in Latin America?
“We continue to provide most of our Latin Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese work either at The Kitchen Brazil, The Kitchen Mexico or The Kitchen Argentina. We work with some of the most experienced and talented craftspeople in the region, providing voices for all genres ranging from dramatic series, animated children’s programs, telenovelas and feature films. Telenovelas alone have upped their deliverables, requiring production of 7 episodes weekly, instead of the typical 5. Additionally, many Latin American projects are now being localized into US English which has enabled us to expand our English capabilities for Latin American and other international clientele. Having the capability to work to and from any language is certainly a plus and precisely what clients look to The Kitchen for. Having the ability to give the clients what they need is so important to our growth. We offer translation, transcription, dubbing, voiceover, closed captioning, audio description, media services, mixing, etc., as part of our deliverables to our Latin American clients.”
What are your main objectives for this year in the region?
“We have specialized teams throughout the region, whether its anime for productions like Funimation’s ‘My Hero Academia’; major network series such as BBC’s ‘Dr. Who’; or Paramount’s ‘South Park’, which we’ve been dubbing for all 27 seasons, our client list continues to grow. A number of our global teams and many of our staff emanate from Latin America, which is ideal for both neutral and regional translation and dubbing. Understanding the culture and being able to provide current language colloquialisms is vital. Increasing our experienced sales and project management teams is a large part of our growth plans. Having ‘round the clock capabilities through our two, busy language ‘hubs’, in Miami and Madrid, give us an advantage. We can work on our clients’ schedule.”
What goals do you have at Content Americas and Natpe Global?
“The Kitchen is very lucky to have its headquarters and US studios located just blocks away from both venues. As has been the case through the years, The Kitchen opens its doors to all attendees throughout the duration of both conclaves. While our executives attend both events, we always like to take advantage of our home base and home-town and open our doors for colleagues to meet with our team and share a café con leche or mojito with us. We’ve always believed in the personal touch and we couldn’t be prouder of sharing our home studio with friends and clients from around the world.”