Ideas for making dialogue sound unintelligible and alien?

[catferoze]

Trying to make an edit along the lines of The Darker Crystal which notably uses the original Skeksis alien language. The bonus features and workprint have noticeably low quality audio so I decided to instead try altering the original dialogue to be unintelligible and more alien. I'm using Adobe Audition but not a very experienced user. I tried shuffling and reversing segments of dialogue but it just sounds too artificial. Likewise when attempting to add filters to make the voices creepier and menacing. Anyone have suggestions?

 

[addiesin]

Trying to make an edit along the lines of The Darker Crystal which notably uses the original Skeksis alien language. The bonus features and workprint have noticeably low quality audio so I decided to instead try altering the original dialogue to be unintelligible and more alien. I'm using Adobe Audition but not a very experienced user. I tried shuffling and reversing segments of dialogue but it just sounds too artificial. Likewise when attempting to add filters to make the voices creepier and menacing. Anyone have suggestions?

Controversially some Star wars prequel edits have used foreign language tracks from the disc to replace some alien dialogue. Ethically weird but it doesn't sound amateur.

Also the Klingon language on Star Trek was developed solely to dub over the lines from the first movie, Star Trek The motion Picture. The dialogue was written and performed in English and the fake language had to somewhat make sense but more importantly it had to match the visibly spoken syllables of the actors mouths. It's a long shot but have you considered "constructing" your own fake "language" and not worrying about the making sense part? Record yourself and try to line up the sounds with the footage?

 

[catferoze]

Great suggestions!

Controversially some Star wars prequel edits have used foreign language tracks from the disc to replace some alien dialogue. Ethically weird but it doesn't sound amateur.

Yeah I'd feel weird about dropping a non-English dub in for Skeksis, but that could be a great source for more audio snippets to work with!

Also the Klingon language on Star Trek was developed solely to dub over the lines from the first movie, Star Trek The motion Picture. The dialogue was written and performed in English and the fake language had to somewhat make sense but more importantly it had to match the visibly spoken syllables of the actors mouths. It's a long shot but have you considered "constructing" your own fake "language" and not worrying about the making sense part? Record yourse ok f and try to line up the sounds with the footage?

I'm definitely not confident enough to record myself. Also, since the Skeksis speak English with outsiders I want their voices to be consistent throughout.

I think I'm getting closer to something I like by altering the existing dialogue. I'm finding different combinations of splitting, reversing, and shuffling of individual sounds and syllables that produce results that don't sound too artificial. I'm also discovering more of the dialogue can be cut entirely than I previous thought since it is spoken off-screen.

 

[asterixsmeagol]

Could you try training a Respeecher on the dialogue of a given character in English, then record yousrelf performing the "alien" dialogue, then mapping the trained voice over yours? This truly is a question, I've never used Respeecher myself, but I would think the results might sounds better on an alien voice that's supposed to have an uncanny valley sound than replicating a real English-speaking voice with intelligible dialogue.

 

[DonkeyKonga]

How about reversing foreign languages? Just an idea. You could even reserve dialogue but keep the reversed language in the correct word order if you cut it right.

 

[catferoze]

Could you try training a Respeecher on the dialogue of a given character in English, then record yousrelf performing the "alien" dialogue, then mapping the trained voice over yours? This truly is a question, I've never used Respeecher myself, but I would think the results might sounds better on an alien voice that's supposed to have an uncanny valley sound than replicating a real English-speaking voice with intelligible dialogue.

I tried looking into this but it looks like many of these voice cloning tools like Respeecher are pretty restrictive due to ethical concerns, the good ones anyway. I'm going to give voice.ai a try though and see what results I get.

How about reversing foreign languages? Just an idea. You could even reserve dialogue but keep the reversed language in the correct word order if you cut it right.

I checked out some foreign language tracks and it was actually pretty hilarious to hear the Skeksis speak French. I might try using some of it though.