Dominik Kuhn (pseudonym: ''Dodokay''; born September 16, 1969) is a German producer, language artist, comedian, director and musician. He is the owner of the production company STARPATROL Entertainment.
He got famous in Germany with
Swabian fandub
A fandub is a fan-made dub or redub of a live-action or animated production. Dubbing is the act of re-recording of a live-action or animated production, typically in a language other than the original. Most productions are translated from diffe ...
videos, synchronising, among others, the
Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current Dal ...
or
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
in Swabian German dialect.
Biography
Dominik Kuhn was raised in
Reutlingen
Reutlingen (; Swabian: ''Reitlenga'') is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the capital of the eponymous district of Reutlingen. As of June 2018, it has a population of 115,818.
Reutlingen has a university of applied sciences, which ...
. He did his
Abitur
''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...
in 1989. While in school, he started a rental company for event technology and worked simultaneously at a local radio station as music editor,
DJ and sound technician. Later, he also worked as an independent audio engineer and started producing radio commercials and music, before he began to producing films. He produced some commercials and low-budget films and worked as an actor, especially in regional productions.
He translated a couple of
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
novels for Dino Verlag in Stuttgart, among others for the ''
Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
'' series and the German version of ''
Magic: The Gathering
''Magic: The Gathering'' (colloquially known as ''Magic'' or ''MTG'') is a Tabletop game, tabletop and Digital collectible card game, digital Collectible card game, collectable card game created by Richard Garfield. Released in 1993 by Wizards ...
''.
[ Dominik Kuhn speaks Dutch and English.][Interview on StarWars-Union.de]
/ref>
Using a pseudonym, ''Dodokay'', Kuhn got famous with Swabian fandub
A fandub is a fan-made dub or redub of a live-action or animated production. Dubbing is the act of re-recording of a live-action or animated production, typically in a language other than the original. Most productions are translated from diffe ...
videos, which have been published on various video sites such as YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
, Clipfish and MyVideo
MyVideo was a German video hosting service website, provided by Magic Internet based in Bucharest, Romania and later in Berlin.
It was available in German (myvideo.de, myvideo.ch, and myvideo.at) until April 2016. According to Alexa Internet, th ...
. In 2007, a ''Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
'' parody about viral marketing in Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
found hundreds of thousands of fans. Despite some copyright conflicts, he gained fame in the mainstream media and quickly received offers to do such spots professionally. In the case of the Star Wars video, Kuhn also made a version in "Swabian English".
In 2008 he started to produce a fandub news parody
News satire or news comedy is a type of parody presented in a format typical of mainstream journalism, and called a satire because of its content. News satire has been around almost as long as journalism itself, but it is particularly popular on t ...
, called ''Die Welt auf Schwäbisch'' (The World in Swabian), for one of Germany's public broadcaster SWR's TV channel SWR Fernsehen
SWR Fernsehen is a German regional television channel targeting the states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. It is produced by Südwestrundfunk (SWR) and is one of eight regional "third channels" broadcast by the ARD members.
Hist ...
. The original text is not translated but completely changed. Among the news report clips featured were Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
'Swabian edition' with former French president Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (; ; born 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012.
Born in Paris, he is of Hungarian, Greek Jewish, and French origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Se ...
explaining software features and Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
doing the weather report.[ Kuhn found new tasks coaching various celebrities and actors in Swabian and was asked to work and lecture on viral marketing campaigns.][Kuhn's website biography]
/ref> A B2B video for IBM, about the "LAN-Ball", an allegedly remote-controlled football, is among his professional campaigns. Dodokay also created fandubs of Barack Obama's 2009 and 2013 Berlin speeches; in both version he placed Obama in front of an assembly of home owners in a Stuttgart mansion.
Similarly, rather Swabian problems with neighbors cleaning the car at 5:30 in the morning were used for a fandub of the Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current Dal ...
. German public broadcaster ZDF
ZDF (, short for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen; ; "Second German Television") is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, which was founded by all fe ...
used Kuhn's fandub of a Romney-Obama TV discussion to start reporting about the outcome of the 2012 US presidential election
The 2012 United States presidential election was the 57th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. Incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama and his running mate, incumbent Vice President Joe Biden, were re-el ...
.
Another German public broadcaster ARD had a Silvio Berlusconi phone call leading to embarrassment during a NATO summit 2009 fandubbed by dodokay.
Kuhn is a jury member for the Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis for German science fiction.
Awards
He received the Friedrich-E. Vogt Medal for his work promoting the Swabian dialect.Mundartgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg e.V.
/ref>
References
External links
STARPATROL Entertainment
dodokay.com
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuhn, Dominik
Living people
1969 births
German male musicians
German male actors
German male artists
German translators
German comedians
People from Reutlingen