English
Subtitling Services
Subtitling: get to know the routine of the subtitling professional
SUBTITLING
The morning starts and there I am, with the computer on, after checking my daily e-mails. The digital video file is open on one side, and Word on the other. The electronic dictionaries and Google are also at the ready, awaiting the more or less frantic consultation, depending on the level of difficulty and/or informality of today’s plot.
The movie starts rolling, and thanks to the digital age, everything is controlled by the keyboard. Long ago the VCR was left behind... Just as well! The respective script arrived at the last minute. Whew! You won’t have to go back over and over each scene in order to check what is being said (after so much experience, I have learned to identify whether the script is reliable or not...).
Subtitling
At the beginning, because the movie credits are at the bottom of the screen, subtitles should be at the top of the screen. The client requires the use of a little sign to indicate this. Attention is needed. After a few minutes of the movie, the subtitling goes smoothly. The dialogs are spaced out, simple, for the time being. (Thank goodness it is not a Woody Allen!) It will be easy and fast... Sweet illusion... soon, soon, the challenges will appear:
Pull 52 good bennis, and take home a car.
"Bennis"? Where did they get that from? The dictionary explanation doesn’t fit... Google it. I found out: it is from Benjamin Franklin, who is on the $100 bill. Problem solved, let’s move on.
Cf. American Coins: all you need to know about it
Will Macy’s tell Gimble’s?
What now? I don’t want to use the names of the stores, I prefer to "chew" the information for the viewer in this case, since the audience is so varied: "Will the competitor be told?" Wonderful, the sentence is 28 characters long, perfect for the two seconds it will be on screen.
"I’ll try to find ice, since we are in Iceland".
Ah, I am beginning to rack my brains to try an adaptation, but I cannot change the name of the country. There is no way:
"I’ll try to find ice,
since we are in Iceland.
What can you do? Not everything is perfect.
I’m the rapper.
Oh, for real. And here’s the 611 on that.
- That’s phone repair. You mean 411.
- Right.
One more. I go back to the internet and discover that 611 is the number dialed in the United States to request telephone repair services, and 411 is the number to obtain information. The puns continue, defying the grammatical and style standards of the customer, which are not few.
They’re chewing my ears off wanting to know when
you’re going to launch a murder enquiry.
Oh, the translation of this line has to fit in one and a half lines... and I can’t use slang...
You are a nation of peeny-weeny,
piffling, piccolini, piddly-diddly pouft!
For the love of God, someone help me. That subtitle must stay on the screen for four seconds, what am I going to write here??? On top of that, it has to make sense to a wide audience, I can’t use regional terms in the subtitles that will only be understood here in Sampa.
SUBTITLING
The morning starts and there I am, with the computer on, after checking my daily e-mails. The digital video file is open on one side, and Word on the other. The electronic dictionaries and Google are also at the ready, awaiting the more or less frantic consultation, depending on the level of difficulty and/or informality of today’s plot.
The movie starts rolling, and thanks to the digital age, everything is controlled by the keyboard. Long ago the VCR was left behind... Just as well! The respective script arrived at the last minute. Whew! You won’t have to go back over and over each scene in order to check what is being said (after so much experience, I have learned to identify whether the script is reliable or not...).
Subtitling
At the beginning, because the movie credits are at the bottom of the screen, subtitles should be at the top of the screen. The client requires the use of a little sign to indicate this. Attention is needed. After a few minutes of the movie, the subtitling goes smoothly. The dialogs are spaced out, simple, for the time being. (Thank goodness it is not a Woody Allen!) It will be easy and fast... Sweet illusion... soon, soon, the challenges will appear:
Pull 52 good bennis, and take home a car.
"Bennis"? Where did they get that from? The dictionary explanation doesn’t fit... Google it. I found out: it is from Benjamin Franklin, who is on the $100 bill. Problem solved, let’s move on.
Cf. American Coins: all you need to know about it
Will Macy’s tell Gimble’s?
What now? I don’t want to use the names of the stores, I prefer to "chew" the information for the viewer in this case, since the audience is so varied: "Will the competitor be told?" Wonderful, the sentence is 28 characters long, perfect for the two seconds it will be on screen.
"I’ll try to find ice, since we are in Iceland".
Ah, I am beginning to rack my brains to try an adaptation, but I cannot change the name of the country. There is no way:
"I’ll try to find ice,
since we are in Iceland.
What can you do? Not everything is perfect.
I’m the rapper.
Oh, for real. And here’s the 611 on that.
- That’s phone repair. You mean 411.
- Right.
One more. I go back to the internet and discover that 611 is the number dialed in the United States to request telephone repair services, and 411 is the number to obtain information. The puns continue, defying the grammatical and style standards of the customer, which are not few.
They’re chewing my ears off wanting to know when
you’re going to launch a murder enquiry.
Oh, the translation of this line has to fit in one and a half lines... and I can’t use slang...
You are a nation of peeny-weeny,
piffling, piccolini, piddly-diddly pouft!
For the love of God, someone help me. That subtitle must stay on the screen for four seconds, what am I going to write here??? On top of that, it has to make sense to a wide audience, I can’t use regional terms in the subtitles that will only be understood here in Sampa.
