Stage: The Culinary Internship, produced by Butternut Productions
Subtitle Primer: What NOT to Do
How to avoid common mistakes that cost you time, money and quality
My last post was a primer on subtitling for producers and filmmakers. Today, I’ll tell you how to avoid a couple of common mistakes that can cost you time and money – insight that will help you get your video content translated professionally and effectively.
What not to do #1:
DO NOT pay someone to translate your script or transcript, and then hire a subtitler to turn that translation into subtitles.
Translating for subtitles is not the same as doing a text translation of a video transcript. Subtitles have to fit into a limited time and space – viewers are only able to take in so much written information while also following the images on screen.
That’s why writing subtitles usually means condensing the original dialogue. A subtitler’s job is to find economical ways to capture the dialogue in one or two lines that are no more than 24 to 43 characters long (depending on the platform), while also considering reading speed. (Reading speed is the number of characters in a subtitle divided by the number of seconds it is on screen.)
Another issue is sentence structure. A text translator may take liberties with reorganizing the speaker’s sentences to read better on the page, but subtitles have to stick more closely to the patterns of speech on screen. (When possible – in some language pairs, sentence structure is completely different.)
When a pro subtitler is asked to work from a text translation, they often spend almost as much time adapting it as they would translating from scratch. That means you’re paying twice – and often spending more than you intended to get quality subtitles.
When they realize this, some producers decide to forget about adaptation, and just tell their editor to cram the text translation into the video. But that’s not fair to the viewer. When you have to constantly stop and start playback to follow the text, you quickly get frustrated.
What not to do #2:
DO NOT get your editor or assistant editor to “create” the subtitles in the edit suite using the text tool of your NLE (Premiere, AVID, FCP, etc.).
Why tie up an expensive edit suite and get non-standard subtitles, created by someone you hired for an entirely different set of skills?
A subtitler working in professional subtitling software does it faster, with more precision, following international subtitling standards.
You get a frame-accurate subtitle file that imports smoothly into your system.
And – best of all – you get subtitles that are easy to read and understand, created according to well-established best practices.
Think about subtitling as a holistic process, and hire professionals. You will:
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- get a better product,
- save time and money,
- and avoid messy complications in post.
And most importantly, your audience will get to watch your story as you intended it.
Want to talk about subtitling your project? Drop us a line.