Video: Cirque du Soleil: Showtime
Who is our most glamorous client?
As a dubbing and subtitling company, Power of Babel is kind of… movies-adjacent. So it could be any of a whole number of people.
But in our minds, there’s no question. It’s Cirque du Soleil.
There’s no point in gushing over their astounding spectacles – we wouldn’t be the first or the last. But it’s clear that behind every show there are a million interesting stories. And those are the stories we help Cirque’s in-house production team tell.
We subtitle Cirque du Soleil’s behind-the-scenes videos in French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and sometimes German – for YouTube, Instagram, Facebook… and what do they call that other one?
After 40 years of touring, Cirque du Soleil knows the value of reaching people in their own language and building a global community of fans.
Do you have customers around the world? Let’s talk about how you can make a deeper connection with them, and grow your global business. Contact us today.
Video: Coming Full Circle: Ashleigh’s Story, French Version – Produced by Atlas Content Studio, French Dubbing by Power of Babel
Should I dub or should I sub(title)?
Which type of language versioning is right for me?
Video: The Space Program © youtube.com
There is no success without failure
We have failed, often.
Cutie Pugs, produced by Little Engine Pictures
Lip-Sync Dubbing: 5 tips that will save you money
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.
League of Exotique Dancers, produced by Storyline Entertainment
Subtitle Primer: A Guide for Producers, Filmmakers and Editors
If you are a video producer today, chances are that sooner or later you’ll be asked to deliver subtitled content.
Russian-language video by Q Media Solutions
How to boost your video production business
A video translation partner helps you do more for your clients
For producers, some language versioning projects are straightforward: you send your video to a dubbing company, which translates the script, and records and mixes the audio in the target language. You get back a voice track that drops nicely into your timeline, so all you have to do is output.
But sometimes the project is more complex, and you need more help.
Grow your video production business with a trusted translation partner
If you need to translate your video, are you ready?
For a video producer, what are the keys to financial success? Creativity… excellent client relations… careful cost control… These are all important. But what’s really going to get you repeat business is problem solving. Make your clients’ problems go away, and you’ve got their loyalty forever.
Video Translation vs. Video Adaptation
Voiceover scripts need a skilled audiovisual translator
You are a producer asked to deliver a video in two or more languages – let’s say English and French (as is common here in Canada). You’ve finished the English version; now, on to the French. Recording the voiceover, that’s down the road. First you need a translation.
There are three common ways the translation is produced:
- The client supplies a translation done in-house or by their usual translation vendor.
- The producer sends the script to a traditional translator, who is accustomed to working on text documents.
- The script is translated and adapted by a qualified audiovisual translator, who specializes in voiceover scripts and spoken dialogue.
Options 1 and 2 may seem cheaper in the short run, but are likely to cost you time and money down the road, and you may still end up with an inferior product. Why? Because script translation is a different process from regular document translation.
Good voiceover is conversational
Professional translators are trained to stick closely to the original, and to write for the page. But good voiceover should be conversational. It has to be written for the ear – easy to say and easy to hear. A voiceover translation should sound natural in the target language, and that requires some adaptation of style and idiom.
Other languages use more words
Most of the time, French takes 20-30% longer to say the same thing as English. (This also applies to Spanish, German, Italian and many other languages.) If your script is translated without adaptation, either you have to read it 20% faster, or you end up with a longer VO.
A while back, a video producer asked me to direct the VO recording for the French version of a two-minute animated promo. The translation had been supplied by his corporate client. Not surprisingly the French recording ended up longer than the English – by a full 40 seconds. That meant the animation would have to be stretched by more than 30%, and the two-minute promo would be closer to three minutes in French, stretching the attention span of the target audience. (“Couldn’t you have just asked the narrator to read it faster?” you might ask. Well, no. Not if the audience was going to have any chance of taking in the information.)
Adaptation, not just translation
Experienced audio-visual translators bring two important qualities to your script:
- They use a conversational style, and appropriate, familiar idioms in the target language.
- They condense and adapt the script to fit the time available.
The adaptation doesn’t alter the meaning, but finds more culturally appropriate and efficient ways to say the same thing. It makes it easier for your narrator to deliver a natural, persuasive performance – no tongue-twisters, and no speed-talking required. And more importantly, it makes the script much easier for the audience to absorb.
Want to know more about script adaptation, or talk about your video translation project? Drop us a line.
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