Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: How subtitles are created

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Posted by Tom Sauter (Member # 616) on 10-08-2010, 05:46 AM:

I always knew about the different ways subtitles are actually printed on film, but never though about how they were translated and created until I read this thread.

Seems like a pretty complicated process, anyone care to elaborate? I'm sure someone's come to your booth and asked you to fix the context of the dialogue [Wink]

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 10-08-2010, 07:32 AM:

I've done subtitles before and it isn't that complicated if it is built into the workflow.

As is so often the case, if you forget about it until the end -- and if you don't have an accurate understanding of the "deliverables" -- you may end up re-doing the work, and it's going to be a headache. But, it's worth repeating: that's often the case with anything.

A simple Excel spreadsheet with columns for timecode in, timecode out and text to display is the basic document. Overlapping and/or rapid dialogue can complicate matters because the text has to keep pace and yet remain on-screen long enough to be comprehended. Translating language can create similar issues because of differences in syntax. The Excel document can then be read by the subtitle generator.

Yes, you need to enter each and every line of dialogue. But the movie industry has specialists for everything -- just take a look at tail credits. When I dabbled in subtitles, it took me less than a week to do a feature-length documentary because that's all I was responsible for at the time. No, it wasn't thrilling work...but the rent got paid and I gained a reputation for "attention to detail" which led to other, more interesting work.

A friend of mine paid her way through college doing subtitles and captioning. Usually she was one of several people working on a project, and the work would be divided by reels. A supervisor would verify everyone's work and assemble the master document.

From a writer's perspective, this was an interesting exercise because you are essentially reverse-engineering the dialogue and it gives you an idea of what spoken words look like when written down. I was a newbie at the time, and I had the tendency to clean up/standardize dialogue so that it was grammatically correct, etc. but good dialogue isn't limited by standard literary conventions. This was a great way to learn that. Sometimes I still watch certain American movies with the subtitles on for this very reason.

Posted by Tom Sauter (Member # 616) on 10-10-2010, 10:55 AM:

That's pretty neat. In my head I just imagined one translator pausing every few seconds to write down the timecode and dialogue, then moving forward to the next bit. Much more of an art form than I predicted between timing, context, and cognitive science.