Shot taken from Samurai Champloo
About a year ago there was this email exchange between me and some of my AFOE colleagues in which I talked a bit about my daily job as a subtitler. Actually, I was venting. During this exchange I was invited to write a post about subtitling for AFOE.
The image at the beginning of this post is a screen shot taken from the anime series Samurai Champloo that I subtitled some time ago. The Dutch subtitle roughly translates as “So, it was really you, sitting stark naked in that bathtub?†I have translated weirder lines, though.
Many non-European nationals that settle in Europe for the first time, especially Americans, seem to find subtitling and dubbing a particularly quaint feature of the continental European landscape. It must indeed be weird to hear Will Smith speak French or German all of a sudden. And on several occasions I have heard American friends in Belgium wonder why subtitles never seem to correspond with what is actually said on screen. In general they do, really, but in a different way. Moreover, subtitles are often associated with “European†as in “arty, obscure films shown at elitist film festivalsâ€. Last year I translated and subtitled an episode of the British soap Coronation Street in which two parents are wondering what their goth daughter must be talking about with her friends. ‘Boys, probably’ says dad. But mom replies: ‘Probably some film with subtitles that nobody else ever goes to see.’ And there I was, poor little European me, translating that line in a soap opera that could not possibly be more mainstream.
Anyway, I have hesitated a long time before deciding to finally give in and write a post about my job. AFOE is not a lifeblog and, most of all, there are some slightly unsavoury details about my job that I wanted to keep in the closet. Never mind that these details actually prompted the request to write this post… But, hey, it is August (traditional slow season at AFOE) and I feel generous. If you really want to know just how “elitist†the life of the average subtitler is, then read on.
I am not going to go too technical on you guys in this post but, noblesse oblige, I need to point out some useful resources on subtitling. Go have a look at the website of Jan Iversson, a Swedish subtitler and author of the magnificent Subtitling for the media handbook. There is also this website on subtitling standards by Fotios Karamitroglou. It gives you a good idea of all the technical issues. And if you are really masochistic you can go and read some excerpts of Pilar Orero’s Topics in audiovisual translation.
And how does all this technical stuff translate into practice? In November 2007 the European Parliament and Council adopted Media 2007 the latest EU programme designed to support the European audiovisual sector. I had a closer look and discovered the EU had commissioned a few interesting studies. One of these studies (pdf), by French Media Consulting Group, deals with ‘dubbing and subtitling practices in the European audiovisual sector’. It is an extensive overview of how different European countries deal with foreign audiovisual material:
As regards works distributed in cinemas: most European countries use subtitling. And even though some countries would traditionally be inclined to prefer dubbing (Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic), It was noted that most of them are clearly moving towards subtitling. In fact, only Italy and Spain, where films are generally dubbed, have resisted this trend.
As regards works broadcast on television: dubbing is the preferred option in 10 countries: Germany, Austria, Spain, France, Hungary, Italy, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland, and French-speaking Belgium. Voiceover is used in 4 countries: Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. Voiceover is also present to a lesser extent in Estonia, where 33% of foreign language programs use voiceover, with the remainder subtitled.
The remaining European countries use subtitling, with Luxembourg and Malta a special case in that they broadcast foreign audiovisual works exclusively in the original version.
The study also mentions, among many other things, the size of the European dubbing and subtitling market:
The study estimated that 2006 turnover for the European dubbing and subtitling industries was between 372 million € (minimum estimate) and 465 million € (maximum estimate).
And here is a nice confirmation of what everybody in Europe already knows (emphasis mine):
Non-European fictions accounted for 73% of the total, of which 73.15% consisted in American programs (54% of the overall total). Non-European fictions represented 68.57% of hours in dubbing countries, compared with 79.55% in subtitling countries, which in fact corresponds to a clear predominance of English-speaking programs since most (i.e., 57%) of these works are coming from English-speaking countries (USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada).
Okay, so much for the practical information. I now need to explain one more thing before I can go on to rant a bit about my personal experiences.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this post many people, and not just my American friends, wonder about the discrepancy between what they hear on screen and what they read in the subtitles. The explanation is really quite simple.
First of all, people process spoken information faster than written information. Subtitles follow the pace of spoken language. The amount of text used in subtitles therefore needs to be reduced so that the reading speed matches the speed of the dialogue. The faster a character speaks, the more the translator needs to reduce his text. Most of the time it is simply impossible to do a word for word translation. You, the people who watch tv and movies, simply cannot read fast enough. It is your fault, not the subtitler’s. The need to respect the viewers’ reading speed is a constantly recurring and major challenge in subtitling.
Moreover, in most cases, notably television, subtitlers will translate for a very broad audience. Sure, there are people who can read really fast, but we also have to take into account that there are many people who cannot. The elderly, the less educated, children, etcetera. The reading speed is therefore set to accommodate the average viewer. Of course, it all depends on the targeted audience. If you are doing specialized translations for, say, corporate managers or academic graduates the reading speed will be faster than if you are translating strictly for young children. Personally, I translate mainly for a television audience. Now get this. According to a Belgian study years ago the average television viewer’s literacy level was estimated, if I remember correctly, to be that of a… fourteen year old!
Secondly, subtitlers translate for people who do not understand the source language or the cultural context of that source language. For instance, the English expression “it is raining cats and dogs†simply does not make any sense when translated literally. Dutch-language viewers, my target audience, will not think of heavy rainfall. They will literally be seeing mental images of cats and dogs falling out of the sky. A good translator then needs to come up with the equivalent of that expression in his own language, which will more than likely not feature cats and dogs, and quietly explain to some people (like I had to do) that yes, the English voice was mentioning cats and dogs and that no, this does not mean I have to mention these domestic creatures in my translation. Another example is the American Medicaid program. Unless you are translating a documentary explaining what Medicaid is, you’ll need to find an equivalent, very often a descriptive translation, that makes sense to people who have no idea what it is.
Let’s go back to the cats and dogs for a second. Once I had to do a whole series of funny American cartoons for kids. In one episode the expression “it is raining like cats and dogs†was used in combination with an image of actual cartoon cats and dogs falling out of the sky that totally belied my earlier argument that I do not have to mention these creatures in my translation. After all, this time the animals were shown on screen. So what does a good translator do in a case like this?
Well, first of all you cry a little and curse the fact that you chose to become a subtitler. Next, you search your native language database for any expressions dealing with heavy rainfall in the hope that at least one of them will mention either a dog or a cat so that your translation will correspond with what is being shown on screen. In Dutch there is the word hondenweer or dog’s weather, which means “really bad weather†and generally describes heavy rainfall combined with heavy winds. I solved the pun problem by feeding cats into the equation and came up with something like: “Today, it is dog’s AND cat’s weather.†The pun was preserved and the text corresponded with the image. Eureka!
Sadly, more often than not subtitlers are not that lucky. Just consider this movie scene I once had with a bitchy female character brushing off a vampire with the words “bite meâ€â€¦ And no, a literal translation is not an option in Dutch because you would lose the pun.
The frustrating fact that, in subtitling, the audience can easily compare the source language with the translation is something you learn to accept pretty soon in your career. No matter how ingenious your solutions to translation problems are, there will always be criticism from individuals who are either totally obnoxious or who are completely unaware of what a good translation is all about. And I am working for television. Thousands of people, sometimes even hundreds of thousands, get to see and, in theory, judge my work.
Another closely related frustrating fact is that people are not even supposed to judge your work. A good translation is one that viewers remain totally oblivious to. As soon as viewers start noticing your translation there is something wrong with it. Subtitlers are trained in several techniques that allow the viewer to read subtitles without paying too much attention to them. We respect the rhythm of the dialogue, we keep the layout of the subtitles and the sentence structure (avoid sub clauses, for instance) as clear and simple as possible, etcetera. Sometimes you will have to alter a good translation simply because it will be too difficult to read. Also, the lettertype or font of the subtitles is specifically designed to provide maximum reading comfort. And here we touch upon another constraint for subtitlers. Your text must fit the screen. Sometimes, especially if you are working with a large font size, you simply have to drop information because otherwise your text would be too long and scroll off screen. On several occasions I have had to alter a perfectly good translation just because there was not enough room at the end of the line for the full stop.
The technical constraints are a source of constant frustration. This frustration, or challenge, is particularly palpable when you are translating a quality program. One time I spent two weeks on a screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. Now there is a challenge for you. You cannot translate everything, you cannot keep the original sentence structure and you cannot always keep the rhyme schemes. Furthermore, viewers need to follow the action on screen as much as they need to follow the dialogue, which means you have to “simplify†the dialogue and cut it into easily digestible little chunks of text. And, remember, they only have a limited time in which to read the subtitles. If the text is too difficult or too long they cannot go back and read it a second time. At the same time the translator must convey as much of the original flavour, both stylistically and contextually, as possible. With films like these I often feel like I am some sort of firefighter trying to salvage as much as I can from an immense burning mansion. You take out the expensive furniture and artwork and all the people and you leave behind the wallpaper, the rugs, the goldfish tank and the occasional poodle. Sorry, folks, no time.
The funny thing is that many people will claim they never read the subtitles and that they do not need them. This is actually a compliment. Little do they know that those dastardly subtitlers actually trick them into believing that. Research measuring the eye movements of people watching subtitled movies has demonstrated that everybody reads the subtitles, consciously or not. In countries with a long established subtitling tradition viewers are simply so used to reading subtitles that they hardly notice them anymore.
So, to summarize, subtitlers do everything in their power to make sure people do not notice all their brilliant solutions to difficult problems. And they do this so well, that more often than not even their customers (the television stations that buy the subtitles, for instance) have no clue either. They tend to have no idea of the true value of the product they are buying and adjust their prices accordingly. Downwards, ever downwards. To quote from the Media 2007 study mentioned upstream (emphasis mine):
The quality of audiovisual translation will be a major issue in the evolution of subtitling and dubbing in Europe. The quality of audiovisual translation (time spent on research, time spent on contextual analysis, verification) is being threatened by pressure on the structural variables of the market: price, volume, deadlines. The problems of quality of the audiovisual translation are not always caused by an insufficiency of existing training courses.
No, the quality is often market driven. Truly talented translators are driven out of the market because too many television execs have little regard for them. Demand for their quality is low and prices are constantly being driven down. Even experienced translators, indeed under pressure of prices, volumes and deadlines, are having to compromise in order to make ends meet. Or they leave the business altogether. The gaps are then filled by lesser subtitling gods who take advantage of the lower standards and give creedence to the often heard complaint that the quality of subtitles is really bad.
Fortunately, there are still plenty of good translators out there who keep on trucking. Why? Because it is a fascinating and highly varied job. You get to do everything from documentaries to soaps to movies to cartoons to… the list is endless. Nowadays most translators work at home and thanks to the internet you can work in any country you want. All you need is an ADSL connection to download your work and a pc equipped with the necessary software and you are good to go. I am now living in France while I am working for a translation company in Belgium, but I could as easily decide to move to Canada.
Oh, one more thing. About those “unsavoury detailsâ€. If there is one thing I absolutely hate to translate, it is… porn. Yes, porn needs to be subtitled as well, believe it or not. I haven’t had any porn to translate for two years now, but in the past I used to do some work for Belgian pay tv. Porn was part of the package, either you accepted the whole package, including great movies and awesome documentaries, or they took their business elsewhere (which they eventually did anyway in order to cut prices, but that is another story).
Porn sucks, no pun intended, for several reasons. The first reason is the appeal of porn. People often ask me what kind of stuff I translate. Typically, I’ll then cite a list of movies and documentaries and make sure to proudly mention that I have done notoriously difficult things like Shakespeare and comedy. The British bard and comedy, however, do not generally impress people much. When I mention Japanese anime the reactions get a little better, “way cool†and all that, but not much. By now you must know that subtitlers have a frustrating job with little or no gratification and that it is always nice for us if we can extract at least a glimmer of recognition out of somebody. So, inevitably, I will be forced to bring up the subject of porn. Remember the enthusiasm with which Obama was recently welcomed in Berlin? That is exactly the reaction I tend to get when I mention porn. All of a sudden I am the toast of the party. How humiliating is that?
The second reason why porn sucks is its unpredictability. Yes, porn can be unpredictable. At least for subtitlers. I have been in the subtitling business for almost eighteen years now and I never missed a deadline. Apart from this one time when, at the very beginning of my porn career, I accepted to do a porn movie over the weekend. On Friday night I got a call from my client. Would I be willing to quickly do an X-rated flick by next Monday? Sure, why not. How much work could that possibly be? Famous last words.
A typical normal feature film, one and a half hours long and with few action sequences, will have some 700-800 subtitles. About three days work if it is not too difficult. This particular porn flick went up to 700!! Even when, obviously, there was plenty of action.
To make things worse, the damn thing was difficult too. Yes, porn can even be difficult. As most of you will know (I assume cheekily) porn producers for some reason must insist on telling a story. In this case the story was about some bimbo trying to make it through college. She was doing a major in Spanish or in history. At one point she was attending class, you could tell because she was wearing glasses, and flaunting her knowledge about the early history of California. She was supposed to be a good student too. I forgot what it was and I’ll be damned if I go and check my archives but suddenly, and to my great horror, she mentioned a 15th century Spanish book. And she gave the title in Spanish. Get the picture? This American bimbo had probably never spoken a word of Spanish in her life before. Hell, she even lacked basic English speaking skills. That mouth was definitely not made for talking. I have a major in Spanish and I did not understand a word of it.
I was so upset that I made it a point of honour to find that book. And I did. After several hours trawling the internet I found exactly ONE webpage that mentioned the book and its Spanish title. That one subtitle alone, invoice value seventy eurocents, cost me hours of work and precious time. And, at the same time, I realized that absolutely no-one watching this flick would give a damn about this Spanish book. That is another thing about porn. Your work means absolutely nothing to no-one. Or almost no-one. There are actually viewers who insist on porn to be subtitled. The pay tv channel at one point tried to broadcast some flicks without subtitles and apparently received so many complaints that they were forced to reinstate them.
The Spanish book was not exceptional, by the way. In another movie a scholarly-like porn actress (she too was wearing glasses to make her character credible) was reading from a marine biology book and citing various names of deep sea mollusks.
And there is the quality of the sound. Porn is often made on the cheap, anyway, with a handycam and not much else in the way of sound equipment. You know how paper always seems to make so much more noise in movies than it does in real life? Well, hard plastic is even worse than paper. Imagine the following scene. A couple is talking and making love in the middle of a room, far away from the camera and mike, on a mattress covered with hard plastic. Outside the building you hear cars going by and dogs barking. In the background movie assistants are knocking things over and there is the sound of the director giving directions. The dialogue of the couple banging away on the noisy mattress is garbled. Some sentences come through clearly and others do not. You, as a subtitler, have to turn all this mess into a consistent dialogue.
But it can get worse. Shower room full of girls, the showers are on and all the girls are giggling and talking among themselves. The main lead actress is standing off-screen, far away under one of the showers amid the noisy girls. On screen you see the male lead having a conversation with the female lead. This dialogue, in the beginning of the movie, sets up “the storyâ€. It is therefore important to get all the information right. You, the subtitler, however, can only hear the male lead… Etcetera, etcetera.
I could go on and on, but I’ll leave it at this. I have done my duty and talked about subtitling. Would love to hear more in the comments section from any colleagues out there, though. Do not be shy.
PS: Here is another good and concise page on subtitling. By Mary Carroll.
Update: Welcome, readers of Andrew Sullivan and The Plank (and Metafilter!). I needed to be a little more precise when I stated that “people process spoken language faster than written language.” This is true in subtitling, not necessarily in other areas, because the viewers are following both the action on screen and the text.
Interesting post on subtitling – in Australia, one of the two government TV channels runs extensive overseas content, much of it european and always subtitled.
I was watching one of the very good Danish detective series the other night (The Eagle) and, oh boy, that needed some serious concentration on the subtitles to keep up.
Keep up the good work – always a good read…
Pingback: Waffle » Blog Archive » Adventures in Subtitling
Julien Frisch » A European story: Subtitling porn
[…] The text is a pleasant mix of a personal story, information about cultural differences in Europe, and the difficulty to subtitle porn (and Shakespeare!). […]
Hi, Ken. Detective series are tough to translate because of all the clues and hints. Almost every detail is important.
But still, there is no point in trying to present all that information when people are unable to read it. Better to reduce now and subtly “recuperate” later (another subtitler’s trick to retrieve lost bits of information later on in the show).
Professional translator here– Thanks for the great post. I’ve never done subtitling (my work tends toward patents, calls for tenders, manuals, and such) but I still recognize so much in your post that reminds me of what I do: the unusual restrictions imposed by each job, the clients who always, always want to settle for worse quality as long as they can keep their costs down, the cultural transpositions that require lengthy digressions to explain. I have always admired subtitlers who can work within the technical (screen space) and cultural limits you mentioned and still produce something that moves the audienxe as the original does. You are poets and researchers and and entertainers and sometimes contortionists rolled into one. Keep up the work!
Listening is faster than reading? Really? Or do you mean just in the case of subtitling?
I know back in the day they used to stop movies if the subtitles weren’t working and I’d always wonder when they had stopped. If they’re not there I don’t read them, when they’re there I do, as long as I can read the language of course. But I must say, when I play a movie at home I usually turn them off so I’m not annoyed by translations gone bad..
Voice-over is evil.
I’ve always charged above-market rates for doing translation, on the theory that it weeds out the unserious. On the other hand, translation has never been a big part of my writing/editing/translating portfolio, so I’ve been able to maintain that view without going hungry. On the print side, the problems are not just with the penny-pinchers, but also (or perhaps moreso) the folks who want good English that doesn’t noticeably deviate from the German at all, and also has the same length so as not to force the designers to re-jigger the layout. Humph. Plus, can we have it tomorrow? The writers for the original edition were all late, but we want to make our print date anyway, so can you make up for the lost time? Again?
“Listening is faster than reading?”
Definitely in subtitling. On average, in general.
Unless you have someone who speaks really slowly (in which case the subtitler finds himself with too much time on his hands).
“I’ve always charged above-market rates for doing translation, on the theory that it weeds out the unserious.”
Doug, last Summer the intermediary agency I work for lost two major subtitling clients after seventeen years of loyal service. The reason? In 2006, for the first time since 1994 or so, my agency had been able to negotiate higher tariffs. One year later the contract was scrapped. “You are the best, but we are not willing to pay for the quality,” explained one client.
The other client did not explain anything. Even the employees from that company who were in daily contact with us (the grunts) were stunned and saddened to see us gone.
One infamous quote from a television exec at the negotiating table: “I do not care about the quality of your subtitles. You can use last week’s subtitles for all I care. As long as there is some text on screen.”
Etcetera, etcetera…
And yes, voice-over is nasty. I once saw a Russian version of it. Some guy reading the dialogue (one bored sounding voice with no intonation for all the characters, male and female) over the action. That was really creepy.
subtitling has been prevalent from the time cinema started…in form of intertitles which helped audience follow the “narration”
Currently most translators miss the narration & focus on other factors
Subtitles are essentially disruptive to effective film viewing but if there is “narration” flow …it creats more involved viewing…every phrase/punctuation holds implication in the total viewing experience.
similar to traffic officers hand-signs which regulate drivers on road the translator has to regulate the viewes.
Subtitles should be diegetic in nature else it would be similar to reading a book with sound/efx
P.S: all content need subtitles 🙂
“Currently most translators miss the narration & focus on other factors”
Actually, I wish some of my former clients would have focussed on narration instead of other factors 🙂
Some of them were quite happy as long as there were no typo’s or huge translation mistakes.
It is sad, because the true talent (and market value) of good subtitlers is their ability to tell the story.
“the translator has to regulate the viewers.”
Absolutely. And we are not even really translating, we are recreating (with fewer words).
Well thanks to the heavens for anime fansubs then. It’s no wonder that the offical subs are often so very bad when the translator has no idea what he’s working on and is under great pressure.
For example the fansubbed version of Samurai Champloo (in the picture) had a ton of notes and explanation done in a really nice way, so that even people without knowledge of Japan and Jidaigeki films could enjoy everything.
antonymous, it is even worse. Anime translators often have to work with another translation. If the first translation is bad, then of course the second one won’t be much better.
Do not blame the translators, though, blame the cheap ass distributors.
Personally, I had spent quite some time reading various anime fansites before starting to work on the Dutch version Samurai Champloo. Even though I do not speak Japanese, I was even able to correct some mistakes in the English translation I was given as a guidline. And our company had a French translation done by a guy who did speak Japanese. I was able to use that as well.
As a result, the Dutch translation got some good reviews from Dutch-language anime fans. But it was a lot of work.
PS; I do not know how good or bad anime fansubs are, but I can easily imagine them to be better. Get a group of ‘experts’ together with plenty of time on their hands and enough passion and, presto, a work of art is born.
I must say that plenty of non-anime fansubs suck big time, though. At least those who are done in Dutch.
I wonder about your assertion that folks process spoken faster than written information. The max comfortable rate for speech is ca. 100 words per minute (with practice, one can attain much greater speeds, but that’s for novelty, not for communication). Even slow readers read at least twice that fast; the sort of Americans (if I’m a typical example) who watch subtitled movies read much, much faster. I read comfortably at 600 wpm and can easily attain 2000 wpm for short bursts.
So I’ve often been frustrated by subtitles which I read in a fraction of a second and which are clearly leaving most of what’s going on out.
Of course, being a semimonoglot, reading in any language other than English will be much, much slower, if it’s possible at all.
Pingback: Read Faster - The Plank
Fascinating post, Guy. A few years ago I decided to practice a bit and translate parts of Ian Rankin’s Hide and Seek into Hungarian that I quite liked at the time. The first sentence in the story is “Hide!” Since it is a detective story, this one exclamation has a special significance so I got stuck immediately. 🙂 Occasionally though I try to work out a solution, but it seems impossible. I’m not a pro though, just a bilingual person who loves languages, literature and film. Maybe all I need is some good training. 🙂
vepxistqaosani, do not forget that subtitling is audiovisual. Viewers are not just looking at the text. There are looking at the image too. And there are intervals in between subtitles.
Reading speeds for subtitling vary, but as a general rule (for Dutch viewers) we count 11 characters (spaces included) per second. Pyscholinguistic research in Louvain (Belgium) has shown that this is the average reading speed allowing viewer to both read the text comfortably AND follow the action on screen.
Hettie, I hate it when I get stuck in the beginning of a movie. That happens. Even when you are experienced and have had lots of training, there are times when you just need to sit back, make some coffee, take a long walk and hope that your Muses will be forthcoming any time soon.
Pros get stuck too 🙂
Thanks for an informative article. One question I have is do subtitlers ever work together with the dub translators? I’ve noticed that the subtitle translation is often wildly different from the dub translation. For example, in “Run, Lola, Run!” (“Lola, rennt”), the dub renders a line “I’m not your real father,” while the subtitle renders it literally, “You’re a cuckoo’s egg.” It seems like there could be value (and maybe savings) in having dub translators and subtitlers work together.
Hi, Justin. Actually, I have never worked together with dub translators. I do know that dub translators need to adapt their text to the mouth movements of the movie characters. Their texts need to be more or less in sync and they have to be read by professional actors and such.
Subtitling is about written text, dubbing is about spoken text. Two different animals. I am sure someone who does dubbing can tell you more.
Russian dubbing is infamously bad—the one droning guy or, if it’s a big-budget job, one droning guy plus one droning woman. Always seemed to underline and bold-face the Soviet Union’s bored contempt for culture, civilization, and the like.
But I’ll admit—and this may be considered a firebomb on a board full of subtitlers—there are times when good dubbing can be at least the equal of subtitles. It is true that it does terrible things to the actors’ performance, even when you have an actor of comparable skill dubbing (which, of course, you never do). But subtitling can also do real damage to the visual rhythm of a film.
For example, there’s a section in a late Godard movie—I think it was Germany Year Zero—which is a single, unbroken take of a woman walking down a white hallway, with paintings displayed along it, while a voice-over talks about how we think of history as punctuated periods, when really it is one long, unfolding scroll, with no beginnings or ends. The effect would have been hypnotic, except that my eye kept moving down to read the subtitle, up to see the image, down to read the subtitle, up to see the image, and so on. In a lot of minimally-edited movies, like Bela Tarr’s or Tarkovsky’s, this is a real problem, at least for me—the rhythm of the film being distrupted by the constant back and forth of reading, which does tremendous violence to long-take shots, where visual concentration is key. So in those cases, I wonder if a quality dubbing job would’ve actually been a better option (not that any distributor would’ve paid for a quality dubbing job, of course).
Plus, for those of us on the cowboy side of the Atlantic, the growth in subtitling meant a huge decline in foreign film audiences. A lot of people get incredibly—annoyingly—reluctant to read when they watch a movie, and I often think the huge drop in foreign film viewing in the US in the 70s was closely related to the rise of subtitling over dubbing, which made foreign films a much tougher experience.
None of which is to say that I’d prefer dubbing to subtitling as a default—just the opposite, in fact! But I do sometimes wish it was an option.
Fuzzy Bastard, I absolutely agree that sometimes dubbing is the better option. In the case you mentioned, for instance, and for children’s programmes. And, yes, subtitles definitely disrupt the image. That’s why we have to pay so much attention to making them as inconspicuous as possible and why we respect the rhythm of the film.
I love subtitling because you get to hear the original voices and languages. And, of course, I am used to reading them. DVDs are great in that you have the choice to view a film with or without subtitles.
Thanks for all the great information. I’ll often have English subtitles on even for English language movies to compensate for a noisy environment, and I’ve always been impressed at how good subtitles can squeeze down lengthy dialogue (e.g. The West Wing). But I cherish the occasional flubs, as well. Many years ago, my husband was watching an English-language film in Israel. In one scene, a woman was giving birth. The doctor said, in English, “She is in labor”. The Hebrew subtitle read “She is in the Histadrut (the Israeli Labor party)”. We still wonder–was that a real goof, or just a subtitler making a joke?
It is of course a false subtitler ideology, often reiterated, that viewers cannot read as fast as characters onscreen speak. That depends on how fast they’re talking, but actual scientific studies, as opposed to a priori declarations, have shown that reading up to 200 wpm is possible for long periods, and well above that speed for short periods.
If verbatim reading is really impossible, then why does everyone who watches captioned TV in the U.S., Canada, and Australia *apparently* get by just fine?
Because that’s captioning and people watching captioning have different eyes and visual cortices than subtitling viewers?
And you can’t really be serious in your claim that subtitling fonts are designed for readability. Care to check the research on that? You could come over to my place and I’ll show it to you.
You need to edit subtitles to fit the onscreen room? Well, not if you admit, finally, at long last, that subtitles do not need a maximum length of two lines.
You have indeed provided a fascinating glimpse into the rigid and unexamined world of subtitling. I’m sure you think you’re doing fine.
Guy, my heart fluttered when I saw mention of this article on Andrew’s blog. Why? I’m deaf and I thought, “Oh my God! Andrew is going to start subtitling all those videos he put on his blog that I’m completely stumped by.”
Subtitling was – for YEARS – the only way I got to enjoy a feature film. Because of subtitling, I often had the thought that I knew more about European, Chinese and Japanese culture than I did American culture. Without subtitling, a group of my deaf friends and I would make a contest out of a mainstream movie by going to see it without any subtitling or captioning support, the have a get-together later where each of use would try to tell the story of the film. We had great fun doing that and just as much fun when hearing friends or family members would then tell us what was actually taking place in the story.
I thought I had died and gone to heaven when Ted Koppel’s “Nightline” came on the air with captioning. I actually CRIED over it. It was my first chance to see captioned television.
Needless to say, I’m a HUGE fan of subtitling and captioning. I’m a connoisseur of fine captioning. American sit com are, IMHO, the best examples. All of your explanation about matching the pace of talking with the visual side of the story just brings to mind how I, too, became a fan of Seinfeld. I don’t know who does that work, but I’d like to shake their hand.
And Andrew! Hint, hint!
Thanks Guy. Loved the article. Saw every word.
[…] It is of course a false subtitler ideology, often reiterated, that viewers cannot read as fast as characters onscreen speak. […]
Joe, of course you are an expert in this field, and I’ve been a big fan of yours since I started subtitling a decade ago. It truly pains me to disagree with you, but… go easy on Guy, would you?
I’d agree that 200wpm is fine and dandy for a subtitle in most contexts, and most audiences could probably cope with more. But the dialogue in an average “walk and talk” scene in The West Wing or an operating room scene in ER can run somewhere around 350wpm, peaking at over 400wpm. I’m an educated man with a couple of degrees who makes his living from reading and writing quickly, but I genuinely can’t read it as fast as they can say it. There are exceptions to even your rules, is my point.
After such an excellent post, where Guy does such a great job of bringing the reality of translation subtitling to life for anyone who may not appreciate the issues we face, it just seems a little harsh to come down on him so hard. It’s not Guy’s fault that we have restrictions like the two-line maximum, or that we use the fonts we do. Whether appropriate or not, those are longstanding conventions, as entrenched in the minds of subtitle viewers as they are in subtitling company style guides and production company specs. I say this respectfully, but it will take debate and persuasion to change and improve them, not proclamations, even proclamations from someone as learned on the subject as you are.
Outstanding post, Guy. Every word a joy. Thank you.
Oh, god, the hell that is subtitling. The sometimes insane requirements clashing with pitter-patter dialogue, not to mention the documentaries of hip-hop artists; now those were insane.
Great post and really brings across what goes into professional subtitling.
Great post. It never once occurred to me while watching a subtitled movie who actually gets stuck with that task. There’s certainly a lot more to it than meets the eye (literally!). It would be fascinating to hear a similar account from someone who has coordinated dubbing for films. I imagine it presents it’s own nightmare scenarios and constraints.
Just to let you know, my wife and I both prefer subtitles to dubbing. The subtle nuances of an actor’s speech come through, regardless of the language being spoken, and dubbing just is not up to snuff. We both read very quickly, and I often forget that many people just don’t read fast. Not to brag, it’s just a fact. I make up for it with my crappy skiing.
I have thought about the subtitler’s job, and it’s fascinating to hear from one who actually does it. The one thing I notice is the visual contrast of the text on the screen – when it’s poorly done, I want to scream. Some of us do notice those kinds of things, and they are appreciated. Thanks from me and my wife 🙂
Here’s a story. A friend’s father was in France on business, and he happened to catch a Western on TV in the hotel. It was in English, with French subtitles. The bad guy and the good guy were facing off in the street, and bad guy asked the good guy if he really was going to be able to draw his pistol and shoot him. “You bet your sweet ass” was the pithy reply, but all the French got to see was “Oui” at the bottom of the screen.
Thanks again for doing good work, and thanks for the post.
Hello from Israel…
Indeed, the plight of the subtitler is a universal one; The tight deadlines, the technical constraints, the lack of appreciation from the general populace as well as the clients, etc.
My specialty is comedies and feature films, particularly ones with no accompanying text or script (working by ear – a 50% premium over regular translation). I, thankfully, never had to translate porn, but I have been known to tackle the odd hip-hop documentary, filmed play or New Zealand coming-of-age comedy.
I know I speak for all Israeli subtitlers when I say our heart doesn’t exactly bleed for our French counterparts when we hear you get paid 70 Eurocents per subtitle! According to my quick calculation, you got paid 500 Euros for that porno starring the bespectacled vixen… Over here, the rates have been driven infinitely lower. The going rate for a feature film is around… wait for it… $100! That’s per film, mind you, and never mind the number of actual titles. Under such a pricing scheme, you simply get lucky if translating a brooding drama, unlucky if translating a documentary with a long-winded narrator.
Ironically for a country with one of the world’s highest ratios of TV channels per viewer, and where subtitles are required by law, no less, most subtitlers find it difficult to make ends meet. The average Israeli subtitler is a second income earner or a student. Many of those who choose subtitling as a career have trouble earning a living.
…and by the way, I also translated a few anime. Obviously, translating from the English without speaking the original Japanese was a less-than-ideal proposition. In order to give Miyazaki’s Porco Rosso and My Neighbor Totoro the best possible treatment, I used two sets of scripts: the provided English text as well as fan subs I found on the internet. By cross-referencing the two, I was able to much better divine the meaning of the original dialog. It probably doubled my work time, but I couldn’t have settled for anything less.
Fuzzy Bastard – Germany Year Zero is Rossellini, not Godard.
“The going rate for a feature film is around… wait for it… $100!”
That is disgusting!!!
Guy… You’re telling me?
*sigh*
I am translating and subtitling U.S. theatrical movies in the Czech Republic (see http://fuxoft.cz/preklady/my.htm for some of my ramblings). I did some pretty hard stuff like “Aladdin”, “South Paak”, “Borat”, “Tropic Thunder” etc… I am very surprised about the mentioned study that says “Czech Republic is moving from dubbing to subtitling”. From my experience, the exact opposite is true.. Several examples from our theaters: Shrek: Subtitled. Shrek 2 and 3: Dubbed. The Mummy I and II: Subtitled. Mummy III: Dubbed. Spider-Man I and II: Subtitled. Spider-Man 3: Dubbed. This trend really pisses me off…
This is an excellent and pleasant essay on a difficult question: how to translate/transfer/transmute art between different languages and cultures.
Here in Geneva,Switzerland, you can choose: nearly every film is shown, in alternating sessions, in either VF, a dubbed version (local language translation) or in VO (version originale), i.e.the original language whether English, Italian, Russian, Albanian, …, …, and then always subtitled in BOTH of the principal languages of Switzerland, French and German. Needless to say, this can make for quite a packet of lines at the bottom of the screen. But to tell the truth, between the fast urban slang, poor sound post-production, and the sometimes smudgy cinema sound-systems, I am often glad to have a written text to fall back on.
While I always try to take the subtitler’s work seriously, any “errors” that come to light are more often signs of the fundamental differences between cultures. Why do we go to the cinema, anyway? Thanks again for your insights.
Hey anand, its indeed a pleasure to know that u r working on subtitles…”although you were Venting” quoting your words…however, my ph.d is based on the technological innovation that has enabled the hollywood films to cross the borders; and how their neo tool dubbing and its impact over the tamil audience.
Well, since ur reading over the European market is well explained i though if you would go through one of my recent paper..it would give you picture about our indian scenario too…
Do post your comments..if you find intersting ..coz my am at the verge of completing my ph.d and will be able to relate a lot on these aspects..
TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION AND THE APOCRYPHAL HOLLYWOOD
Jerry Dev
Jerrydev@Icat.ac.in
devjerry@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Films have a long history, which has created milestones in our politics to our thought process in the name of “Entertainmentâ€. From media channels to FM radio all we have are films, in different formats.
Advent of Technology upgradation has lead to dramatize the past and bringing it to the reality in new color. “Hollywood†the kingmaker and a factory that gives life to American’s & Americanized dreams for the rest of the world technologically and culturally.
Hollywood films are apocryphal creating a fallacy that Americans are the saviors of the past, who had and have the determination to work towards humanitarianism. Bullet theory of Wilbur schramm(Mass Communication theory) is rejuvenated, in making the worldwide audience passive by injecting their value directly.
Mythologies (King Arthur, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Kingdom of Heaven) which prevailed in the English culture are given a new color with the help of the technological innovation to rewrite the history in the name of Entertainment.
Technological advancement and their keen necessity have led to the neo brain drain.
Movies like Shriek, Lion King produced at the Indian animation studios, however, carried the message of the American values for the world-wide audience.
Invasion and conquer has turn out to be the primary motto of the Hollywood films, which incidentally create values like “War leads to the beginning of new hope†(The Fellowship of the Ring) & “Wars in the name of heroism†(King Arthur). Bombardment of these contents has made the world passive, in cases where America persuaded Iraq and killed Saddam Hussain.
.
Media has taken a new dimension and its goal is to create the monopolized super power (America)
Affirmation, is another tool incorporated by the Hollywood films to create the acceptance and a sense of recognition amongst us. Representation of third world in movies as subordinates (Harry Potter, Guru, Bend it like Beckham are a few notable examples, however, these films merely targets to pacify the doubts and anger of the left outs (Third world/ India).
In addition, the advantage of Hollywood films in terms of business and ideological invasion is the dubbed version in vernacular languages. James Bond’s latest movie Casino Royale had 525 prints in Tamil nadu and Kerala.At this juncture, this paper discuss in detail about the technological innovation in Hollywood movies and its implications among the young minds of India.
The new technological innovations and how they are being used in their movies.
The mythological and its impact among the audience,
The need and the importance for media Education for the school and college teachers to create a better understanding among the students in terms of technological and cultural persuasion.
Apocryphal an Overview
Monopoly corporations and the compulsion to export capital (for higher profits) characterize imperialism. Unlike capitalism in earlier stages, in the imperialist stage, capitalism has no more progress to bring the world, only the continuous threat of extinction through world war and environmental catastrophe. The countries with the highest stage of capitalism (imperialist countries of Europe and North America) would periodically re-divide the world through world war. World war today is only the political extension of the economics of competition inherent within capitalism.
An imperialist is a member of the ruling class in a society with the highest stage of capitalism. Through their control of the means of production either through ownership or through power in government, imperialists would not have to work a day in their lives if they did not want to. Imperialism is the cause of contemporary Militarism.â€1
“The essence of Cultural Imperialism is the creation of fantasies to escape from misery. It involves the fusion of commercialism, sexuality and conservatism-each presented as idealized expressions of private needs, of individual self realizationâ€2
Imperialism in the name Of Entertainment
The increasing penetration of the mass media among the poor, the growing investments and profits by U.S corporations in the sale of cultural commodities and the saturation of mass audiences with messages that provide the poor with vicarious experiences of individual consumption and adventure defines the current challenge of cultural colonialism.
American cultural imperialism has two major goals, one ECONOMIC and the other POLITICAL; to capture markets for its cultural commodities and establish hegemony by shaping popular consciousness. The export of entertainment is one of the most important sources of capital accumulation and global profits displacing manufacturing exports.
In the Political sphere, cultural imperialism plays a major role in dissociating people from their cultural roots and traditions of solidarity, replacing them with media created needs, which change with every publicity campaign. The Political effect in to alienate people from traditional class and community bonds, atomizing and separating individuals from each other.
Cultural Imperialism emphasizes the segmentation of the working class; stable workers are encouraged to dissociate themselves from temporary workers, who in turn separate themselves from the unemployed, who further segmented among themselves within the ‘underground economy’. Moreover, it encourage working class to think of themselves as part of a hierarchy emphasizing minute difference in life style, in race and gender, with those below them rather than the vast inequalities that separate them from those above.
“The principle target of Cultural Imperialism is the political and economic exploitation of youth.â€4 Imperial entertainment and advertisement target young people who are most vulnerable to U.S commercial propaganda. The message is simple and direct ‘modernity’ in associated with consuming U.S products.
Youth represent a major market for U.S cultural export and they are most susceptible to the consumerist-individual propaganda. Cultural imperialism focuses on youth not only as a market but also for political reasons to undercut a political threat in which personal rebellion could become political revolt against economic as well as cultural forms of control.
Hollywood is one of the principal sources of wealth and power for U.S capital as it extends its communication network throughout the world. An increasing number of percentages the richest North Americans derive their wealth from the mass media.
Today almost one out of five of the richest North Americans derive their wealth from the mass media. Cultural imperialism has displaced manufacturing as a source of wealth and influence in the U.S.
Hollywood has become an integral part of the U.S system of global political and social control, as well as a major source of super profits. Western media celebrities and mass entertainment have become important ingredients in deflecting potential political unrest. The Bush presidency has highlighted the centrality of media manipulation through highly visible but politically reactionary entertainers, a phenomenon that has spread to Latin America and Asia.
Americanized Hollywood messages are alienating to third World people in a double sense. They create illusions of ‘international’ and ‘cross class’ bonds.
Factors behind the Advent of Hollywood
The factors behind the advent are classified into economical and political.
In a country (India) where movie watching is almost a religion, theatres in cities were going to seed in the past decade as it was becoming uneconomical to maintain them.
India produces 1200 Feature Films per year. India contributes 13,000 theatres and 130 multiplexes where many more still coming up. India has an average of 3.3 billion viewers per year of which multiplexes account 1/3rd of it.
Despite the size of the Indian movie business, India remained a stepchild of the Hollywood circuit until about four years ago. Audiences had to wait for a minimum of six months before a Hollywood film released in India. Some film took about two years to swim through the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Hollywood began taking a closer look at India some years ago when it had to fight the 24-hrs television channels, and the friendly neighborhood video distributor, for eyeballs. The mass television audiences clued on to the latest offerings from Hollywood, and began demanding the latest releases, which were now available in convenient VCD/DVD format, thanks to the progress of technology. Therefore, to survive the Hollywood majors forced to rework their somnolent business strategies.
a. Hollywood films in regional languages:
To cash in on the worldwide hype a release generates at the time of the commercial release, they began bringing major releases to India just a few weeks after their worldwide launch. Now several releases such as the recent Matrix Revolutions routinely launched in India alongside the rest of the world. After, the streamlining their imports and distribution network, Hollywood companies decided to enlarge their share of the entertainment market revenues. While they were hitherto releasing Hollywood films in the original English version, the humongous market in Hindi and other regional languages remained untapped.
Sensing a market opportunity, the Hollywood companies have begun releasing their films in several dubbed languages. These dubbed versions have proved to be extremely popular with the non-English speaking masses of India. In addition, their wide appeal has resulted in enhanced box office revenues. Colombia Tri star, which handles the distribution for all Sony pictures, hit pay dirt with the multi-lingual versions of the blockbuster SPIDERMAN. It raked in revenues of $6million. This was much more than revenues from the English prints. Its sequel Spiderman 2 grossed $7.44 million. Similarly, Godzilla, one of the early multi-lingual releases, also grossed over $6million.6
b. Affirmation of Indo American community in Films:
Predicted the wide market for growth, the Hollywood filmmakers made it a keen recognition of indo American in their films. The beginning of this era began with the mighty M.Night Shyamaln, an Indian born film director whose debut SIXTH SENSE broke the several box office records. However, the cliché behind the rechristening of Manoj Shyamalan to M.Night Shyamalan had never risen as an issue among the Indian audience.
The wide recognition the film received and the publicity factor behind the Indian as a Hollywood film created an oneness among the audience, which then followed by characters like Padma in The English Mythological film Harry Potter, India the land of Kama Sutra in the film GURU. This helped in creating the fallacy among the Indian audience to believe that life is green and thereby created the acceptance of demeaning cultural portrayal in the name of recognition and entertainment.
A mere presence of an Indian in the film has helped them to do double up their business. The Paradox is that, Tamil,Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi speaking dubbed version of James Bond receives a opening like any other native stars. The latest of James Bond “Casino Royale†had 525 prints in Tamilndu and Kerala alone. Ironically, the highest number of prints ever made for an Indian movie is 375 prints worldwide which includes India.
c. The Neo- Venture of Hollywood
Apart from commerce, there have been other reasons also for the discovery of India by Hollywood. Among them has been the fact that, in the past three years, several moviemakers who were hitherto running private fiefdoms, decided to corporatist their operations and goes public.
If film production has seen a qualitative change, so has the last link in the chain exhibition. With land prices in cities, rocketing theatres have given way for multi-screen cinemas, or multiplexes. These have smaller seating capacities and have in turn, spawned the production of films for niche audiences. Such developments have resulted in many young first-time movie directors blazing their small scale endeavors on the silver screen – a scene not far removed from the efforts of independent film makers Hollywood in 5o’s, which broke the strange hold of the large movie studios in the business.
The Hollywood companies are closely watching the radical change in the movie making business in India; indeed, they are participants In the process of change. The projection is that by 2025, the largest audiences in the world will be in India and China. In addition, India already has more speakers of the English Language than any country. Speculation has been rife that the Hollywood majors will soon get into co-productions in India. Yet, they are tight-lipped on their plans.
Harvey Weinstein of Miramax of Miramax visited Gurinder Chadda during the shoot of Bride and Prejudice, added that†Nothing Weinstein does is ever done quietly or without reasonâ€7
Technological Innovations – the “THING†behind
Globally there are lads of software and hardware’s used for dubbing and music recording, but there are Two software’s that stand out.
1) Pro Tools (runs on a Mac & PC)
2) Nuendo (runs on PC)
Both of these are freely and widely available in India. Pro tools is the more sought after while Nuendo is more for home or small/cheaper setups. UTV use Protools or Nuendo with combinations of analog or digital mixers and beta recorders and players. These are the most commonly used technology in the country today. En Sync uses Pro tools in Mumbai and Nuendo in Chennai
Dubbing vendors are riding on this wave. UTV, which has a dubbing business unit, recorded a volume of 733 hours in this period. In the quarter ended December 2004, the company has done 461 hours of dubbing.
Other leading dubbing vendors include VGP, En Sync, Mainframe and Sound & Vision. The boom has given birth to a large number of dubbing organizations, big and small. There are at least 25 small outfits in Mumbai itself. Industry experts find it difficult to give an accurate assessment of the size of the market because of the fragmentation.
“It is a very fragmented market. Apart from a handful of big players, we have many smaller players to take into account,†Industry analysts value the market size at an approximate Rs. 150 million with UTV in the lead. The company earned Rs. 34 million from dubbing in the 2003 fiscal and has already touched 24 million for the six months period ended 30 September 2004
Celebrity dubbing, a common aspect in the international arena, is making its presence felt in India now. Mainframe had Shahrukh Khan dubbing for Disney’s The Incredible recently. Salman Khan was supposed to dub Hanuman for an animation movie, but later the assignment went to Mukesh Khanna.8
“Opportunity lies in foreign content. More work will come from production houses abroad or broadcasting companies abroad.”9
The easy availability of service helps the clients to dominate the bargaining. Thus, the rates go haywire in spite of the heavy workload. This diminishes the financial status of a growing market. In the long run, this might lead to the formation of an unsophisticated and fragile industry. Buying out the smaller players will be one practical solution before the established players to avoid any such complications.
Cultural Invasion of Hollywood:
Imperialism and politics of language cultural imperialism has developed a dual strategy to counter the left and establishing hegemony. On the other hand, it seeks to corrupt the political language of the left; and the other it acts to desensitize the public to the atrocities committed by western powers. The message is clear, the victims blamed for their own poverty, and success depends on individual efforts.
“The moral universe of The Lord of the Rings is recognizably that of the Second World War. It is a world of black-and-white choices, in which it is clear just who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. Unlike now, laments Smadja, when such simplistic moralism is more likely to be exploited by the likes of George W. Bush, who wants us all to enlist in his crusade against the axis of evil, and not think too deeply about it.â€10
The above said criticism never rose in our Indian scenario where we have millions fan followers and proud owners of DVD and VCD of the trilogy series of Lord of the Rings. The film incorporates the value of invasion of power and survival through war. Ironically, the film dubbed in all the regional languages and it was a box office hit in terms of collection, however the so-called Critics or the media communicators never did eye brow lifting, in spite of its cultural implications it has created among the young and dynamic minds who are unfortunately elite creamy layer of the nation.
The second most important message of the Hollywood films is to desensitize the public; to make mass murder by the western states routine, acceptable activities.
Mass bombings in Iraq were presented in the form of video games. By trivializing crime against humanity, the public is desensitized from its traditional belief that. By emphasizing the modernity of new techniques of warfare, the mass media glorify existing elite techno-warfare of the west. Global cultural manipulation is sustained by the corruption of the language of politics.
The new language tyranny is rooted in the omnipresent repetitive singular discourse of market of a homogenized culture of consumption, of a debased electoral system. The new media tyranny stands alongside the hierarchical state and economic institutions that reach from the boardrooms of the international banks to the villages.
The secret of success of the North American cultural penetration of the third world is its capacity to that very system of economic and military domination generates11. The world’s second largest silicon valley- India still have the strong young minds who still think a better pasture, a hope in a better future life only catered by North America, which is one of the fantasy that has been created by the North American Films.
Need for the Hour
“The North American movies and the mass media’s are dominating us and aping the reality†is something what we hear and see in our Indian owned private television channels and films whose interests are no better than the Hollywood filmmakers are.
Indian media giants make people to discuss and give a major hype. Truly, our media is desensitizing the public in the name of sensationalism. Media audience bombarded with the repetitive news about bombing and corruption, on which naturally the public has drastically given away their hope. Ultimately, has led to the neo brain drain wherein an Intellectual, no more hired to work in North America or any of the imperialist nations rather they hired for a cheap labor in their home country, compared with what they have to be paid.
Cultural imperialism today includes “news†reports in which the weapons of mass destruction presented with human attributes while the victims in the Third World are faceless “aggressors- terroristsâ€
Bollywood the largest money generating film industry targets more on its international audience the (Non-residential Indians). Classy cars, American life, with an Indian color (Salam Namaste, Kal ho na ho, Family, Sarkar, Monsoon wedding, Bend it like Beckham) are few to list out. The latest innovations in them are the movies with the English names like Tom, dick and Harry, Murder, James.
The communication institutes are keen on teaching the youngster the technological innovations and making them to survive in an Americanized-working pattern culturally and technically. Courses like Mass communication, Visual communication, Journalism merely follow the Americanized framework, from syllabus to working style. The youngsters do not even have the opportunity to look up for the native cultural example, since all these studies are primarily taught in English and designed to give the above said mental framework. Indian culture always portrayed with issues and difficulties, since it involves more of sustainable development, unlike the individualized development of the Imperialized ideology.
The persuasion of culture and loss of identity, sidelined with consumerism and the urge for easy settlement in terms of economy, leading to a value free society. The essential ingredients of the new cultural imperialism are the fusion of commercialism-sexuality-conservatism each presented as the idealized expression of privatized needs, of individual self-realization.
Media Education, which is today, in practice, needs to be revised with the following suggestions:
• Communication studies in regional languages, citing examples from Indian models.
• Media education made compulsory for School Teachers and Students.
• The syllabus needs to incorporate analysis of current media products, culturally and technically, thereby; enabling the student’s to reason out the content.
• The need and the importance for media Education for the school and college teachers to create a better understanding among the students in terms of technological and cultural persuasion.
Hi, Dev. I’ll have a closer look when I have more time. I agree with your suggestions at the end, but you may want to back up some claims with actual evidence if you are doing a paper (and not a blog post like me). Especially with assertions like these:
“Bombardment of these contents has made the world passive, in cases where America persuaded Iraq and killed Saddam Hussain.”
How do you know movies are responsible for this?
Hey guy, thanks for going through the paper although partially.. well the statement”Bombardment of these contents has made the world passive, in cases where America persuaded Iraq and killed Saddam Hussain”
which you highlighted and wanted to be substantiated is a question for a thought and i inndeed appreciate that.
However if you would go through the paper completely and if you could raise the question again, i believe i should be able to give you the cultural implifications in detail and theoretical explantions of how Hollywood as medium of generating and manipulating lifestyle and information which makes the people passive.
Moreover, the article do deals with the neo tool of dubbing the hollywood films in indian regional languages which begain from the year 1998 and its aftr effects.
Looking forward to hear and share a lot of information. Thanks for the comment.
It would not be prudent to post “article” or “abstract” or such papers on online forums
The information is very fragmented…mostly taken from SERPs which are not 100% true!
Dubbing in India commenced long before Jurrasic Park gave momentum to the dubbing trend for English language features.Like today earlier days had its share of pirated dubbing for older classics in 1950/60s
Protools/Neundo aren’t freely availabel in market….the pirate copies are…& just because they are much used in India doesnt make them to “stand out”
Celebrity dubbing has been in bits from 1994 when Disney came into Indian market
I can go on for many other points…but this blog will get “passive” then & I will be accused to be manipulating 🙂
P.S: Its Thursday morning…@ blogging here
P.P.S: well…
Hey, Sameer, thanks for posting. This way I found out about your blogs. Really interesting!
PS: And Sameer’s blogs are on-topic too!
Hello sameer, thanks for the comments and enlightninng me by pointing out the day.. moreover you are probably reading betweeen the lines and dearth of rationale towards films technology and the advent of Hollywood mainstream dubbed versions…
Well articles if not understood is better to back off rather than passing amteur comments which is not healthy:)
The day was pointed for all….as the authors (guys) blog is (sub)titled “Sunday morning”
those aren’t comments….but facts…privileged to have access as I have been in this industry for a decade…
lets not hijack the Guys blog with our post/comments/articles 🙂
P.S: all the best for your thesis(Ph.d)
Pingback: Belletra » Why European Subtitles Can Be Cringeworthy
Pingback: girl talk. « telegraphed
I am not distracted by subtitles, since I am so used to them. I often don’t even notice reading them, till I suddenly find a weird translation in the subs.
These days I sometimes even find myself watching for instance a French DVD with English subtitling, which is weird because in my head I translate both the French and the English to Dutch (but my French isn’t good enough to completely follow the film without translations).
In English I prefer captioning ’cause it really helps in understanding the English, whilst subs distract because I would not always use that translation (and indeed, some subs are very low-quality). I wish everything had captioning, for the people who can’t hear well *and* for the people who try to learn the language. It would make translating the subs easier too, wouldn’t it?
A few years ago one of the Dutch newspapers actually had a competition in summer, for people who always commented upon the quality of the subs. Everybody could send in their translation of a particular scene (new one every week) and the best one could win a little price. That showed a lot of people that it is harder than you think to properly translate, even if you speak the languages involved well.
Pingback: Truth Be Told « Ducks and Drakes, a Blog About Writing