Tips for movie and documentary producers
Those interested in producing a movie or documentary or any audio-visual production for television, DVD or cinema, and possessing a certain amount of ambition, would be well advised to take the subject of subtitling into consideration.It is almost inconceivable: movie and documentary producers spare no cost or effort to produce a high quality product, but wind up ruining it by overlooking some of the basic principles of subtitling.
A couple of simple know how's can prevent important spoken dialogue from disappearing from the subtitles at the end of a scene, fragments disappearing at chapter breaks and, even worse, subtitles appearing on interviewer's faces.
Basic knowledge about subtitling
-subtitles belong on the bottom of the screen,
centered or left aligned.
-subtitles should have a minimum duration
of about 1½ seconds.
-20 characters (including spaces) can be read within a time frame of about 1½ seconds and about 40 characters in 3 seconds, or one subtitle line.
Do's and Don'ts
-place graphic titles (names of interviewees, geographic points such as 'Atlanta, August 1956' and 'ten years later' all the way at the top right or left hand side of the screen, whichever looks best, but never at the bottom.
Why? If you do, the subtitling will overlap the graphic titles and this looks awful. Subtitles are aligned to the right or moved up a couple of lines where they clutter the screen and may show up on the chin, nose, or even eyes the person on screen. Anybody watching the Discovery Channel or National Geographic will witness this horrible phenomenon.
-give the subtitle enough time should an important line be spoken just before a scene change or fade-out. Too often subtitlers have to bring the title on screen too early or leave it up too long (in the fade-out or into the next scene) or too short for it to be able to be read properly.
-take chapter breaks into consideration. No subtitles are allowed for 4 frames before and after the chapter breaks because they disappear on DVD's. A movie maker who does this anyway ruins his own work. One of the few producers who seem to take this into consideration is Joss Whedon, creator and producer of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayers', amongst others. In his liner notes on the DVD he reminds his colleagues not to use dialogue in fade-outs and personally completes his way ahead of time.
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