Historically a dubbing country, Germany is not well-known for subtitled productions. But while dubbing is predominant in Germany, more and more German viewers prefer original and subtitled versions of their favourite shows and films. Conventional subtitling, however, can be seen as a strong intrusion into the original image that can not only disrupt but also destroy the director’s intended shot composition and focus points. Long eye movements between focus points and subtitles decrease the viewer’s information intake, and especially German audiences, who are often not used to subtitles, seem to prefer to wait for the next subtitle instead of looking back up again. Furthermore, not only the placement, but also the overall design of conventional subtitles can disturb the image composition – for instance titles with a weak contrast, inappropriate typeface or irritating colour system. So should it not, despite the translation process, be possible to preserve both image and sound as far as possible? Especially given today’s numerous artistic and technical possibilities and the huge amount of work that goes into the visual aspects of a film, taking into account not only special effects, but also typefaces, opening credits and text-image compositions. A further development of existing subtitling guidelines would not only express respect towards the original film version but also the translator’s work. The presented study shows how integrated titles can increase information intake while maintaining the intended image composition and focus points as well as the aesthetics of the shot compositions. During a three-stage experiment, the specifically for this purpose created integrated titles in the documentary “Joining the Dots” by director Pablo Romero-Fresco were analysed with the help of eye movement data from more than 45 participants. Titles were placed based on the gaze behaviour of English native speakers and then rated by German viewers dependant on a German translation. The results show that a reduction of the distance between intended focus points and titles allow the viewers more time to explore the image and connect the titles to the plot. The integrated titles were rated as more aesthetically pleasing and reading durations were shorter than with conventional subtitles. Based on the analysis of graphic design and filmmaking rules as well as conventional subtitling standards, a first workflow and set of placement strategies for integrated titles were created in order to allow a more respectful handling of film material as well as the preservation of the original image composition and typographic film identity.
Historically a dubbing country, Germany is not well-known for subtitled productions. But while dubbing is predominant in Germany, more and more German viewers prefer original and subtitled versions of their...
Against this background, this book presents accessible filmmaking as an alternative approach, integrating translation and accessibility into the filmmaking process through collaboration between translators and filmmakers.
... between Audiovisual Translation, Accessibility and Filmmaking', JoSTrans: The Journal of Specialised Translation, 20: 201–23. Sinha, Amresh. (2004), 'The use and Abuse of Subtitles'. In 233 WORKFLOW FOR THE CREATION OF INTEGRATED TITLES.
industry in neighbouring Australia, for example, where government funding was largely responsible for the formation ... The New Zealand Translation Centre Ltd (NZTC, today trading as NZTC International) was set up in 1985 as a private ...
These challenges are also addressed in this proceedings volume: While the studies described in the volume deal with a wide range of topics, they all agree on eyetracking as an appropriate methodology in empirical research.
Khoo, O. (2008). Cinemas of Value: Multicultural Realism in Asian Australian Cinema. Studies in Australasian Cinema, 2(2), 141–156. Khoo, O., Smaill, B., & Yue, A. (2013). Transnational Australian Cinema: Ethics in the Asian Diasporas.
This collection contains such studies which observe behaviour during translation and interpreting.
... Can integrated titles improve the viewing experience? (Translation and Multilingual Natural Language Processing9). Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1180721. Gangl, Melanie, Kristina Moll, Manon W. Jones, Chiara Banfi ...
The numerous articles on the translation of news headlines, between different languages and in different media, ... note that 'translated news headlines are the product of re- capturing, reframing and re- narrating a news story ...
... Can integrated titles improve the viewing experience? Investigating the impact of subtitling on the reception and enjoyment of film using eye tracking and questionnaire data. 10. Moran, Steven & Michael Cysouw. The Unicode cookbook for ...