Subtitles - Do they put you off fillums?

[TimO]

barakta:
I'm pretty shocked by your iPlayer problems (although not entirely surprised). Have you tried contacting R4's See Hear? seehear@bbc.co.uk

I'm not surprised.  I've occasionally turned on the subtitling (because the audio was bad and I wanted to know what was said, or I'm eating something noisy!), and as barakta said I've come across quite a few problems.  The classic ones are badly synchronised audio and subtitles (which should be trivially easy to fix), and the totally wrong subtitles, eg what looks like subtitling for the news on Click.

I've never really worried about it, but given the number of instances of cockups I've seen, it's clearly a big issue, and the Beeb really ought to be embarrassed about it.


One of the more amusing bits of anomalous subtitling I've seen on films, was with a dodgy Kill Bill DVD from China, where the English subtitles appear to have been derived by literally translating from the Chinese (even though it also had English Audio).  The names of the characters were very surreal, I remember one of the main ones being referred to as Rice Soup!

[Cudzoziemiec]

I forgot to mention adverts before. Not quite films, but we have mentioned TV, so why not? TV adverts are always dubbed in Poland, even when it's completely obvious - from the lack of lip sync and also from the setting, faces, clothes - that it was shot elsewhere. I can't imagine a subtitled advert and I think that is because it would require more attention and commitment from the viewer than an advertiser can count on.

They've started subtitling the "Go Compare" ads - spoken (well, sung) in English, with English subtitles. 

And there's not even a bouncing ball on the words, so it can't be for karaoke purposes either. 

I don't know what "Go Compare" is, but you've reminded me that adverts for Danonki (kids' yogurt-type thing - not sure what the UK name is, but it must be something Danone-like) have a song in Polish with Polish subtitles. But there is a bouncing karaoke ball - TBH I didn't know it was meant to be for karaoke, I thought it must be to suggest to parents "look, we're helping your kids learn to read"!

[Sergeant Pluck]

Here's a good bit of subtitling:

Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip: Letter from God

 

[Cudzoziemiec]

This evening I was flicking through the channels and came across a Western. Kirk Douglas, John Wayne and a load of Comanches or Apaches or whatever tribe they were meant to be. It's in English obviously, and is dubbed, rather badly, into Polish. At one point one of the Indian Braves says something to his tribe in what is supposed to be Cherokee or some such language - I've no idea if it really was. But I know what it meant, because it too was dubbed. As viewers in the initial target audience, ie English speakers, would not have understood this (and it was in no way essential dialogue), it is a good example of the dilemma of "what do you translate?". FWIW at Digi we would probably not have translated it.