Subtitle (captioning)

For the creation of " live subtitles " as a communication aid for the hearing impaired outside of television and movies (eg at events, meetings, interviews etc. ), refer to Interpreting Scripture.

Time pressure and constraints

The on-screen subtitles must not exceed a certain amount of time regardless of the size of the original dialogue. The viewer must have enough time to read the subtitles without completely losing the image content from the eyes.

Previously subtitles have been time consuming prepared by hand and baked with a special machine directly on the footage. Today, technical aids such as computers and synchronized video recorder can be used.

Default subtitle have a white font color and are located centrally at the bottom. Both can be not always guarantee: Firstly, the image area can also be white or at least light, and then he would outshine the white subtitles. Thus, the subtitles are not or only partially legible. Remedy it creates the choice of a different color or a black border with white text, white border with black text or a different color combination within the font.

Another way to work around this problem, the short-term fading of text at the top of the screen. This approach is also useful when important image information is covered by the subtitle. Top superimposed texts are contrary to the meaning of the word still called subtitles.

Technical Notes

Optional closed captions are " Closed Caption " (closed subtitles, in American English closed caption ) called and are often used for DVD movies for use. Subtitles can not be switched off, " open captioning " (open subtitles ) are called. These subtitles are the most common and occur mainly in transmitted in analog television movies, or if the director intended it so. Often this is seen in science fiction movies, when it is desired that aliens use their own language. Movies and Videos with open subtitles that are irrevocable and directly integrated in the image are called hardsubbed. Those with closed caption called softsubbed.

Normally utterances of different speakers are placed on separate lines and this led by dashes. Since, however, the reading can not focus on the mouth movement of the actors themselves, it is easy to lose track when assigning text and speaker. In such cases, colors are often used to characterize dialogue lines of different speakers. The color assignment should remain the same throughout the film.

Cinema

The so-called Diamond - method works so that warm Kupferclichés be pressed onto the film, the image gelatin melts away. In a variation of cold clichés of zinc are preparing the thin waxed to be titled copy and then beaten picture after picture on the Schriftclichés. The upstanding character displace the wax and place the image gelatin free. In an etching bath until the gelatin is dissolved down to the film support, so that after removal of the wax are bright white characters in the image. The clichés are manufactured according to plan films from phototypesetting and trimmed in 1:1 size. The advantage of chemical subtitle is visible in bright areas edge which ensures readability.

The Fußtitel as they also are called, are often burned to already developed film material with laser. The copy with the foreign-language sound with O. m. U. ( original with subtitles ) called. Subtitles can also be mounted on the frame line and steered into the picture by means of prism in the projection.

Sometimes new or rare films for which no subtitles were made, presented with subtitles on a separate display below the screen. The advantage is that no image component is lost or covered, on the other hand is between the center and the subtitles, a larger distance, which makes it easier for the viewer more difficult to see everything at once, without the eyes or head all the time upwards and to move downwards.

For the cinema currently new methods are being developed so that the hearing impaired can also use non-pretreated films. For example, a teleprompter the subtitles projected onto a semi - permeable reflective, angled in view of the hearing impaired person positioned screen so that subtitles and images on the screen visually complement. It has only invested in this teleprompter and the appropriate subtitle are transferred to the database.

TV and Video

In analog television subtitles, 'Teletext' panels can "Teletext " panels ( Switzerland Austria, ) are transmitted (name in Germany ) and in NTSC countries directly through a line of the video signal ( Closed Caption ), provided that the programs were subtitled. The percentage of subtitled programs in the German area is in public broadcasting generally higher than for private broadcasters in Austria this is regulated by the ORF Act § 5 paragraph 2. The total amount of subtitled programs on SF DRS 2008 was 19.8 % of the total circumference of the end, in the WDR, the proportion was 45 %. Since December 2010, RTL offers via DVB subtitling, usually the Sunday movie at 20:15 clock.

In the U.S., however, the English and Spanish subtitling with exceptions for all shipments made ​​from 1998 is prescribed for older programs proportionately. In Switzerland, a subtitling 19:00 bis 22:00 clock clock is required by the end of 2010. In addition, at least one third of all shipments are to subtitle.

In 2008, the Polish Socialist Lidia Geringer de Oedenberg initiated the " Written declaration on the subtitling of all public- service television programs in the EU". After this should be " public television [ ... ] be required to caption all programs ."

In digital television subtitles can be sent separately to the image information, similar to the additional sending the Dolby Digital sound.

Movies on DVD-Video and Blu -ray discs can contain subtitles in several languages, from which you can show to a request.

On 16 September 2010, the hearing impaired associations have agreed on a new subtitle icon. The previous symbol is primarily for " hearing impairment " and is perceived as deficit- oriented. The new symbol is intended to express that not only hearing impaired subtitles benefit, but also children with reading and spelling as well as immigrants who learn German as a foreign language.

Subtitle synchronization versus

The alternative method, a film translate into another language, the synchronization (English: dubbing ), in which the voices of other speakers will be added in another language and replace the original cast. In the case of DVD and Blu -ray Discs foreign films can be made available in several versions to the public. These can be combined in the rule of subtitles and Tonfassungen.

Many movie lovers prefer subtitles because it is important to them to hear the voice of the real actor in the original sound of the film.

If they are sent together with the original, close the subtitle synchronization possible in the area of censorship and content distortions as well as from the targeted modification of the basic statement of the respective movie.

In general, prevails an aversion to synchronization in areas where foreign films are rarely synchronized, because the words can not be accurately reproduced lip-sync - even if a trained speaker can keep the difference is minimal and a copywriter who created the content correctly or in spirit. Since it is in many countries initially did not pay and still not worth it to synchronize foreign films or series, originals are sent with subtitles there often. There films are usually only synchronized, aimed mainly at younger children.

Thus tradition and custom play important roles in the expression of the public taste. While viewers in countries like Italy or Spain, rarely accept a decades-long use of synchronized films a use of subtitles, even in modern media like DVDs with simultaneously available dubbing and subtitles, prefer other countries with similar import rates of TV and film productions subtitles (for For Latin America). In countries where is subtitled, this comes mainly with great approval. Thus, foreign language films and programs sees between 90 and 95 percent of the population in Scandinavia and the Netherlands prefer the original with subtitles. In contrast, prefer 81-69 percent of Germans, French, Spaniards and Italians, the synchronized versions.

Subtitling can help to improve language skills. The average English skills subtitle countries like the Netherlands, Flanders and Sweden are significantly better than in countries in which synchronization is widespread. In addition, the residents give in countries where subtitles are common, often from multiple languages ​​to master than those from countries with synchronization.

In India, a controlled experiment showed that the subtitling of music from Bollywood films ( in the same language ) the Hindi reading skills of school children significantly improved.

Stylistic devices

Partly find subtitles in movies using, even though it only would be no need for their language comprehension. This is the case when the protagonists do not speak the set of the movie or the synchronization of standard language, such as the already mentioned above aliens. Subtitles are to be distinguished from inserts, which also take on a dramatic function.

Some examples are:

• During the Vorspannes the film and the Holy Grail Monty Python and for the plot of the film unimportant and authored in a strange, apparently Swedish dialect subtitles additionally appears, but ends abruptly after a short time.
• In the film Austin Powers in Goldmember the above-mentioned transition of subtitles is used by a bright background for the purpose of situation comedy. In one scene, the text spoken with a Japanese meal is it subtitled a piece of feces. Only after some white props were pushed aside, the rest comes to the fore: ELETT of tuna.
• All the dialogues of the film The Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson are spoken in Aramaic, Latin and Hebrew. Gibson originally intended not to include subtitles - with the argument that the public is the act already known. The distributors translated by subtitles but because they feared that the public would reject a completely untranslated film.
• In The Da Vinci Code - The Da Vinci Code, the French characters speak to each other in their native language and the clergy of the Vatican and the monk Silas Latin. These passages are subtitled. Director Ron Howard wanted to emphasize the international nature of the film.
• In The History of Nana S. director Jean -Luc Godard takes its main character Nana played by Anna Karina in a scene for a short time the language and can speak it only in the popup subtitles.
• In the theatrical version of the movie L' auberge espagnole each of the flat-dwellers speaks his native language, which is subtitled in different colors. In this way, the internationality of the Erasmus students is clear.
• In the films, Beyond Silence, Children of God and Four Weddings and a Funeral, the languages ​​spoken in sign language passages are subtitled.
• As a special curiosity the song Out ​​In The Streets can be considered the band's trio of 1983, as it is subtitled acoustically. The song is mostly sung in German. Prior to the third verse is announced: And as the third verse comes up watch out for the American subtitles. In fact, the song will sung in German, while English is translated (I'm at the window behind the curtain, I 'll wait for you / I'm at the window behind the curtain waiting for you ).
• In the film Trainspotting subtitles are displayed for dialogues of the protagonists, as they converse in a club with loud music. Subtitles repeat here the spoken dialogues.
• In the film, Jack, Queen, King, grass scene with subtitles was provided, which plays entirely in cockney dialect. The subtitles translate the dialogues breaking into standard English. In the German version of the film a " pseudo" Cockney is translated into standard German.
• In the movie Wayne 's World, Wayne Campbell, the protagonist maintains in Cantonese with his beloved Cassandra Wong. In this case, according subtitles always complicated sentences are used (although Wayne has just learned his own words only Cantonese) until the two eventually even stop talking, and only the subtitles are evidence of a further conversation.

Subtitles and computer

Subtitles are stored on your computer in different file formats. The most commonly used formats are:

• VobSub (. Idx sub. )
• SubRip (. Srt )
• SubStation Alpha (. Ssa )
• Advanced SSA (. Pbuh)

In Internet subtitles are freely available for many movies.

• Create fans for movies or series that do not yet exist in German, holograph subtitles, so-called torrents. These text files will then receive the appropriate time code and at this point spoken. This type of Selberbauens is very time consuming. The specific subtitle file formats can be mainly played on the computer, but now even on some DVD players.

The file formats listed above will be automatically recognized by many media players and displayed when playing the video file. A convention is that the subtitle file has the same name as the video file. In Guliverkli project is a selection of open source programs for editing subtitles.

Some container formats like Matroska or Ogg, allow to embed along with several audio and video tracks and subtitles in the file.