The Arrow Thread

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Stephen@Cult Labs

Tbf, it is only twice it does it on Ronin, but it is a little annoying...like companies putting subs over the black bars on 2.35 movies

Oh, so it's not a huge deal breaker.

The letterbox bars are supposed to be black and I saw a TV a couple of years ago which was big and expensive, and in a 21:9 ratio, so any film with those subtitles would not be displayed.

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[Stephen@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

Oh, so it's not a huge deal breaker.



The letterbox bars are supposed to be black and I saw a TV a couple of years ago which was big and expensive, and in a 21:9 ratio, so any film with those subtitles would not be displayed.



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Yeah I remember seeing that tv as well and thinking about films where they had put the subs on the bar underneath.

[Susan Foreman]

[Michael Brooke]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

I don't have those Bruce Lee releases, but subtitles like that are completely unnecessary. The ones that are different and unintentionally amusing are the ones that say things like 'Ominous Music' or 'Funky Jazz'.

But they might not necessarily be unintentionally amusing. I recently signed off on the subtitles for It Came from Beneath the Sea, where at a very early stage the submarine captain expresses his dislike of the piped muzak and asks for something livelier. But aside from that, he doesn't verbally describe what's playing, and if you can't hear it it's useful to know that the first is "(HAWAIIAN LOUNGE MUSIC)" and the second is ("LIVELY JAZZ NUMBER").

What I tend not to do is subtitle non-diegetic music unless it really is absolutely essential - but if the music can be heard by the characters, there's every reason to describe it.

Originally Posted by Justin101

One of my favourites recently was 'speaks in Spanish' haha

But again, there's a reason for that. If you're deaf and you see someone apparently saying something, you'll need to know either what they're saying or whether you can disregard it - hence "(CHATTERING)" or "(INAUDIBLE DIALOGUE)".

Although I got so annoyed by the constant references to "(SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)" in 20 Million Miles to Earth that I ended up transcribing the Italian and that's now part of the SDH subtitle track - italicised to make sure that it's clear when a foreign language is being spoken, but otherwise you're reading exactly what someone with decent hearing is hearing.

That's not practical for all films - the opening subtitle in Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, "(SPEAKS EGYPTIAN)", is remaining like that, and I similarly didn't transcribe Tom Baker's incantations in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad because he cheerfully admitted that they were made-up gibberish, but in the case of an Italy-set film like 20 Million Miles to Earth I found it beefed up the flavour of the subtitles enormously. A case in point: when the Ymir escapes towards the end and goes on the rampage, one of the scientists either "(YELLS IN ITALIAN)" or, in my version, goes "Misericordia!" - and there's no question which I prefer.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Michael Brooke

But they might not necessarily be unintentionally amusing. I recently signed off on the subtitles for It Came from Beneath the Sea, where at a very early stage the submarine captain expresses his dislike of the piped muzak and asks for something livelier. But aside from that, he doesn't verbally describe what's playing, and if you can't hear it it's useful to know that the first is "(HAWAIIAN LOUNGE MUSIC)" and the second is ("LIVELY JAZZ NUMBER").

What I tend not to do is subtitle non-diegetic music unless it really is absolutely essential - but if the music can be heard by the characters, there's every reason to describe it.

That's different because you are subtitling plot, something without which the film would not make sense to someone who is hard of hearing.

I was referring to occasions where films have subtitled music, both diegetic and non-diegetic, which have absolutely no bearing on the events you are seeing and are irrelevant, or are blatantly obvious. I can understand if someone is in an elevator and the subtitles say "(MUZAK PLAYING)", because it informs the HoH viewer that the discomfort on the face of the character is possibly caused by the crap music! If, however, the music playing in the elevator is significant because it calls back to an earlier scene, then that information should also be relayed to the viewer.

That said, two characters walking into a Goth bar where a thrash metal band is playing on the stage and the subtitles say "(HEAVY METAL MUSIC)" seems to be superfluous information because you can see music is being played and will be 99% sure what the music it is without the subtitle providing that information.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Going back to the post which started this conversation, for what reasons would somebody who does not have a great understanding of French need to know that a shop provides supplies for tailors? It's been a while since I saw Ronin and might be wrong, but I don't think it is of any significance.

[Michael Brooke]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

That said, two characters walking into a Goth bar where a thrash metal band is playing on the stage and the subtitles say "(HEAVY METAL MUSIC)" seems to be superfluous information because you can see music is being played and will be 99% sure what the music it is without the subtitle providing that information.

Yes, it's always a judgement call, but my own judgement is not to add a subtitle if it's visually obvious what's happening. For instance, I've just watched a chunk of Fragment of Fear where David Hemmings drives home, gets out of the car, shuts its door, goes inside and makes a phone call. Since it was perfectly clear what was happening, I didn't subtitle any of this - but of course there might be a case for it if anything wasn't visible.

For instance, I did add "(DIALS NUMBER)" in a scene in a phone box in See No Evil because you could only see the character from the neck up and there's a potential narrative reason why he might have chosen merely to stand in the phone box in a way that's visible to the other characters while not actually ringing anybody, so it was important to make that clear.

And similarly, when I was subtitling Drunken Master earlier this year, obviously subtitling every single "(THWACK)" would have been absolutely gibberingly mental, but I did think it was important to mention unusually emphatic thwacks, such as the first appearance of Hwang Jang Lee's double kick. Technically, it's obvious what's going on just by watching it, but it's the sound that really makes it clear that it was most likely fatal.

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

Going back to the post which started this conversation, for what reasons would somebody who does not have a great understanding of French need to know that a shop provides supplies for tailors? It's been a while since I saw Ronin and might be wrong, but I don't think it is of any significance.

I didn't work on that release and haven't seen it, so can't comment. Sorry!

I just got involved because people were querying the need for things like "(SPEAKING IN SPANISH)", which to me have an obvious function in a hard-of-hearing context.

[Prince_Vajda]

Andalusian horses.

[Stephen@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

Going back to the post which started this conversation, for what reasons would somebody who does not have a great understanding of French need to know that a shop provides supplies for tailors? It's been a while since I saw Ronin and might be wrong, but I don't think it is of any significance.

It's of no real significance. Just watched it again, and a couple of characters come out of the shop (it's abandoned), but that's it. You don't need to know what it says.

As I said, if this and the post office scene were supposed to be subtitled, they would've been burnt in. It's the fact that Arrow have decided in their infinite wisdom, that they should subtitle something the filmmakers never intended to be subtitled, that's annoying.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

I think it's annoying when films only have HOH subtitles. I watched Free State of Jones last night and was going to watch it with subs because i'd read the deep south drawls weren't easy to catch everything, but ended up turning them off due to the sounds like horse neighing also being described.

Excellent film by the way.