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Subtitles Guidelines?
  • qwerty123qwerty123

    I'm working on a film now that requires subtitles, and I'm hoping to crowd source these questions.

    1. When should a subtitle appear relative to the first frame of speech on the audio track? -It seems like on the same frame is too late, and that the ideal is somewhere around two frames before...

    2. How long should the duration of a subtitle be? -Intuitively, the time should vary based on how long the spoken dialogue is. But what about one word bits of dialogue like "No!"?

    Can someone point me to a standard set of guidelines for this sort of thing?

  • 7 Replies sorted by
  • sherwoodsherwood

    I did the subtitling on my first feature film and I can tell you it was a bitch. Prepare yourself for a long, steep learning curve, even if you're lucky enough to have money to have someone else do it -- you will still have to supervise. A resource I found indispensible was the book "Subtitling" by Jan Ivarsson and Mary Carroll. (TransEdit; ISBN 91-971799-2-2) It's expensive but worth it. BTW, this is not something you would be wise to "crowd source"; very few people have any useful expertise with this topic and opinions vary wildly even amongst pros. I might add that the number of people who are really good at doing subtitles -- I mean having the requisite technical skill, taste and creative flare -- is a very small tribe indeed, and most of them are in Europe. Good luck!

  • kankalakankala

    you get a crash in course by reading the usage pages of programs like aegisub, and there are also video tuts for that on youtube etc. Inbetween usage instructions you can find some guideline principles, e.g. it is suggested there that - contrary to your point 1. - the subtitle should start a bit after the audio for better experience, having it before the audio can spoil some cues.

  • willianalemanwillianaleman

    Another great book is "The Elements of Subtitles" - A practical Guide to the Art of Dialogue, Characters, Context, Tone and style.- by D. Bannon. Revised and Expanded Edition. It will tell the rules of subtitling, what is the standard characters number per line, font type, how many lines per screen, grammar punctuation rule, etc. You can order it at Amazon.

    In the meantime here are some general rules:

    • No more than 1 character per 2 frame
    • Each subtitle displayed about 1.5 second on average
    • Rows must fit within 80% of the picture
    • NTSC video - No more than 40 to 45 characters per line
    • PAL video - No more than 34 characters per line
    • No more than two lines per line
    • Arial is the standard font for most English Subtitles
    • Justify center..... and more from this book.
  • tetakpataktetakpatak

    It is indeed lot of work. I've subtitled so far several shorter documentaries, actually I did it "on feeling" just playing the fragment and reading every word of the text. You will feel very easy if it was too long or too short. And check the letter size on the beginning of your work on the big screen, YouTube videos need bit bigger letters than big screen productions.

  • goannagoanna

    Subtitling is not translation. If you're doing several languages you'll have a hell of a time finding sub-titlers who will understand this.

    Subtitling is an art. Viewers must not spend their time reading. They don't need subtitles for parts they understand already from the words or the vision. Starting with Subtitling software which shows the original language at left is often a trap, committing the other languages' title duration and timing to that of the master language.

    Pay your sub-titlers well. Keep the language team in contact with each other. Praise them and give each of them a credit at the end.

  • qwerty123qwerty123

    Thanks for the responses y'all! I only have something like 10 lines to subtitle as it's for a small short. I'm also watching some professional foreign language films for comparative purposes, so that helps. Arial is a really unappealing font... but I know that Sans Serif fonts are recommended.

    My main question is about the proper timing of subtitles... I will try to find some of the sources already mentioned, but if anyone has read those and knows a frame recommendation relative to audio frame for subtitle appearance let me know.

  • charlie_orozcocharlie_orozco

    Since my first subtitle ever I've always used VisualSubSync. It works great and it's very fast and intuitive. I recommend you try it. And it's free! It's for doing electronic subtitles, into SRT files that are playable with any video, they can be embedded into them as well, and they can be imported and hardsubbed through Lemony Pro or EZTitles. I believe there's some other plugin for Final Cut Pro, but I don't really know (I work with Adobe). As for the duration, there's some info in the lower part of the window, and it tells you whether a subtitle line's time on screen is short, long or just right. I don't know which parameters it uses to evaluate this, but I've always found it to be quite adequate. And another thing to pay attention to as well is separation between subtitles. It's very important to leave a little empty space in between subtitle lines so the viewer knows when there's a change in text. Sometimes this isn't possible, but I encourage you to try and do so.

    By the way, I really enjoy subtitling, and I have done Spanish and English subtitles for all of the short films I've made and for several jobs as well. If you ever need subtitling or need an English to Spanish translation, send me a message! :)

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