Sessions on audiovisual topics
Distinguished Speaker: Pablo Romero-Fresco
Pablo Romero-Fresco is a researcher at the Universidade de Vigo (Spain) and an honorary professor of translation and filmmaking at the University of Roehampton (U.K.). He is the author of Subtitling through Speech Recognition: Respeaking and Accessible Filmmaking. He is the head of the Galician Observatory for Media Access, an international research center, where he coordinates international projects on media accessibility. He is also a filmmaker. His first documentary, Joining the Dots, was screened during the 69th Venice Film Festival and was used by Netflix and film schools around Europe to raise awareness about audio description.
Session: Interlingual Real-Time Closed Captions: Where Accessibility Meets Translation (086)
Abstract: For the past 30 years, the production of closed captions in real time has enabled millions of people with hearing loss to access live television programs and events through same-language captions. Based on the results of the Interlingual Live Subtitling for Access project, funded by the European Union, this session will focus on interlingual real-time captioning, a new development that requires a combination of interpreting and translation subtitling skills. This new method provides access to live foreign-language programs and events for both people with and without hearing loss. It also presents exciting opportunities for professionals working in the areas of translation and accessibility.
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Session: Accessible Filmmaking: Integrating Translation into Film Production (101)
Abstract: Film translations are often produced as an afterthought, with limited time and money. Sometimes there is no contact between the translator and the creative team working on the movie. Renumeration for the translator is also low. Accessible filmmaking proposes to tackle this issue by integrating translation and accessibility into the filmmaking process. The speaker will describe the accessible filmmaking model (requirements, workflow, cost, etc.), focusing on examples of how it’s being implemented by filmmakers and production companies worldwide and on the new opportunities that it provides translators.
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Vanessa Wells
Vanessa Wells is a caption and subtitle editor providing native-English polishing to timed text in film, television, and video for production companies, audiovisual translators, and filmmakers. After teaching Latin for years, she traded in her stylus and tablets for a green pen and Track Changes and is currently a member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (U.K.), SUBTLE–The Subtitlers’ Association, and the Editors’ Association of Canada. An advocate for the rights of the deaf and hard of hearing to quality captioning, she frequently speaks on accessibility through caption editing. She lives in Toronto and studies American Sign Language.
Session: Subtitle Editing: Walking the Fine Line between Red-Pen Pedantry and Facilitating Audience Immersion (039)
Abstract: Just like book manuscripts, subtitles and closed captions need copy editing (not just proofreading) to prevent reader stumbles. “Craptions” cause the user to lose track of the storyline while their brain tries to sort out what they just read. Subtitle/caption editing is not about being the grammar police. The problems with “craptions” go far beyond typos to include truisms, downplayed diction, localization issues, cultural and contextual silence, and rigid use of unclear (and sometimes incorrect) style guides. Attend this session to learn more about the nitty-gritties of editing, the ethics and responsibilities of the audiovisual professional, and avoiding common pitfalls.
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Joel Snyder
Joel Snyder is a pioneer in the field of audio description (a translation of visual images to vivid language). Since 1981, he has introduced audio description techniques in over 40 states and 61 countries. In 2014, the American Council of the Blind published his book, The Visual Made Verbal: A Comprehensive Training Manual and Guide to the History and Applications of Audio Description, now available as an audiobook in English, Polish, Russian, and Portuguese.
Session: Are You a CAD (Certified Audio Describer)? (024)
Abstract: Audio describers “translate” the visual aspects of a film into a verbal experience for people who are blind or visually impaired. To ensure high quality, the American Council of the Blind has partnered with the Academy for Certification of Vision Rehabilitation and Education Professionals to develop a certification process for audio describers. This session will offer an overview of the fundamentals of audio description and how interested individuals can become professional audio describers.
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Session: Audio Description: The Visual Made Verbal (056)
Abstract: This session will provide an introduction to audio description, or the process of “translating” the visual aspects of a film into a verbal experience for people who are blind or visually impaired. Using words that are succinct, vivid, and imaginative, media describers perform an important service to a significant segment of the population. (It is estimated that about 21 million Americans are visually impaired.)
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Luz Gómez
Luz Gómez is a professional translator and subtitler. She has an MA in audiovisual and literary translation from the University Pompeu Fabra. She has worked for both European and American markets. She has subtitled documentaries, series, medical congresses, and commercials. She is a member of the Guatemalan Association for Interpreters and Translators.
Session: Roma: Intralinguistic Conflicts (055)
Abstract: The speaker will discuss the intralinguistic conflicts in the Mexican film Roma that were caused by variants of the Spanish language. We’ll discuss the cultural and linguistic issues presented in the film, the subtitles used for the film’s release in Spain, and the reaction to the film by the Spanish-speaking public (both in Latin America and Spain). Suggestions for translation in Spanish-speaking countries and professional ethics will also be discussed.
Gabriela Ortiz
Gabriela Ortiz, CT is an ATA-certified English>Spanish translator based in Buenos Aires with over 20 years of experience as freelance English-, German-, and Latin into Spanish translator and editor. Her areas of expertise include health care, market research, and audiovisual translation and accessibility. She was one of the ATA Spanish Division’s Distinguished Speakers at the 51st ATA Annual Conference and gave the closing speech at the 16th Annual Conference of the Mexican Translators’ Organization Conference (Guadalajara International Book Fair, 2012). She was also a speaker at Languages and The Media and Media 4 All, among others.
Session: Audiovisual Accessibility: What Translators Need to Know (189)
Abstract: Audiovisual accessibility is being increasingly required by law, requested by audiences, and offered by media content owners worldwide. Translators are the best suited to work in these forms of intralingual (or interlingual) translation, as long as they equip themselves with the adequate knowledge. This session will provide an overview of the types of media accessibility (namely, audio description, closed captioning, respeaking, surtitling, and relaxed and signed performances) in which translators may work, specifying the skills involved in and the technical aspects of each. The discussion will also include the resources generally required from translators wishing to work in this field.
Alan Melby
Alan Melby, CT has been involved in standards development since the mid 1980s, starting with the ancestor of the current international standard for exchanging terminology between systems. In 2001, he joined the team that developed the first version of the ASTM International translation standard. An ATA-certified French>English translator, he served on ATA’s Board for 16 years, and is a past chair of ATA’s Standards Committee. He is currently a member of the International Federation of Translators (FIT) Council and is the liaison between ATA and FIT and between the FIT Council and the FIT Standards Committee. His nonprofit organization LTAC Global promotes the use of translation-related standards.
Jeannette Stewart
Jeannette Stewart is a co-founder of Translation Commons. She is the founder and former chief executive officer of CommuniCare, a translation company specializing in life sciences. She has been involved in high-profile projects, such as the Genome Project and prototyping the online unified submission process for the European Medicine Agency. She created a series of workshops for language specialization and actively participates in industry associations and conferences as a lecturer and advocate for the language industry. She writes the “Community Lives” column for Multilingual Magazine.
Session: How to Learn New Productivity Tools for Free (126)
Abstract: Nothing is free in life unless it’s a community project. Translation Commons is an independent community platform offering free productivity tools and training to ensure that no language and no language professional is left behind. There is always a need for learning new tools and skills, and now you can freely access all this and more in the community platform designed for freelancers. You will learn new open source tools and access free trials of commercial tools. From productivity tools to subtitling and creating video tutorials, there is a lot to learn! More importantly, you can access automation providers.
Joel McClinton
Joe McClinton has been translating Italian, German, and French professionally for over 45 years, and also teaches translation at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. His stage translations have been performed at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles and the Stratford Festival in Canada. He has created the supertitles for revivals of Baroque works by the Ars Minerva opera company and Philharmonia Baroque, and has also provided translations or program notes for productions at the San Francisco Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, and the English National Opera.
Session: Translation Goes for Baroque: Bringing Lost Operas Back to Life with Supertitles (146)
Abstract: Deep in a great Venetian library hides a vast collection of remarkable operas that have gone unseen and unheard for over 300 years. An opera company in San Francisco has been reviving these still-lively works to rave reviews. But how on earth can people tell what’s going on in them? Enter the translator. We’ll get a glimpse of the splendors and miseries of translating esoteric language so it communicates quickly and effectively with both performers and audiences. This is also a trick that can come in handy when translating for corporate bigwigs. (Not limited to Italian speakers.)
Ellen Sowchek
Ellen Sowchek, CT is an ATA-certified French>English translator and a French to/from English interpreter based in New York. She specializes in legal translation with a subspecialty in translation and interpreting for the performing arts and the film and entertainment industry. She has translated a wide variety of film-related documents and interpreted for many Francophone film and theater directors, choreographers, dancers, and actors–individually and in numerous film, theater, and dance festival settings.
Session: When You Are the Audio and the Visual: Working as an Audiovisual Interpreter (144)
Abstract: Audiovisual translators work on documents, scripts, press materials, and subtitles, thus allowing films, television series, and video games to reach audiences no longer limited to a single language. Professional interpreters are also important players in this process. They are involved in projects from the early stages of production up to and beyond their public release and distribution. This session will focus on the work of the audiovisual interpreter. These professionals might be lesser-known, but are vital in enabling an audiovisual work to find success with an audience.
Deborah Wexler
Deborah Wexler, CT is an ATA-certified English>Spanish translator and editor with over 20 years of experience specializing in audiovisual translation and Spanish orthography. She has translated over 6,000 program hours for television, VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, streaming media, and the big screen. She is a frequent speaker at international conferences, and has mentored and trained many translators who want to get into the subtitling field.
Session: A Look at Subtitling and Closed-Captioning Software (158)
Abstract: This session will review the most important tool for the audiovisual linguist: subtitling and closed-captioning software. The speaker will cover the features, pros and cons of the top programs on the market, and take a peek into the future of audiovisual software.
Elena Chang
Elena Chang is a Korean linguist providing translation, copywriting, interpreting, voiceover, and directing services. She is also a cultural consultant and dialect coach who is proficient in numerous South and North Korean accents. She has completed a number of movie script translations and revisions for lip-sync dubbing and subtitling, including Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, First Man, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Woman in Gold, Big Eyes,The Imitation Game, One Chance, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Bad Words, West Side Story (50th anniversary release), Olympus Has Fallen , Alex Cross, Life in A Day, and David and Fatima among others.
Session: Translating Hollywood: The Limits of Localization (163)
Abstract: English and Korean share little common ground, both linguistically and culturally. This is why finely nuanced localization is critical when adapting films for a Korean audience. Korean cultivates elaborate honorifics to serve a rigid, hierarchical social structure. But U.S. creative works embrace egalitarian ideals (e.g., the society functions on a first name basis). This poses a dilemma. Do translators distort original intent to conform to Korean norms, or help expose the audience to cultural diversity? In this session, cases involving film subtitling/dubbing will be examined.
Pablo Fernández Moriano
Pablo Fernández Moriano has 19 years of experience in audiovisual translation for subtitling and dubbing. He has translated more than 100 films, including Deadpool 2 and Miss Sloane, for which he received the 2018 Asociación de Traducción y Adaptación Audiovisual de España Award for Best Subtitling. He also has extensive experience teaching audiovisual translation and subtitling, and has given numerous presentations at universities, teaching centers, and conferences since 2011. He has a BA in translation and interpreting from the Universidad Alfonso X El Sabio (Spain).
AST-8: Cloud Subtitling
Description: Desktop subtitling tools have been with us for quite a while now, but what about the cloud? In this hands-on workshop you’ll learn how to create, edit, and translate subtitles with different cloud-based tools. We will analyze and compare them to answer the following questions: Is it possible to complete the subtitling process end-to-end entirely online and with professional results? How well do the current online tools cater to the requirements of professional subtitling? Which tool suit you best? What aspects and functionalities are important in choosing the right subtitling software?
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Session: Deadpool 2: Translating an R-Rated Film from English into Castilian Spanish (171)
Abstract: Ever wondered how the character Deadpool, the foul-mouthed and politically incorrect anti-hero, sounds when dubbed into Castilian Spanish? The speaker will share the ins and outs of translating a comedy film that is based on a comic book. The film bristles with cultural references, intertextuality, quirky humor, and blunt remarks of a sexual, violent, racist, political, and miscellaneously irreverent nature. Learn what strategies were used to make the Spanish audience laugh while living up to the expectations of an established fanbase. Oh, and expect some swearing in English and Spanish.