by Daniela Costa
January: Dubbing with Elodie Powers
We started 2021 by interviewing Elodie Powers, Director of Global Streaming and Broadcast at Keywords Studios. She shared with us how COVID-19 affected their dubbing and postproduction process and how her team dealt with new circumstances.
The company has teams in China and Italy, so they had a headstart on managing remote work. To achieve their goals, they implemented a system based on enhanced communication and testing new things every day.
We addressed the challenges of recording voices remotely and how working from home or even at a studio with new social distancing requirements changed the energy of everyone involved.
Elodie stressed the fact that technology played a vital role during this pandemic because technical teams were always able to find creative solutions when they encountered problems.
We talked about the differences between dubbing a video game and dubbing a film or series, the challenges of lip-sync, the role of the translator of dubbing scripts in the creative process, and how to work with songs in dubbing scripts.
Elodie also shared her criteria for selecting translators for specific tasks, and how experience, passion, and research play a vital role in this process.
February: Re-speaking and Accessibility with Pablo Romero Fresco
Pablo Romero Fresco, director of the GALMA (Galician Observatory for Media Accessibility) Research Center, shared with us his insights on three research areas: inter- and intralingual live subtitling or live captioning, accessible filmmaking, and creative media accessibility.
We started by talking about the fundamentals of respeaking, how to use specialized speech recognition software to produce live subtitles, and the emerging trend of using automatic live captioning without human intervention.
Pablo gave us interesting tips on how to start respeaking, and familiarized us with the whole process, from dictation to producing high quality live subtitles.
We also discussed new trends due to COVID-19 including growing demand for interlingual live subtitles, highlighting an increased need for adequate working conditions and rates.
Then we moved on to discuss accessible filmmaking. Pablo believes translators should work hand in hand with directors as part of the creative process. Of course, this is not always the case, but if directors or creative teams incorporate translators into their process, the outcome will be very rewarding for everyone involved.
Pablo also explained creative subtitles and how subtle or evident changes in positioning, color, and font can create a completely different viewer experience.
To watch the full interviews, follow the Division’s Instagram account, @ata_avdivision, and check them out on IGTV.
See you next time!
