Every time I have to call the director, the producer and the editor, and try to tell them how to improve things... well, I'd better publish this stuff and see if I can contribute to improve it before they are done and need to be redone

The question is to minimize the noise and let the characters "flow" smoothly as they can.

DOING AND EXTRACTING

Usually, subtitles are done in FCP and then extracted to use inside DVDs, Youtubes and similar...

To extract subtitles you can use tools as TitleExchange or AnnotationEdit

Or you can do it directly in AnnotationEdit or in Subtitle Workshop (windows)

TRANSLATE

Don't let the editor do a simple copy/paste of the material sent by the translator...

Once done in FinalCut, extract them and convert to a DVD format (subrip *.srt or open format *.srt archives)

Give it back to the translator a copy of the subtitled video and a printed copy (or digital) of the SRT/STL
(the print copy depends on the editor, whatever he feels confortable with)

SRT and STL are plain text formats, to deliver it to the translator it's better to copy and paste inside a normal document format (word, googledoc, openoffice)

Surely, the translator will be able to simplify, adjust lines, and other good observations

• avoid redundancy, instead of "John, John, come here" use simply "John, come here"
• try to make full line phrases, instead of "I've done the/work this morning" use "I've done the work/this morning"
• shorten sentences whenever possible, instead of "he will then become" use "he becomes"

EDITING SUBTITLES

• maximum of 2 lines per subtitle screen
• maximum of 38 characters per line (depends a bit in the final exhibition font size)
• minimum of 2 seconds per screen (depends a bit on the quantity of text, if it's something like "What's up?" there's no problem if it has 20 frames)
• instead of a 10 second subtitle, make two of 5 seconds
• instead of two 1.5 second subtitles, make one of 3 seconds
• if possible, try to make the in and out points of a subtitle to match a scene change
• even if desirable, sometimes the subtitle must begin before the speech and/or end afterwards
• don't leave micro-spaces (less than 20 frames) between subtitles - this is a bit subjective, but I believe you can see it clearly when there's some hole making noise in the screen

flying south

How to build highly developed micro-civilizations based on sun light, water and dust.

Open Source Ecology
Building tools for replicable, open source, modern off-grid resilient communities - to transcend survival and evolve to freedom .

One needed tool:
Auto replicant 3D Printer

via: global guerrillas

“Tis the times' plague, when madmen lead the blind. “
William Shakespeare

Modern servitude is voluntary, endorsed by those slaves who crawl on the surface of the Earth. They buy the merchandises that enslave them every day more. Slaves run after alienating jobs that are gently given to them if they prove to be tamed enough. They choose the masters they will obey. For this absurd tragedy to happen, it has been necessary to dispossess slaves from the awareness of their own exploitation and their alienation. Here is the bizarre modernity of our time.

www.delaservitudemoderne.org

it's just curious that Sarkozy speaks out of a capitalism with a human face

mostly english spoken docs (+subtitles)

Six months before Soviet invasion, we financed the Mujahideen

An Israeli attack on Iran would be a disaster