Hollywood 9 to 5 - Episode #3 - Writing Annotations

 

Annotations creation

Job Description: Today I’m going to talk about writing annotations. You will have this job either as part of creating a dialogue list or spotting list, or as a member of a team in an English department. If you work in an English department, the work is often divided depending on the strengths of each person. So you might be asked to write annotations and not ever create a spotting list, just depending on deadlines and skills of the people in the department. When you freelance, you could be expected to provide annotations in addition to a DL or SL. But you are unlikely to be hired just to write annotations.

Some of the job titles which could include writing annotations are English Editor, Master English Transcriber, or just a member of the English department or international versioning department.

 

What are annotations?

Annotations are notes for translators which accompany the document they are going to be translating.

If you’ve ever gone to a country where a different language is spoken, you might have had the experience of opening a translation dictionary and seeing three or four different words to choose from. How do you know which one has the same meaning you want to use? Like if you are in a hotel looking for your booking, how can you be sure you aren’t telling the concierge that you are looking for some reading material? This is where annotations come into play.

After a dialogue list is completed, you’ll go through it looking for any words or phrases which could be mistranslated or which might not appear in a dictionary, like slang or informal words. You will provide context or suggestions on what the words mean.

You’ll explain what idioms mean. Like “it’s raining cats and dogs.” Other countries might not use that expression, so a literal translation of it could seem nonsensical. An annotation would need to be added to explain that it is an idiom, meaning it is raining a lot, and that if there is a similar idiom in whatever language being translated into it should be used here instead of using a literal translation to keep the flavor of the character and dialogue in tact.

Other things like humor, double entendres, words with one or more possible meaning in a dictionary or even things which are just said to be silly should be annotated to help ensure that the correct context remains in the translation.

You also might be asked to include relationships between people - like if someone is an older or younger brother or sister to another character, and you always need to include measurement conversions - like from Fahrenheit to Celsius or Miles to Kilometers.

We even once had to add an annotation to explain that when a character said “good night,” it was ok even though it was still light outside because it was late enough in the day and the character was going home from work for the night, to say “night” instead of “day.” So, there are some cultural things which might not even occur to you, but when those questions come back, you just add another annotation to make sure everything is clear.

Humor is an especially important thing to annotate because it can be so different from country to country.

Some companies will also require that you include an internal note of where you sourced your research. Did the spelling of an actor’s name come from an article in Variety or the actor’s IMDb page? Did you just look at Wikipedia and think that was good enough?

Ok, another story. When we were working on MI3, there is a scene where Tom Cruise’s character is climbing the Vatican wall. We couldn’t find anything on-line (again, years ago) about how tall the Vatican wall was, and we were specifically asked to include that information in a revision of the DL. So we had to call the Vatican to ask them about the wall, although I was find measuring how many Tom Cruise’s tall it was, the client wanted something more precise.

I also got really mad when we were working on Nanny McPhee and were asked to include an annotation for the word “stock pot.” There is only one definition for stock pot and it really bothered me to have to include a definition of it in the dialogue list. But, the client is always right. You add what they want and then you hold a grudge about it for 16 years.

Example: Here’s a transcription of part of the video I did on dialogue list creation. I’ve added some annotations to it, including one where I correct the spelling in a title I put up on the screen. Oops!

You can see that the annotations are included with each entry of transcription or spotting. This is a good reason to keep dialogue entries short, so that if a lot of annotations are required the translator doesn’t have to look too far to find them.

Qualifications: English proficiency. A lot of writers and English majors go into jobs in the English department. Although most jobs in an English department can be done by someone without a bachelor’s degree, getting past the HR gatekeepers without one can be hard.

Tests: As with all of the jobs in an English department, you will have to take a basic test which will include some proofreading skills and will probably have some of those annoying errors which are so common in English, like it’s and its or two, to and too. You might also be asked to write an annotation or two, just to prove you understand what they are.

Training: But as with most things, you are unlikely to get a lot of training. You’ll will be given an example document, mostly for formatting, and probably there will be some kind of guidelines document with lots of examples of what kinds of things to annotate in it. However, it is pretty common when you first start doing this that someone with more experience will review your work and provide you with notes. So you’ll benefit from being fast at picking up what the notes are correcting in your work, and not taking the criticism too personally.

What kind of person is this good for: I really think it is helpful for someone interested in writing annotations to have studied a foreign language at some point. I’m terrible at French, but it was my minor in college and I love it. Having studied a foreign language helps you realize just how easy it is to pull the wrong word out of a dictionary, so you better understand why annotations are helpful.

Peu coûteux.

You also have to be interested in researching things and then able to distill that research into a short, easy to understand summary. Being clear when explaining things is vitally important. If you are the kind of person who often gets asked what your social media posts mean, or just get comments with question marks in them, this is probably not something you would excel at.

The downsides: You can’t really start annotations until the dialogue list is completed. You’ll need to be careful when scheduling that you keep in mind just because a project comes in on Friday and is due Monday that doesn’t mean you can start on the annotations on Friday. You’ll probably start on Saturday. Tight deadlines can be a drag when you need to do a lot of research for a specific project, so being a fast reader and fast typist are helpful skills to have.

Like everything in the English department, working nights, weekends and holidays is more the rule than the exception.

Also because of global production, having a deadline of 9 pm on a Sunday night isn’t unusual so that files are ready for someone in India as soon as they get to work Monday morning, or to be trying to finish something in London’s overnight so they have something ready in the morning.

The pay: If you can get a job at a company that does this for big studios, you can make enough to survive, but you won’t be getting rich. It will be rolled into a job in the English department, so it is also unlikely that you will just have a job of writing annotations. But with work distributed within the department based on the strengths of the employees, you might be able to only do a little bit of transcription and spend most of your time writing annotations.

As far as freelancing, this is unlikely to be a specific standalone job. If you take work either creating dialogue lists or spotting lists, you might be expected to include annotations with your files. The amount of detail in the annotations varies, usually depending on the kind of project you are working on. TV shows can get by with fewer annotations because the same people work on them week after week and have probably already created their own personal translation dictionaries for things which reoccur week after week. Independent films which are just getting the DL or SL as part of a delivery requirement won’t require as many annotations as a studio film, like for Disney or Marvel or something. Don’t be surprised if a big studio comes back and says there aren’t enough annotations in a file or that a translator has requested more explanation of something.

Wrap Up:

I really enjoy writing annotations, provided there is enough time in the schedule to do the research. I hate when they are rushed, but it can be really interesting and a way to learn about all sorts of different topics and engage different though processes about what words mean and how they are used.

Hollywood 9 to 5 - my new YouTube series Episode 1 - Dialogue List Creation

 I know. It's hard to keep track of all the different things I do on YouTube. The newest one is all about day jobs in Hollywood, in the entertainment industry, which don't involve becoming rich and famous. Here's the video:

And I mentioned in the description of the video that I'd upload my original script for it here, so here it is:

Dialogue list creation

Hello. Today I’m launching a new series of videos where I’m going to talk about some of the non-glamourous, nine-to-five kind of jobs available to people who want to work in the entertainment industry. Maybe you want to be an actor or a writer, but you need income until it happens (used to be health insurance), or you just love TV and movies and will do anything to work on them.

I’m going to start the series with jobs I’ve actually had.

Job Description:

Today I’m going to talk about the job of Dialogue List Transcriptionist, which is often called an “English Editor,” “Script Editor,” “Master English Transcriber,” or part of the “English department” or “International Versioning” department. Lots of companies like to have a slightly different name for the department.

 I did this as part of my job for about 8 years. Basically, you watch a tv show or movie and you write down exactly what each character says. You put a starting time (sometimes an ending time - if you are handing your work over to someone who does audio description) to when they speak, put their name, and then write what they say. For a dialogue list, this is very thorough. You’ll include filler words like “um,” or you might write “grunts.” You’ll include if they clear their throat or cough or giggle. Basically, if you hear the character make a noise with their mouth/throat/voice, you write it down. And you need to be as precise as possible. So, like, if a character goes “no-no-no-no-no!” part of your job is to actually count how may times they said “no” and write it down.

You’ll also need to break up long sections of dialogue into smaller groups. So if someone has a long speech that lasts for several minutes, you’ll make a few entries at naturally breath points to help the page not look overwhelming.

If a character speaks in a foreign language, you usually have to include that also, but in most instances you report back to whoever you are working for, alert them to the foreign language area, and they’ll provide you with a transcription of the dialogue in that section. You aren’t required to also know every foreign language which might pop up.

Although, I have worked on two different movies where the foreign language was Martian. In one, the Martian was provided to us by the client and we just had to make sure we were putting it in the right place. In the other, we were asked to do our best to phonetically transcribe the Martian.

If a character mouths something, you need to include that. And, although it isn’t actually dialogue, you include anything on screen that the viewer will be expected to read. Signs, letters, subtitles.

You also need to include all the background dialogue. So if a scene is set in a bar, you’ll add an entry for the walla. I’ve worked on at least one project where the editing room supplied a track of just the walla to help pick it out and transcribe it. Sometimes you can say “overlapping chatter,” other times you’ll created a new character and write down their shoutout line, which is distinct from the crowd.

You’ll also frequently encounter dialogue which is difficult to understand. You’ll need to be able to admit you don’t understand something and let other people know. Sometimes, a shooting script (the version of the script the actors used when they learned their lines) will be provided. It can often help solve mysteries of garbled words.

In Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Jack Sparrow gives a speech about cuttlefish which included the word “flippercanoriuos.” Well, we had no idea what he was saying. We asked our contact at Disney. He asked the sound editors and… no one knew what the word was. We unfortunately had to deliver our DL with that word as “indistinct.” Years later, the internet helped us figure it out, but it was too late. I have no idea what the dubbed versions of the movie went with.

You will often have to include if a character is off camera or on camera when they are speaking. The translator uses this as a way to know how much they might have to match lip flap when they do their translation.

Turnaround times and Number of versions - TV maybe 2. A movie, maybe 10. (Mary Alice Young on Desperate Housewives)

NDA

What is the reason this job exists: This list, called a dialogue list, gets sent to a translator for dubbing. That way every translator is given the same record of the dialogue in a movie and it isn’t up to them to try and figure out the English version before translating it into whatever language they specialize in.

It also gets included in something called a combined continuity and spotting list, or CCSL, which I’ll talk about more in a different video, when I talk about what continuity is. But the biggie, is that it gets sent to a translator.

Most dialogue lists also have to have something called annotations included, but I’ll talk more in depth about annotations in another video.

If you work at a company that has a large English department, this list might also get sent around to people who do closed captions and spotting lists, so they don’t have to always also start from scratch.

Example: Here’s a little example of what a dialogue list looks like. This is just from my video, to give you a basic idea of format.

Qualifications: English fluency, fast typing. If you are working from home, you’ll need a computer with a fast video processor and probably some basic software like Word and Excel. Many companies have their own software they want you to use, often web based, so you need to be good at learning new programs. Oh, the space bar makes the video play in this player, but the 5 on the number pad does it in this software. Be flexible. You won’t get paid for not understanding how to use the programs.

Tests: You will, most likely, have to take an English test to get this job. The tests are almost always “open book,” meaning you can look up things on-line or in the style guide the company you are testing for uses (Chicago/AP). And a house dictionary.

The test will probably also include some proofreading items - finding spelling errors or when the wrong character is identified as the speaker of a line.

Training: This job isn’t given a lot of training, unfortunately. If you freelance, you are kind of on your own and expected to already know the basics of how to find the in-time for an entry and how to match the format in a sample they will supply. If you work at a company, they usually say they will train you, but everyone is too busy to really do it, so again, you’re on your own. The faster you are at figuring things out and self-directing, they better off you’ll be.

What kind of person is this good for:

People who have a good attention to detail and can get obsessive about things can do well in this job.  A lot of writers get into it, or people who majored in English in college. A degree is often required, but the testing is the most important determining factor on hiring someone.

If you are the kind of person who knows that when you say “the back yard of my house,” back yard is two words, but when you say “I’m having a backyard barbeque,” that backyard is one work, this might be a good job for you. And if you are the kind of person who can be told “this is how we spell ok in these parts” and you’ll remember it and stick with it, you should do fine.

The downsides: A lot of projects have tight deadlines.

Starting on the dialogue list is dependent on the editing room getting copies of the latest version out, it is not at all uncommon for a dialogue editor to receive files the afternoon before a three-day weekend and then to be expected to work over that three-day weekend. During the eight years or so when I worked in this field, I think I had to work most Thanksgivings, and if not the actual day then the Friday and weekend after.

Also because of global production, having a deadline of 9 pm on a Sunday night isn’t unusual so that files are ready for someone in India as soon as they get to work Monday morning, or to be trying to finish something in London’s overnight so they have something ready in the morning.

The pay:

If you are part of an English department, your job will not only be creating spotting lists. You will need to be able to do some of the other jobs within the department, like spotting list creation, annotating and proofreading.

If you can get a job at a company that does this for big studios, you can make enough to survive, but you won’t be getting rich. I was salaried when I did this for a company, and that is a bad deal. If you have a choice, stay hourly. My mistake was accepting a promotion to supervisor, which they would not pay hourly.

Like with so many things, it comes down to who you work for. I don’t accept freelance work of this kind because it isn’t financially viable for me. Even though I type very quickly, my level of attention to detail kills me in the number of hours/pay ratio department. Most freelance work will either pay you a flat fee for a reel or TV show, or give you an price per run-time minute. So a 22 minute reel could pay anything! But you should be told the rate of pay in advance and then can decide if you can fit it in to your schedule, if it is worth it to try or not.

($5x21min=$105)

 

Wrap up:

I hope I’ve helped you figure out if Dialogue Transcriptionist is something you would be interested in pursuing. Or that at least it helps you get a little bit better understanding of this job. Things people do from nine-to-five in Hollywood.

 

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them below. Don’t forget to subscribe so you can see all my videos and learn more about what people in Los Angeles who aren’t rich and famous do.