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.
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