The past few months I’ve been listening to a lot of the podcase
RHLSP (Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theater Podcast), where comedian Richard
Herring interviews other (mainly British) comedians. Part of the appeal of that
podcast is how terrible Richard Herring is at interviewing people. Another part
of the appeal is that a lot of the episodes have video with them, not just
audio, and can be watched on YouTube. A few of the interviews I’ve watched have
been Stephen Fry, David Mitchell, David Baddiel, John Oliver, Alex Horne, Robert
Webb. All men. All very successful in comedy. All graduates of Cambridge.
Looking at the list of Cambridge graduates you will also
find Richard Ayoade, Jimmy Carr, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Peter Cook, Hugh
Dennis, Simon Bird, Hugh Laurie, Mel Giedroyc, Sue Perkins, Ian McKellen, Emma
Thompson, Sandi Toksvig, Olivia Colman and Sacha Baron Cohen. It seems like if
you want to get into TV comedy in England, the fastest way to do it is by attending
Cambridge and joining Footlights. Privilege and money seem like a shortcut to success.
After hearing so many of these identical stories, I was looking
for something different. Didn’t anyone struggle? Didn’t anyone have to really
claw their way up based only on their talent and not their luck? Sure, these
people don’t have perfect lives, but not everyone starts at the same place. The
Cambridge people started ahead and it isn’t too surprising they stayed ahead
and will finish ahead.
Gina Yashere started behind. Her parents were from Nigeria
and there was no free ride. As soon as she started working, in her mid-teens,
she had to start giving part of her income to her mother (her father was gone
by then) to help with the household expenses. Her mother hustled to keep the
family together and to provide the best she could for her kids. And part of
that meant her kids were going to be professionals.
Gina Yashere was slated to be the doctor in the family, but dissecting
a frog ended that dream. She had to pass the doctor job onto a younger brother
and became an engineer instead. But her heart wasn’t in it. A fortunate turn of
events with work, leading to a few months of no work but with pay, allowed Gina
to explore her creative side and that’s all it took for her to not go back to
being an engineer.
Her memoir, Cack-Handed: A Memoir, tells the story of
her life and how difficult it was to break into comedy in the UK. The racism
and exclusion she experienced there led her to move to the USA where she has
become a success with the TV series she writes and stars in, Bob ♥
Abishola.
But that’s the happy ending, where she is now. The book is
about how she got there. An abusive step-father, a half-hearted suicide
attempt, fights at school, moving around a lot, and being the outsider.
The chapter headings are all based on Nigerian sayings, and
they are a delight. Here are a few:
A snake can only give birth to long things.
Going to church doesn’t make you a holy person any more than going to a garage
makes you a mechanic.
If you sleep with an itching anus, you will definitely wake up with your hand smelling.
However hard a lizard does a push-up, it will never have an alligator’s chest.
It was a refreshing change to hear the story of someone
normal, without the access and connections of a white man from a good family,
who was able to make their dreams come true. Gina shows the outcomes that are
possible through hard work, talent, determination and never questioning your
own worth.
If you don’t know who Gina Yashere is, there are lots of
clips of her on YouTube and as of this writing, two of her stand-up specials
are available to stream on Netflix.
Job Description: Today I’m going to talk about
writing continuity. This is the job I currently have!
If you work in an English department, this might be part
of your job, but most companies like to hire freelancers to do this. Even if
you don’t have to write the continuity itself, you will still need to know what
it is. You will probably have to assemble a CCSL (combined continuity and
spotting list) at some point. Most English departments hire outside freelancers
for the continuity writing because it is time consuming and the members of the
team will have other tasks which are more pressing with tighter deadlines.
I use the job title “continuity writer.”
What is continuity?
Continuity is a shot-by-shot description of the complete action
of a movie. Occasionally a trailer will also require continuity. And yes, every
shot. Most movies average around fifteen hundred shots, but I’ve worked on a
few movies which have had over 4000 shots and some with under 500 shots. It
just depends on the editing style and genre. Action movies, superhero movies
and some comedies will have higher shot counts while dramas and actual horror
films, not slasher, but like suspenseful horror films, will be on the lower end
of shot counts. Although you never know for sure.
Though the continuity focuses on the main action, it will
include any text which appears on screen, including details about signs even if
they are in the background and more atmospheric than something the viewer needs
to read, as well as including descriptions of action in the background or
information about new locations to help set the scene. Once background action
is described, it can be left out of subsequent entries in the same scene so
that the entries can just focus on main action.
Since the continuity will be placed with the dialogue and
spotting lists, no mention of dialogue gets included in it. You might
occasionally include notes about sounds, like if a doorbell rings or something,
but in general you could write the continuity with the picture muted and still
include the majority of what needs to go into the it, because it’s just based
on what you can see.
Why continuity: The CCSL document gets sent to the
library of congress as part of the official paper record of a film. It can also
get sent to some territories where the translator technologically can’t access
the film as easily as some other places. So the translator can read the CCSL
and have a more complete understanding of the film than they would otherwise
have just from the dialogue list or spotting list with annotations if they
can’t easily access picture.
On independent films, they might not even know why they are
writing a CCSL with continuity, they will just have been told it is a “delivery
requirement,” meaning that a larger company will not consider buying the small
film unless this document has already been created and paid for by the original
production company. Usually, these are not as thorough as one created by an
English department.
Example: Here’s an example of some continuity I’ve
written for a short documentary a friend and I have been working on. Usually
the client will provide a list of shot in-times, which can then just be spot
checked while working, so you are only responsible for the writing part.
Or, here’s a sample of some continuity I’ve written for some
shots around my house.
For the actual writing part, the entries contain a
screenplay-like slug line each time the location changes. The slug line
includes whether the scene takes place inside or outside (INT. or EXT.), where
the location is, usually from large to small. Like a scene of me sitting here
might start with INT. Tujunga / Camille’s House / Main Room. Then the slug line
includes a general term for time of day, usually either day or night, although
dusk and dawn are sometimes used if it is important to the plot. Then normally the
shot framing is given- which is a description of how close to the subject of
the shot the camera is, I’ll explain a little bit more about this later - and finally a description is written about
what action happens in the scene. It could be as short as MCS - Camille, or
more involved, like MCS - Camille. She sits in front of a scarf-draped piano
which has vases of flowers and various knickknacks on it.
Then repeat with the next shot until you reach the end of
the movie.
If you’ve seen Avengers: Age of Ultron, imagine the big
fight scene near the end when all of the Ultron drones fight with the Avengers.
That’s what continuity writing can feel like. You are an Avenger fighting a
seemingly never-ending parade of killer robots. And working on that movie gave
me one of my mottos for continuity writing which is “fight the robot in front
of you.” You can’t spend your time thinking about how many shots there are
still to write in a movie. It becomes overwhelming. You just write one entry at
a time, chugging along, until eventually you will reach the end.
Qualifications and Tests: Just like with other jobs
in or for an English department, you will probably have to take some kind of
English test, although if you worked with one company as a freelancer and someone
from that company moves to a new company, you might not have to take the tests
and will get the work just based on your work history and past relationship.
I’ve never had to take a test specific to continuity
writing. If there is a test, it will be the same general English proficiency
test used for the rest of the English department.
Training: 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 detailing
how to write continuity. I have written some of these guidelines documents and
always include a page with stick figures to show what different shot framings look
like for my preference.
At the first company I worked for in Hollywood, which was
literally in Hollywood, I spent one Christmas span writing continuity on an
independent film called Palmer’s Pick-Up. This was in the before times when
digital storage was outrageously expensive and 2-gig drives were the size of
shoeboxes, so I had to use a ¾ inch u-matic machine to play the video, with a
TV monitor attached and then write the continuity, inputting time codes by
hand, on a computer in Word. I don’t think I ended up doing the whole movie,
just as much as I could get done as the only person in the office during that
slow time of year.
What kind of person is this good for: The hardest
part of the job is that it is repetitive and tedious. If you are the kind of
person who likes to do intricate hobbies, like beading or painting, or
assembling jigsaw puzzles, you are starting off with a good temperament for it.
When I worked in an English department and hired the freelancers to write the
continuity, it wasn’t uncommon to have people get hired for one or two projects
and decide it wasn’t for them.
The reason I learned how to write continuity for real was
that our freelancer (Hi, John!) decided he had had enough of continuity writing.
We didn’t have another person lined up who could take over, so I jumped in. The
first project I did in this more professional capacity was Shark Boy and Lava
Girl, and I put in way too much detail, which John then had to proofread and critique.
It can take a while to figure out just how much detail to include and when it
is too much and really distracting from the important information of the scene.
So there is a little bit of a learning curve to figure out how much is the
right amount of detail to include.
The downsides: The biggest downside is how tedious this
is. If you can get past that, then the next obstacle you might encounter is the
turnaround time. If you are very slow at this, or just can’t handle doing maybe
500 or more shots in a day, then you could run into trouble with the deadlines.
Usually there is at least one day per reel on a project. A trailer, which is
short, but probably 200 shots, will also have about a day turnaround time. On
some projects, that might not be enough time. Animation is particularly
difficult and time-consuming, so extra time on animated features is always
welcome. I recently finished an animated project which ended up with over
80,000 words of continuity. That’s the size of a short novel, in case you
didn’t know. And on action films, one reel might have more than 1000 cuts, so
getting through that quantity of entries in a day can be difficult to manage,
so extra time on action films is also helpful and should be considered when
accepting a job.
The other downside is that each year it seems like more
companies decide they don’t need continuity anymore. So the pool of available
work is dwindling and I do worry about what will happen when all the companies
decide they no longer require full CCSLs on their movies.
The pay: I’ve managed to work as a freelancer who
primarily writes continuity since late 2013, so for me it is enough money to
live on. Again, the pay can vary greatly from client to client and often isn’t
enough for me to accept a job, especially from smaller companies without big
studio projects. I’ll occasionally take one of those jobs if I have free time
on my schedule, but if that was the only level of work available, I couldn’t
make a living doing this. Also, there are only enough projects for maybe 2 or 3
full-time continuity writers, so there’s a small pool of people who do this
work and who can do enough to make it their primary source of income. In other
words, the work is not abundant enough for a bunch of new people to get into
this line of work.
Wrap Up:
So, to wrap up continuity writing isn’t hard, but it is
tedious. Perfect for me! And I don’t need any more competition from you.
For the people who just nod when I tell them what I do for a
living, I hope this has helped explain it a little better than when I try to
give a quick explanation in casual conversation.
Just one more thing
you probably didn’t know was happening behind the scenes in the movies.
Don’t forget to subscribe while you’re here, if you made it
this far to the end of the video! Thanks for watching!
Nordstrom’s is almost as well known for its return policy as
it is for being a luxury shopping store. There are unbelievable stories all
over the internet covering how wonderful and unexpected the return policy is.
Several years ago, they did change part of the policy, no
longer accepting special-occasion dresses if the tags had been removed. No
problem. We all know from sitcoms that those dresses are bought, worn to the event
and returned to the store whenever possible, so stores need to protect themselves.
The remainder of their policy is vague, at best.
It clearly says there is no time limit for returns or exchanges,
but it also says they don’t really promise to accept any returns.
They also only refund in the way the original purchase was
made, or with a Nordstrom’s gift card. You can’t bring in something which was
purchased with a credit card and walk out with cash. Fine. No big deal. I’m
sure I could find something to buy at Nordstrom’s - especially if I could get the
credit for Nordstrom’s Rack instead.
It’s a different story of how I got the things I tried to
return, but lets just say I know of a lot of things with the potential to
return and have a couple. I took in two things as a test. I wanted to see if
the return policy lived up to the hype.
I brought in a pair of earrings, with the original price tag
still attached and the original receipt. The receipt verifies things like the
earrings were purchased at Nordstrom’s in Topanga, July 15, 2014. The cashier
was named Doris. The method of payment was a Nordstrom’s credit card. They were
on sale, although no discounts were handwritten on the price tag or calculated
by the cash register. The price tag was for the sale price, with the original
price also printed on it.
I also brought in a watch, which was in the original
packaging, clearly never used (not a scratch on it) and with the original price
tag, although it had been removed from the watch and was just in the box. The
hands on the watch hadn’t even been moved. They were in the factory setting of
7:25 with the second hand perfectly aligned over the hour hand.
I went to the special “returns” section of the store,
thinking they might be more helpful with this unusual case than any regular
cashier, even though store cashiers are able to take basic returns. The young
man who helped me first tried to scan in the bar code on the receipt for the
earrings. Even though I have the receipt, it is worn out and the bar code
wouldn’t scan. He didn’t try typing the numbers in. Instead, he scanned the
special little return tag that places like Nordstrom’s and Macy’s attach to
items when you buy them. Theoretically, scanning the return tag will bring up
all of the details of the shopping purchased during the same trip.
The scan turned up nothing in their computer system. I was
really confused why the earring return wasn’t going well. I asked if there was
anything we could do. He had his manager come over. She did the same thing -
scanned the return tag. It didn’t bring up anything in the computer. She
scanned the return tag on the watch. It also didn’t bring up anything.
I felt like I was talking to a character from Little
Britain. “Computer says, ‘no.’”
“We can’t accept these returns.”
But you have the receipt, the price tag, the return tag and
the obviously never worn item. “Computer says, ‘no.’”
And here comes the not great part of the return policy which
Nordstrom’s doesn’t publicize. I was told this. I’m not making it up. “See on
the tag where it says ‘anniversary?’ That means it was part of a special sale.”
They don’t accept returns on those items once the special sale ends. Oh. But
this doesn’t seem to match the on-line information which is someone shrugging like,
“We’ll probably take it back?”
Apparently they don’t accept returns on “anniversary” items,
things which are seasonal, things from brands they no longer carry, or only
carry occasionally. “But you carry the watch brand?” “Yes, but that was a
limited-edition watch. We can’t take it. Computer says, ‘no.’”
I asked if there was an easy way to determine if something
was eligible to return without coming into the store. Yes. You look on the
Nordstrom’s website. If they still sell it, you can return it. But if the item
has gone on sale, you will probably only get the sale price returned, not the
full purchase price. So anything you bought which sold out or was seasonal in
any way, you probably can’t return. I wasn’t clear on if it has to actually be
still available for sale, or if it could be something which shows up on their
website as “sold out,” as long as it was still showing up on the website.
Bottom line, if the computer can’t scan it, nothing will make the return
happen. A person is not able to use their eyes and verify that the receipt,
price tag, return tag and item all match up and are in perfect condition.
I left Nordstrom’s with the watch and earrings and the advice
from the manager of “just sell them on eBay.” Like I didn’t already think of
that myself! What brilliant advice! It would have saved me a lot of hassle if
Nordstrom’s did what they brag about, but all that brag is is hot air.
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.
If you don’t know who Susan Calman is, then you must not
watch a lot of British panel shows. She’s the very short Scottish comedian who
started out as a lawyer. She can stand up inside of a red post box with no
problem. She loves Doctor Who and names her cats after strong fictional female
characters. And she seems like a happy person.
But looks can be deceiving. Cheer Up Love is a memoir which follows
Susan’s (I feel like I can call her Susan since I know her so well from seeing her
on tv) life story framed around her depression. It is a book about how she
deals with depression and what she wishes people without depression understood
about people with depression and how to interact with them. Hint: It doesn’t
involve telling people with depression to “cheer up, love.”
As a person who has struggled with depression for as long as
I could remember, there was a lot in Susan’s story I could relate to. For Susan,
and for me, depression has been a lifelong companion. Susan has personified her
depression into something she calls the crab of hate. The crab of hate visits
Susan, but also goes away sometimes. And it isn’t something she can control. It
is external to her. External to logic.
I listened to this as an audiobook, read by the author. It
took me several chapters to get used to the way Susan reads. She doesn’t have
the natural “acting” quality to her voice. You can definitely hear that she’s reading.
But I don’t think the book could have been read or performed by anyone else.
I highly recommend Cheer Up Love to people who are depressed,
looking for commiseration and maybe some tips on how to cope, and I recommend
it to people aren’t depressed. Her portrayal of what it is like to actually be
depressed can maybe help the non-depressed people of the world understand
depression a little better. Or, if nothing else, provide them with a list of
things which they should never say to a depressed person.
As always (or soon to be always), here's the video followed by the original script I wrote for myself which may or may not be what I actually ended up saying.
Spotting list creation
Job Description:
Today I’m going to talk about the job of Spotting List
creation. The job title for this could be “English Editor,” “Spotting Editor,” “Spotter,”
or more generically part of the “English department” or “International
Versioning” department.
When I worked in an English department, I didn’t have to
really do much spotting, but I am aware of the basics of it. This is mostly a
job for the theatrical team and not the TV team. You can start with the dialogue
list as a template, but the spotting list doesn’t include every little thing
that the dialogue list does.
You will mark an in-time and an out-time for each entry,
hopefully the software you are using will calculate the duration and you write
down not only who is speaking, but who they are speaking to.
The spotting entries are ultimately used as a template for
subtitles. If you have seen a movie that has been subtitled, you have seen some
of the constraints of a spotting list.
The spotting entries are restricted by how many characters
they can have which will fit on a screen in the average font size, and the
duration of an entry is restricted by good old-fashioned film. If I recall
correctly, a spotting entry can only be eight seconds long and should always be
at least one second long. Different companies will probably have their own
rules about subtitle duration. As for characters, I think a subtitle can have
80 characters (smaller than a tweet) on two lines.
The spotting editor has to make a lot of decisions about
what should be included in the subtitles and what shouldn’t be included. If
someone coughs, that isn’t included. Think of it this way: for a dialogue
list/dubbing, the entire English part of the soundtrack is removed and
replaced. For spotting, the soundtrack is left in the original version and
subtitles are added to enhance the experience for someone who doesn’t speak the
original language. The film still has the coughs, the burps, the heavy
breathing, so none of that needs to be included in the subtitles.
The spotting editor also needs to decide if a line of
dialogue should be re-worded to either make it shorter to fit in the subtitle
or to get the point across a lot faster. If someone says “no-no-no-no-no-no!”
the subtitle file might just say “no-no!” Keep it simple and enhance what is
already happening.
Likewise, the walla isn’t generally included in the
subtitles, but call out lines will be.
You’ll also have to watch the subtitles back and make any
adjustments to their placement on screen. The subtitle file needs to include
notes about when a standard subtitle might fall right over a sign on the
screen, which the viewer should be reading. And most of the time, the subtitle
file will also include these text items which are important to the story so
that they are included in the translated subtitle file.
Because subtitles are meant to be read, the reading speed
also needs to be considered while writing them. You don’t want people to panic
because the subtitles are too short, or spending too much time staring at them
when important things are happening in the action.
NDA
What is the reason this job exists: This list, called
a spotting list, gets sent to a translator for subtitling. That way every
translator is given the same record of the spotting, including timings, 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.
Many spotting lists also have to have something called
annotations included, but I’ll talk more in depth about annotations in another
video.
Example: Here’s a little example of what a spotting list
looks like. This is just from my video, to give you a basic idea of format.
Qualifications: English fluency, fast typing. More so
than on a dialogue list, you will probably have to use software supplied by the
client, which will have the ability to calculate the durations of the
subtitles, saving you a lot of awkward math. Their software should also
superimpose the text on the movie as you write it, so you can sit back and
watch it, checking for errors in placement or speed.
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 are a little bit more freewheeling than the
dialogue list people. You need to be confident to make changes to the text as
needed to enhance the experience, without changing the meaning. That’s a confidence
I don’t have. I have no trouble writing down exactly what I hear, but second
guess myself too much even just changing a word from “gonna” to “going to.”
You also need to not get too offended if changes are made to
your files.
The downsides: A lot of projects have tight
deadlines.
In an English department workflow, the dialogue list usually
happens first and then the spotting list happens. This is true on the first
pass of a project and on the revisions. So while a dialogue list editor might
have to go into the office on Thanksgiving, the spotter can usually wait until
the day after. And the spotting list is usually given a little bit more time to
complete than the dialogue list is.
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 dialogue 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 a 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 Spotting Editor 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.
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.
