A lot of translators, myself included, knowing how challenging and harsh the translation job gets and how much we have to deal with before we can fully translate a film and still end up with the original context and original meaning. Being able to consider cultural and linguistical factors is where it gets hard, but we always have to make it work.
It is very easy for a film to lose its original meaning and context when certain factors are not taken into consideration. When done well, film translation has the potential to attract the attention of critics and film technicians all over the world; but when poorly executed, film translation can make a comedy out of a serious drama. A single mistake or mistranslation might end up distorting the original message that the film was intended for. With that mentioned, we will look at some main aspects that make translation such a hard task and why they do this. I sure have faced some of these challenges, and I believe other translators have too.
Before we get into the challenging aspects of film translation, I will introduce to you the two main processes in film translation so you can have a general understanding of what I am talking about before we get on with the matter at hand.
There are two main known forms of film translation in the world today, and that is Dubbing and Subtitling. These two processes involve localization of films into local languages to expand the audience reach of different film works. The difference between the two is that one specializes in an audio format and the other specializes in a text format.
Dubbing is the film process that deals with translation of the audio into different languages to localize to meet the expectations of a specific target market while subtitling is the film process that deals with creating translated texts at the bottom of a film screen to serve the same purpose as the dubbing process.
Both processes have their challenges and benefits as they are, but in this article, we will look at general aspects that make it hard to work on these processes to perfection. By perfection I mean, being able to work on them and make sure that the finished product mirrors the sentiments and meanings of the original film.
Research Done By: Winny Moraa Obiso
Online Article: https://dubbingking.com/audio-visual-film-translation-challenges/
Powerpoint Presentation: https://dubbingking.com/audio-visual-film-translation-challenges-study-notes/
