Economy of subtitles

The Other Side Of Words That You Read On Your Movie Screens

Maansi Anand, AIS Vas 1, XII C

“I couldn’t find one with subtitles!” is usually followed by everyone’s groans. As you try to find the perfect subtitles, an essential element for binge-watchers, did your mind ever roam off to those who write them? These ‘subtitlers’, as they are called, do not just enjoy a job full of fun, as everyone thinks, but rather, their profile is clouded with its own fair share of misconceptions.

“You just need to type out the words you hear!”
Prime Focus Technology, a global player in film and web-series circuit, clocked in roughly 40,000 hours of subtitling content in 2018, 70% of which came from India. The subtitles need to be placed at different speeds suitable to both kids and adults, meaning that the profession requires thoroughness. Subtitlers have a long list of guidelines to adhere to; they are required to fit every subtitle per frame into a ‘42x2’ format, which means 42 characters in each line, and only two lines per frame.
“Dubbing offers more scope than subtitling.”
It was a thing in the past that dubbing was the ‘it’ thing and subtitles were done only for foreign screenings, but today, with the coming of streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime, subtitling costs about 1/10th of dubbing. The famous thriller ‘Sacred Games’ was also subtitled in 24 different languages! Earlier, English films were dubbed only in Hindi for Indian audiences, but today subtitling is done in numerous regional languages for Hindi and other vernacular languages.
“Subtitling in every language is equally simple.”
The effort involved in translating English into certain Indian regional languages require brevity. One cannot use glyphs for Hindi words like ‘Zindagi’ and ‘Khatra’, as the dot turns them into Urdu words. Quality matters a lot more, going through at least seven levels of reviews before being finalised. Thus, the rate of translating an English movie or series is about INR 20,000 – 25,000 per hour.

“Subtitling does not pay very much.”
The salary for the job depends on the budget of the project. Every episode of a Hindi series subtitled to English pays INR 15,000 – 20,000. For each South Indian movie being subtitled in English, a subtitler is paid an average of INR 50,000 – 75,000. Subtitling a Hindi movie into English can pay up to INR 1 –  2 Lakhs.

“Subtitling requires a verified degree.”
To be a subtitler, you don’t require any particular degree, just accuracy with punctuations and homophones. Knowing where the subtitles need to be placed and what colour would make them ‘appealing’ is a necessity. Subtitlers need to be well-researched, patient and attentive.
 
So now that you know that it ain’t all hunky-dory, you still want to sign up for the job?

Around the word

How English Language Came To Be

Udit Trivedi, AIS Vas 1, XII B

If you have ever wondered about the process of how an English word comes into being, then you surely have come to the right space Blending: Blending is a   simple process of combining the initial part of one word with the last part of another. Such examples are frequently found in our daily vocabulary: Brunch (Breakfast + Lunch) or Emoticon (Emotion + Icon).

Coinage: Coinage stands for the invention of a totally new term. A common example is using the names of commercial products and using them to speak in our everyday vernacular. How many of us actually know that originally ‘Xerox’ was the company which performed the task, and not the actual process of photocopying?
Truncation: The process by which a word containing more than one syllable is reduced to a shorter form is termed as ‘truncation’ or ‘clipping’. Isn’t it more convenient to call it an ‘ad’ rather than the entire ‘advertisement’?

Conversion: Conversion refers to the process of changing or converting the class of a word without changing its form, say, from being used as a noun previously but now is being used as a verb. Remember when we used to find an e-mail on our computers? We now e-mail stuff to each other!

Borrowing: This process highlights the usage of ‘loanwords’, which are new words formed by borrowing of words from other languages. Over 80% of English words are loanwords, borrowed from over 120 languages! So, the next time you watch the Opera (Italian), eat a Pretzel (German) or relish a Kebab (Turkish)!

Folk Etymology: It is the changing of a phrase or a word over time which results in replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one. Did you know that the word ‘Bridegroom’ comes from ‘Bryd-guman’, which is an Old English word since ‘guman’ became obsolete?

Reduplication: Hasn’t it now become routine for us to use the words ‘walkie-talkie’, ‘chit-chat’ and ‘zig-zag’ together? Try using them singularly and it’ll be the most incomplete experience ever! Reduplication is the formation of a new word by doubling a word, either with a change of initial consonants, a change of vowel, or without any change.

Words form sentences and now we know what form words!

Story of my life

Hopping From One Career To Another

Sanskruti Bharti,  AIS Vas 1, XII B

“I’ll be an astronaut when I grow up,” said a 12-year-old Sia who was fascinated by outer space. She made scrapbooks out of photos of celestial bodies. She was determined...until she grew up and realised that she wasn’t good at Math and figured out that it just wasn’t her cup of tea, and neither was the outer space anymore.And just like that students were changing their careers, wanting to be a doctor one moment, a police officer the next!
Come senior year and Sia wanted to be a wedding photographer. “Hopefully a celebrity someday,” she dreamt, but not all dreams come true. “What will you do? Click photos at weddings? I want my daughter to have a respectable job,” were her father’s words. Science stream it was!
And just like that 66% students gave in to parental pressure, taking the conventional routes!
Class XII was going to end soon. She had to pick a career choice. All her friends were going the engineering way. So Sia thought, “Why not?” and went ahead with the herd, err…friends.
And just like that about 86% students fell prey to peer pressure!
2 years later, Sia was depressed and confused. She’d lost weight, and so had most of the people who were her ‘friends’. Engineering was a  great career option, but not something she wanted to do.
And just like that many students stuck between what they are doing and what they want to do, battle depression. Stats say 56%.
She completed her B.Tech. As she looked for a job, she realised she  couldn’t do it anymore. She went ahead and wrote the experiences of her life, something that would later become a bestseller.
And just like that many IIT and IIM grads choose penmanship, a completely unrelated territory!
Today, she is a popular Indian author, with a degree in engineering.  And that is the story of Sia, a story with a happy ending
And, that my friends, is the story of every Indian student, who aspires to be something, succumbs to social pressure, pursues something else and finally becomes something else. Here is to hoping you find your way and your own happy ending too!