Subtitling and Localizing a video
Introduction:
My Desktop publishing (DTP) final project in the 2018 Spring semester is subtitling and localizing a Chinese commercial advertisement video by using Adobe After Effects. It is a collection of several advertisements produced by the same web game manufacturer. These ads are some of the best-known ads in China, especially by the young. They are famous mostly for their hilarious conversations, awkward pronunciation of Chinese, and garish graphics. They have been accumulating popularity at an amazing speed in China and produced some famous internet memes as well. The source video is in Chinese, but the original subtitle is at very low quality, incomplete, and the font styles are inconsistent, as shown in the screenshots below.
Black Bar:
Because we need to produce complete subtitles, thus the first step is to hide the original subtitles. One of the most common ways to hide the texts is to apply a black bar at the bottom of the screen, then type the new texts inside the black bar. The merit of this method is very visible, that is the high efficiency. The position of the black bar is definite, and thus all the later works are about typing the texts. In addition to it, the black bar also brings consistency to the videos, unlike other methods that the audience may tell some tiny differences among frames. However, the demerit of using the black bar to hide texts should not be ignored. The black bar will inevitably block the bottom area, at which may exist some important information. This problem will get even more acute especially when the font size of the original subtitles is big, as more area will be converted to the black bar in order to block the source elements. This method should be avoided if the user wants to keep the exact original video size.
Blur Effect:
Another method to hide the old subtitles is to blur that area, then type new subtitles onto it. The picture below is a typical example of replacing subtitles by applying blur.
Unlike using the black bar, the blurred effect method does not block anything, and thus we don’t need to worry about changing the video screen size. However, the effect can only imitate the surroundings so that the subtitles look closed to the original; if we scrutinize this picture, or if it is a high-quality video, we can easily tell the difference between the subtitle area and the background. Moreover, if the font size of the original subtitles is big, this demerit will be more evident, as we have to blur a larger area and makes this background difference more visible. What is also worth mentioning is that blurring every subtitle sentence is extremely time consuming. Consequently, this is probably not the best practice for large video or high-definition video.
Distortion:
Distortion is another effect that can be applied in order to hide texts. There are many effects that can be chosen in the Adobe AE, however, I chose the liquify tool in this case. By choosing the liquify tool, we are able to distort the texts and let it blend with the surroundings. A screenshot of this tool is shown below. As we can see in the picture, the text is distorted to a thin line. Other effects can later be used to achieve better outcome. For example, we can blur this distorted area, and because the area that we are going to blur is now a tiny line, it will be easier to blur. But again, the problem for this method is similar to using the blur effect —— It is too time consuming.
Conclusion:
Based on the rationale elaborated above, I can draw the conclusion that, for short video clips, blur or distortion effects will be likely good practices as they do not change the appearance of the source files. However, for longer video, time cost is an important factor. Because this is an advertisement video, and there isn’t any important information at the bottom of the screen, I finally decided to choose the most efficient way to subtitle this video. I also localize it by myself. Translating the funny dialogues into English is one of the funniest parts in this project.