Subtitles as art [audio sound descriptions]
Are subtitles a form of art? I discovered this week that artist Andrew Wright was inspired to create a new exhibition after watching the series 24 with the sound off, and the subtitles on. He has made a series of prints replicating the audio descriptions given in the subtitles to describe the sound effects in scenes of the TV series 24.
A print from Wright's series of non-dialogue captions from the TV show 24.
This exhibition is currently on display in Ottawa, Canada. Andrew Wright’s show continues to Oct. 25 at Patrick Mikhail Gallery, 2401 Bank St., as part of the show The Triumph of the Therapeutic. You can read more about it here.
In case you wondered what the difference is on a DVD between English and English For The D/HOH (Deaf/Hard of Hearing) it is exactly this. The English subtitles will only translate the dialogue being spoken, the English For The D/HOH (Deaf/Hard of Hearing) will include descriptions of sounds in a scene such as [PHONE RINGS], [RADIO PLAYS JAUNTY TUNE IN BACKGROUND] as well as providing info on the tone of delivery when required such as [HE RAPS] etc. I sometimes marvel at the fantastic descriptions of sounds – If any subtitlers/captioners are reading this – do you enjoy this aspect and like coming up with the non dialogue descriptions or can it be tedious and a chore? Here’s some that people have shared on Twitter recently:
RT @kinch: (Sharktopus moans) = best closed captioning ever.
RT @ctmcdm: When main theme of Indiana Jones movies plays, closed captioning always says “rousing adventure theme playing.” Amen to that.
RT @mooosh: @dekimmel I got to use both SEAL HONKS and ELEPHANT TRUMPETS on a film I’m captioning earlier – very satisfactory!
RT @dekimmel: I could watch closed captioning all day just to see how they characterize non-words. “Exhales sharply” “Screams in terror”
RT @gotgenes TV subtitles just said “[Nerd group laughing].” Think I just found my next band’s name.
RT @EvilNinjaPhil Just saw the Enter the Dragon theme described on 5 subtitles as ‘Dramatic Light Funk With Oriental Undertones’. GENIUS.
If you’ve seen any you like (or hate?) tweet them over to @iheartsubtitles and share 🙂
i heart subtitles 
pickwick 9:47 pm on September 30, 2010 Permalink |
I like it for everything except music, because I’m crap at music ones!
Possibly my proudest moment in subtitling is my METALLIC THRUMMING being accepted as the standard TARDIS noise in Doctor Who.
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iheartsubtitles 10:19 pm on September 30, 2010 Permalink |
ZOMG! Excuse me whilst I have a little geek spasm! (the flat I live in has a life size cardboard standee of Doctor No 10 thanks to my even more Who obsessed flat mate who got me into the show in the first place)
How awesome is that 😀 *runs off to tell flatmate* That would make for an awesome t-shirt also – a graphic of the TARDIS with [METALLIC THRUMMING] captioned underneath 😀
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pickwick 10:32 pm on September 30, 2010 Permalink
Ooooooh. Or even just [METALLIC THRUMMING] on the front and a TARDIS on the back, so you could see who got the reference just from the front…
*contemplates CafePress*
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Page 888 10:09 am on October 1, 2010 Permalink |
Hi, the Shaun the Sheep DVDs subtitle every time a sheep goes “baa” and so on. Season 1 and 2 of Monk subtitle the instrumental music used in scenes subtitling them with words such as “suspenseful music”. Although not sound effects but still a different way of subtitling, the series 3 and 4 Allo Allo DVDs subtitle the accents, so Crabtree’s “Good Moaning” is actually subtitled like that, and the French and German accents are subtitled as they are spoken. (so the word this becomes vis) They stopped doing this at the release of series 5, just subtitling everyone normally (with the exception of Crabtree).
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iheartsubtitles 4:42 pm on October 1, 2010 Permalink |
Allo Allo is a great example – with so many characters speaking English “with an accent” – I think it’s right that the subtitles are spelt phonetically as it is spoken since it is part of their character’s and the comedy.
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More subtitles as art « i heart subtitles 5:00 pm on December 7, 2010 Permalink |
[…] subtitles as art As a follow up to this post, I discovered the work of artist Jason Bryant. One of his pieces of work is Rubric, a series […]
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