Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
TSP Ep 142 Subtitles or Stephen Goes it Alone
21 Plays15 days ago
In this episode, Steve goes it alone. So he get's extra spicy with an episode about Subtitles...
So come along with as we learn a thing or two!
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Introduction: Tradition and Absence
00:00:00
Speaker
All right, here we go. hate everything on the way to do this episode. This is TSP 142. i am definitely a little light in the head and drinking some whiskey, as I'm supposed to do on this podcast, right?
00:00:20
Speaker
I'm looking at my levels. They're very low. We'll fix that. You know, this kind of reminds me of that Christian Slater movie. What is it called? Pump up the volume? That's probably not it.
00:00:32
Speaker
But where he's ah he he hijacks a radio channel and makes kids turn into the Heathers. And then when everyone when the parents find out, they go footloose.
00:00:47
Speaker
Oh God, I hate myself. Where's Tom? This is when I need Tom. But I feel a little bit like Christian Slater here, talking into the void. And what can happen when you talk into the void?
00:01:00
Speaker
So we're going to, you know, we got an episode here. It's going to be a short one, thankfully, because Tom's not here. And we just wanted to get something out to you guys, our 17 bots.
00:01:13
Speaker
So, you know, we like to start off good here with TSP and make you all feel excited for listening.
Reflecting on Loss: Redford and Kirk
00:01:18
Speaker
And Talk about nothing but fun stuff. So we're going to start off with Robert Redford is dead.
00:01:24
Speaker
Damn. That is so depressing. He passed away at 89 years old. One of the legendary actors and promoters of...
00:01:36
Speaker
independent cinema with Sundance despite what it became or what it has become you know that's damn 2025 it's been a rough year hasn't it we're just kind of getting through it but damn man who's next Stanley Tucci John Turturro damn Well, Robert Radford, rest in peace, legendary actor.
00:02:05
Speaker
I'm going to try to watch Twilight Zone, where he plays Death. See that that? I think that might have been his first role, second role. It was one of his big early roles.
00:02:17
Speaker
So that'll be an interesting one to see, but the passing of a legend. And speaking of legends... Charlie Kirk got assassinated. How about that? We never talk about politics on this.
00:02:32
Speaker
So, you know, we had to go into this with our uneducated minds, so bear with it what it is. But he passed away, murdered by a lone gunman. Very strange surroundings happening in it, affecting the country.
00:02:47
Speaker
All I know is if Charlie Kirk rises, if he comes back from the dead, then we got to reconsider a lot of things there because that's the effect he seems to be having in the current time.
00:02:59
Speaker
And the fact that we have to resort to such violence that we've gotten to this state, damn, it's crazy. That other side, the system has pushed the little man to this point.
00:03:15
Speaker
And the worst part is we're only going to see more of that. We had Luigi and now Charlie Kirk, Tyler Robinson. Yeah, condolences to his family.
Societal Violence and Media Reflection
00:03:26
Speaker
I heard his kids were there to see it, to witness it. That person not only just killed a man, but destroyed a family. And you know that's the reality of where we're living is this this is real.
00:03:40
Speaker
And Charlie Kirk was a divisive figure. Did I say I'm feeling light in the head? Having some Jim being black, as we do in tradition?
00:03:51
Speaker
But Charlie Kirk said a lot of divisive things that helped to proliferate the environment we're in now. You know, there was a lot of talk of sensible gun control that was shot down. Heh.
00:04:08
Speaker
And so much other things, you know, it's been radicalized, the left versus the right, red versus blue, radicalized in such a way that's absolutely horrific because of the current events that have happened.
00:04:21
Speaker
But he also helped promote the state we're in. And so it's been just weird hearing about everything that's happened and dealing with it and how it shaped our country. I mean, the fact that where I work, we flew our flags at half mass for him.
00:04:38
Speaker
but also to know what he meant to so many people for better or worse.
The Art of Subtitles: Experience and Impact
00:04:44
Speaker
It feels like it's going to be a lot worse and it's going to get a little lot worse because it didn't promote what this country is supposed to be about or maybe what this country has always been about, right?
00:04:55
Speaker
I don't know. Make America great again. Leave it to the dummies. But it's sad to see us enter this place to see to see the ones who should eat their cake eat their cake finally. And I was talking to an artist and they were telling me about how they didn't know what to do in this climate with so much atrocity going on left and right.
00:05:25
Speaker
and the helplessness that's felt from that. And damn, it's crazy, right? Because you know there was the issues ah of woke and the speak of that and the censorship of using such words that were so problematic, like the N-word, obviously, that's a big one.
00:05:46
Speaker
But the R-word that we say all the time on here, Or any kind of just harsh language too to anyone, so any kind of prejudicial language.
00:05:58
Speaker
And it was so easy to be like, yeah, we should do that. We should enforce such control. And now we have the right doing that with hate speech is going to be outlawed, terrorist speech.
00:06:13
Speaker
And with the sunset clause of the, what is it, Patriot Act? And we voted to not have that ever sunset. So we are always under the Patriot Act. So, you know, government can say and do whatever it wants. And now that it's on on the other foot, now that the right has gone woke with their hate speech and punishing it, now it's terrifying, as it has been this entire time.
00:06:38
Speaker
And we got Robert Redford dying and Charlie Kirk dying. And this is where we're at. And it's scary because also a school was shot up the same
Challenges in Film Audio and Translation
00:06:46
Speaker
day and you don't hear anything about it. And it's upsetting.
00:06:50
Speaker
Like the Minnesota shooting. I think it was a Minnesota. I don't know. Wherever the school got shot up that was like Catholic. And I heard stories of the older kids shielding the younger ones from getting shot.
00:07:04
Speaker
And where are the flags at half mass for that? What are we fighting for and arguing about?
00:07:12
Speaker
But hey, what do I know? I'm just dumbass TSP talking. I just felt like I had to mention that because it should not go silent into that good night.
00:07:28
Speaker
We have to rage and rage against the dying of the light. And it is dying. But how many have said that before me?
00:07:42
Speaker
Well, hey, so we're talking about TSP here, and I wanted to do a little more different of an episode because we want to get this out because obviously Tom's not here.
00:07:56
Speaker
And it's weird just talking to a screen without him, but... Wanted to get something out to you guys. And we're thankful for any of you listening to us.
00:08:07
Speaker
And so I wanted to do this episode on subtitles. And, you know, without Tom, I was like, well, you don't know, I guess. God damn it, I say you know so much.
00:08:20
Speaker
Without Tom, this is a little different. I feel like I have to talk about something a little different because it's weird to have a conversation about anything when you're by yourself.
00:08:35
Speaker
I mean, I talk a lot to myself. I live a lot alone and I talk to myself a lot. I don't know how normal that is. Maybe that's not normal. Do you talk to yourself a lot alone? Do you have conversations?
00:08:46
Speaker
It's pretty cool. can have some great conversations. Perfectly kept in that echo chamber. But I want to talk about subtitles because I saw Shin Godzilla. It was restored to 4K.
00:09:00
Speaker
And i my God, I love Shin Godzilla. I watch it constantly. So much so that a good friend of mine got me like the Shin Godzilla collector's edition. And there's like a million Shin Godzillas in there.
00:09:14
Speaker
And so I've watched it countless times. So when i I heard it was coming out on and they were showing it theaters, I was like, oh yeah, I got to get a ticket. And I was supposed to go with Tom, but I got caught up with the family. And by the time I was able to go out, it was like, okay, Tom's asleep because it was on a Sunday, like around eight I actually fall ah fell asleep through Shin Godzilla few times.
00:09:37
Speaker
But I think the big reason why I fell asleep was because the subtitles. I was watching it and it looked beautiful. it was so amazing to see Shin Godzilla on a big screen with the sound.
00:09:51
Speaker
And I was with my fellow people because you ain't seen Shin Godzilla unless you're a nerd.
00:10:00
Speaker
You rolled a D20 at some point in your life. I don't know for what, but you rolled it. And you landed on Shin Godzilla. So I watched it and i fell asleep because that's just where I'm at. But mostly because the subtitles were so different.
00:10:19
Speaker
And i
Filmmaking and Cultural Storytelling
00:10:20
Speaker
like I just said, I saw Shin Godzilla countless times. And I think I've seen three different subtitles for this film. And this was the first time. i don't know who re-released it, but it felt like they produced their own subtitles for the 4K edition. and And I will say, don't watch a Godzilla in 4K because the graphics, the CGI doesn't hold up doesn't hold up you know It held up back when it came out.
00:10:49
Speaker
Because you didn't see it in full fidelity. You didn't see it cleaned up. So you can hide a lot of the Uncounty Valley effects of that kind of thing.
00:11:01
Speaker
And so, you know, you see it in 4K and it's all cleaned up. And and when you get to Godzilla and it's all CGI, it just looks so bad. It looks so bad. I mean, it makes... What was the Godzilla that just came out with the that was really good?
00:11:16
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Godzilla minus one. It makes it look so much better. So, you know, this was a film that should not be enhanced because it's such a found footage type of film.
00:11:30
Speaker
And it with the ah lower fidelity, it just looks so much better. It looks so much better. Anyways, who cares, right?
00:11:42
Speaker
Bad CGI, it takes you out of the film a little bit. But it's still just such an amazing film that it brings you back in like Shin Godzilla does.
00:11:56
Speaker
But the subtitles were so... Because there were some people who went who were in the theater with me that it was like, nah. you don't You're not into this whole Shin Godzilla world, Godzilla.
00:12:10
Speaker
like You probably like Godzilla and you saw there's ah Godzilla movie, so you show up. And to see those people reading the subtitles, and it's like, oh my God, this is such an awful way to introduce you to it.
00:12:23
Speaker
Because the subtitles, the version of Shin Godzilla I like the most. When the characters talk... It's very clever and they kind of build up the jokes that Shin Godzilla has because throughout its seriousness, there are some comedic moments in the film.
00:12:44
Speaker
And it's completely built up in the version I saw. I've seen countless times, but in the version I saw in theaters, it was just so cut and dry. It was just like them speaking so direct and And not really getting into it more.
00:13:03
Speaker
Like not having the comedic elements. It was just like a very dry delivery of everything. And it would felt so boring. And the version I've seen countless times, it was like, oh my gosh, there's like this little joke.
00:13:17
Speaker
And so when you see the human side, there's like tons of humor in it. For instance, I think it's the first scene when they're in the room with the prime minister and there's like 40 people in there.
00:13:28
Speaker
And one of the females, I think, speaks out a line and the guy just gives her a dirty look. And in the theater version, the 4K version, it's just delivered so dry. So there's no joke really landed. It just feels awkward.
00:13:43
Speaker
Whereas in the version I've seen you know, you have these... It follows the beats of the film. it It accentuates the comedic value.
00:13:56
Speaker
And that got me to thinking, like, you know I have a Mexican partner. I have Mexican friends, literally from Mexico. And they talk about the titles in the translations and how funny some of the titles are for the translations because they're nothing like the American are Not the American, but whatever film that came out, it's nothing like what the title is of that film. And sometimes it can just be completely bonkers. I should have got some examples being on my own here, but I didn't.
00:14:31
Speaker
But it'll be like Toy Story. it It'll be like Toy Man. Oh, that's not funny. That's not funny at all. It'll be Lawnmower Man. Oh, that's not funny either.
00:14:43
Speaker
I should some examples because there's some really great ones for some films that you think like, oh yeah, that that kind of does represent what we're trying to watch. But on the other hand, that's pretty bad. i don't know what you guys are watching. And then when you actually watch the film, Jesus.
00:15:02
Speaker
So it's the idea i want to talk about subtitles because of how much they can change a film. And I never really experienced that until i i watched Shin Godzilla. I was like, oh my God, this is so boring. I mean, I literally found a fell asleep twice.
00:15:18
Speaker
And the Shin Godzilla, I think I got high too. That probably did not help. but No, that should have helped. i got I think I got, I took an edible. Yeah, I took an edible.
00:15:32
Speaker
And man, that's probably why I was hyper-focused on the people who I was like, I don't know if you would go to this kind of movie at this time because it was late.
00:15:45
Speaker
And yeah, you know, it's just like, no, this is such a good movie. This this is so good. It's so good. Shin Godzilla, it's so good. It's so good next to Godzilla.
00:15:58
Speaker
You know, I don't know if I would show someone minus one because minus one is so slow. I mean, i could show someone show so showing someone like a Godzilla film where so like a lot of action happens.
00:16:10
Speaker
I heard Destroyah is good. There's also King Kong versus Godzilla. But I mean, the original one where King Kong's in an outfit, maybe. But it was so upsetting to see that.
00:16:20
Speaker
Because it was like, man, you're watching a great Godzilla movie, but the subtitles are just killing it. Killing it. And there's something there, you know? ah lost in translation.
00:16:32
Speaker
I remember that my partner Karen got me a ah poem that the poetry book from Neruda. And i like, whenever I read a book, I like to read everything that anyone has to say within the book. So i was reading, I guess, the translator's notes.
00:16:52
Speaker
I don't know what you call, the forward, what be the forward? I don't know. I don't remember. I guess, so let's just say the forward. I don't read a lot. You could tell. But the translator was talking about Neruda and how he sought to just essentially translate the words verbatim.
00:17:09
Speaker
And so I read the poetry and it was so awful. It was awful. But I've read poetry of Neruda where I don't think they did that, the translator. And it was some of the most beautiful language I've ever heard.
00:17:26
Speaker
And, you know, when you make a film like Shin Godzilla, you make it for the Japanese audience. Yes, the Japanese audience will see the film and they'll marvel at it. But then as you translate it, you're going to lose something.
00:17:42
Speaker
You're going to lose something in translation.
00:17:48
Speaker
So that gets me to my first topic. I got all these notes oh all over in front of me. They're kind of hard to read because i am feeling it. Jesus Christ, I am feeling it.
00:17:59
Speaker
All right. So language. That's what this is about, right? And the movie Patterson by Jim Jarmusch, he meets a Japanese poet, I guess, at a park. I've never seen it But the Japanese poet talks about translating work.
00:18:18
Speaker
And in regards to poetry, he says, poetry and translation is like taking a shower with a raincoat. And that always stuck out to me because that that's such a beautiful line. after Especially after like going through Neruda poetry that I've been reading.
00:18:38
Speaker
And then also, you know, I've been reading a lot of Bukowski. And to read that or imagining that translated.
00:18:49
Speaker
You know, because so much of Bukowski is American, is L.A., is even just the microcosm that he's in I don't know. it's It's hard to to understand that literally existing in the same area as him, to be in those dive bars with those true alcoholics and to be to to have that be your normal, you know that's pretty powerful stuff.
00:19:21
Speaker
And then to hear this Japanese poet to utter these lines, just the, I mean, who knows? Maybe it wasn't a real poet. I mean, it's ah it's on film.
00:19:32
Speaker
I mean, Jim Jarmusch, maybe he captured it, an honest moment, maybe not. But just simply the idea. And how much can be altered by that simple by simple words, right?
00:19:45
Speaker
We'd like to say words have no power, but they have tons of power. They shape and form us. We're in the situation we are within this country that I was talking about earlier because of the power of words.
00:19:57
Speaker
And so to acknowledge the translation of a project, poetry, where all the words are precise,
00:20:09
Speaker
It's like, yes, there is no way to translate that because talking to my partner, I'll ask her like, well, what does this word mean? And it's hard for her to describe what a word conveys.
00:20:22
Speaker
And there's something on that, right? Because, you know, you think of like sadness or anger or happiness on um such a generic level and we can understand that. But then once we get a little more complicated, when something can be bittersweet,
00:20:36
Speaker
And to convey that, and maybe a certain language has that ability to convey it. Maybe yeah a language does not. And so that's where we get into some of the complications with subtitles.
00:20:51
Speaker
And subtitles have become more popular because audio is so hard to hear now. Or maybe spoken too fast. Because I know I've watched a few things where I didn't know what I was listening to. You know, I'm writing the my remote control, upping the volume, downing the volume, when upping ah up in it when they're talking, and and lowering the volume when there's like explosions.
00:21:18
Speaker
Or sometimes like I just don't understand what a character saying. Or sometimes they're speaking too fast. And sometimes when you don't understand it, for instance, you might be thinking Tom Hardy in a Nolan film.
00:21:33
Speaker
And that's called like natural acting, right? like the The actor wouldn't necessarily enunciate very clearly. They wouldn't have the transatlantic character. ah accent there.
00:21:46
Speaker
And so they would be so much more intense or unintense. And so you can't hear them when they're like, like to, you know, it's like hearing Hunter S. Thompson before he has done the drugs versus listening to Hunter S. Thompson after he's done the drugs. Yeah.
00:22:10
Speaker
Or, you know, there's also a ah video on Jack Kerouac. He's like shit-faced drunk. And he has this interview with this person on stage.
00:22:22
Speaker
70s, oh my God. And they listen to him and they're having this conversation and Jack Kerouac's just completely hammered. But he still makes his good points and it's still worth so something to watch.
00:22:35
Speaker
Verse, what? What am I talking about? I don't fucking know. Verse like when you see Jack Kerouac when he just appears on the Steve Allen show, when Steve Allen had his show and Steve Allen's playing on his piano and and Jack Kerouac's just riffing ah beat poetry to the piano and discussing Dean Moriarty, Dean Moriarty.
00:23:02
Speaker
And you don't have that anymore. You have this these actors going to this natural form of speaking. Tom Hardy's a big proponent of that. Nolan does that a lot in his films.
00:23:20
Speaker
And with technology, it's gotten worse because the microphones can capture so much. um You can do so much in post. And the dynamics are just so wild. And you know I don't want to get into like the technical aspects of this in filmmaking, but sometimes you need to have the subtitles.
00:23:41
Speaker
And that's what we're here to discuss. We're not here to discuss the audio issues of film and how a film plays out, but the translation itself and the message that is conveyed.
00:23:53
Speaker
We are here to discuss subtitles, to discuss language. That's what I'm doing right now. So we're going to get into it.
00:24:05
Speaker
You know, I want to get into this because so many of my loved ones have talked about subtitles and how they speak English, but a different language as well. And they'll read the subtitles in their native language and it just doesn't capture what they know is being said on screen.
00:24:25
Speaker
And so I wanted to focus on subtitles versus closed captions. And what's the difference? So I got this on Google.
00:24:36
Speaker
I just instantly typed it in. And this is what AI told me. And that subtitles verse closed captions. Subtitles transcribe only dialogue for viewers who understand the spoken language, but not the language itself, like a foreign film.
00:24:55
Speaker
While closed captions include all meaningful audio, including dialogue, music, and sound effects for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing are watching in a noisy slash quiet environment.
00:25:08
Speaker
Closed captions are a form of assistive technology for accessibility, whereas subtitles are a translation tool for language comprehension.
00:25:20
Speaker
And that's those are two very different things. I mean, when I watch a film, I prefer subtitles because I'm also listening to it. Whereas closed captioning, that's its own other discussion that we're not going to have because I didn't research any of that shit.
00:25:40
Speaker
So what did I want to talk about? Well, I didn't spend that much time reviewing any of this shit because I wanted to get this out quickly.
00:25:50
Speaker
But it was like, when I watched Shin Godzilla, I felt the effects of subtitles and how they can alter a movie. And so I wanted to get into a deeper discussion of subtitles, why they might be the way they are, and possibly what we can do as filmmakers.
00:26:14
Speaker
So when I typed it in, the first thing that came up was an article by Sam Newbound. Where's my other notes? Oh, shit. I don't see my other notes. Hold on.
00:26:29
Speaker
Where's my other fucking notes? Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. I still... Okay, I'm back. Fuck, i it's I had some fucking good notes on like Netflix and what they want.
00:26:43
Speaker
Anyways, we're gonna go off an article I found. um I had more notes or more examples, ah but apparently I forgot them. I hope I did not leave them at work because that would be embarrassing.
00:26:59
Speaker
Steven, why are you so angry at subtitles? So I'm pulling this article for Why Subtitles Don't Match Dialogue. And it was written by Sam Atwood. So this is me reading verbatim from the article because, ah you know, I'm fucked up. So Sam Atwood wrote, What I didn't realize at the time, and what most people don't realize, is that there are very specific constraints or on subtitles, especially in professional and commercial contexts.
00:27:33
Speaker
This common sense, really, when you think about speed versus lightning speed, listening speed, and even the space that subtitles occupy on screen. For example, subtitles often have to be to be a paraphrase of what is actually said in order to make it possible to read them at the same speed as a spoken dialogue.
00:28:02
Speaker
And then she goes on to say, Netflix, for instance, requires the duration of each subtitle to be at least 0.083 seconds and no more than seven seconds and allows no more than two lines of text at a time on screen, among many others.
00:28:22
Speaker
Specifications, including characters per second. And so I had some of the examples of what I was talking about, but apparently I lost it from Netflix. But they had some general guidelines where they dictated the stipulations of which subtitles could appear.
00:28:43
Speaker
And then Sam... Atwood? Nutwood? Sam Newbound? Fuck, where did Nutwood come from? she She then goes on to discuss the modes of meaning.
00:28:58
Speaker
And she says, they inherently multimodal aspect of film creates a myriad of other considerations for subtitlers. Multi-module refers to the different modes of conveying meaning, such as spoken dialogue, music, and sound effects, visuals, and subtitles.
00:29:19
Speaker
I'm actually just reading from this article. One of these challenges is how to deal with nonverbal communication, and communications such as cultural specific gestures as gesticulation can vary greatly between cultures.
00:29:33
Speaker
For instance, in a movie from a culture where a thumbs up is actually equivalent to the Western middle finger, such as Iran and Afghanistan, for example,
00:29:44
Speaker
The gesture might need to be subtitled as obscene gesture in order to portray the intended meaning in an English subtitling of the film.
00:29:56
Speaker
She also discusses that cultural difference can play an issue. For instance, idioms, for example, tend to be very cultural specific and can't always be translated literally in a way that makes sense.
00:30:13
Speaker
An American movie using the term DUI for driving under the influence is translated to drunk driving because it's such an English or American specific word.
00:30:29
Speaker
And also within subtitles, there can just be human errors. Also, there can be the perspective that the subtitler takes. Like when I spoke of the Neruda reading, whereas the literature translation, there can also be localization.
00:30:47
Speaker
And typing this into Google again, you know, the AI. Oh, AI, Jesus, I love you. and AI told me, localization and subtitles can... It's a process of translating subtitles, not just literally, but by adapting them to resonate culturally and linguistically with a target audience while also meeting technical constraints like screen space and
00:31:18
Speaker
This goes beyond the word for word translation involving cultural adjustments for idioms, humor, and references, ensuring the content is relatable, accessible, and engaging for viewers in a different locale.
00:31:34
Speaker
And that's great. You know, for instance, when I saw Shin Godzilla, perhaps that version I saw in four k did not localize as much local did not do as much localization as much.
00:31:51
Speaker
And so some of it wasn't some of the humor wasn't conveyed to me like the other version of the subtitles where I found it quite humorous. The biggest issue with localization is the more you do it, the more you rely on it, the further away you get from the heart of what is being said by these characters.
00:32:12
Speaker
And so you don't want to rely on localization too much because you can get lost in the translation of it.
00:32:20
Speaker
What the fuck? I had this much bigger topic spelled out for us, but I guess I don't. And so, but you know, that places us at a weird spot with where we want to be as filmmakers, right?
00:32:38
Speaker
Because that's why we're listening to this podcast. That's where we're following went Tom and myself is that we're trying to figure out this thing that we're doing, which is filmmaking.
00:32:49
Speaker
And, you know, if I saw Shin Godzilla, the Shin Godzilla I saw in theaters, it killed the film for me. I would consider Shin Godzilla possibly a masterpiece.
00:33:00
Speaker
It rides that fine line. Like, is it a masterpiece? Isn't it? I don't know. rides a fine line, but the version of the film I saw in theaters sucked.
00:33:11
Speaker
It was so bad. it was not a masterpiece.
00:33:17
Speaker
And as a filmmaker, you know, we have different audiences, especially where I'm at, Tom and I, and possibly you listening out there, is we don't have money.
00:33:31
Speaker
This is all out of pocket. We don't have an audience. We don't have anything. We don't have anything. We don't have no one. And so maybe you might want your film to appease a different market better.
00:33:44
Speaker
right Maybe you want your film to play in India better than it does in the US. Maybe that's part of the goal.
00:33:54
Speaker
So what can we do as filmmakers who suffer with this?
00:34:01
Speaker
Well, I think you would have to translate the film in languages that you know. In my instance, it's English. And so maybe playing a bigger role in the subtitles of Dickhead and what's put out there.
00:34:17
Speaker
Especially in the closed captioning realm. But we're just focusing focusing on subtitles.
00:34:27
Speaker
So I would want to have... an active role in it. But the reality is that AI might be the only solution. For instance, on our podcast here, ah we switched from SoundCloud to Zencastr, and Zencastr offers a AI
00:34:46
Speaker
transcription for the episodes. And it's really good the way it's able to transcribe us. It can't separate Tom and I because we sound a little too similar, Twin Shadow.
00:35:00
Speaker
And I haven't listened to when we have guest speakers, but it does a really good job of transcribing what we're actually saying. And we haven't gotten any criticism for it. Jimmy Kimmel got canceled for what he said about Charlie Kirk, but we ain't got no criticism.
00:35:18
Speaker
Zencastr don't give a shit about what we're saying. It just transcribes it as best as it can understand our slurring as we speak. I think that's probably where a lot of us will go at our level.
00:35:30
Speaker
You know, just have an ai transcribe our film, do the subtitles, release them as they need to be. And so... How are we going to do it for dickhead? Well, we'll probably use an AI service to transcribe our film.
00:35:48
Speaker
And then, you know, i think the bigger question is, should a filmmaker at our level, which is independently financed, no backing of any kind, should we really care how it's transcribed? Because, you know, I think there is a truth to seeing a film as the director filmed it And you have to learn the language to really understand it.
00:36:13
Speaker
For instance, in books, I've heard of people who learn Spanish just so they can read Don Quixote. People who have learned Russian just so they could read Dostoevsky.
00:36:26
Speaker
Because I'm reading Dostoevsky and it's like, Jesus, I don't get any of this. Why is he such a good writer? I don't get it But if you speak the language, maybe you know a little bit of the history. And maybe you can understand the idioms that accompany it.
00:36:42
Speaker
And so you can get a deeper understanding of this work that is not translated. that maybe That probably doesn't land in your language.
00:36:54
Speaker
And so what can we do as a filmmaker at our level? And I think the word is nothing. Nothing.
00:37:03
Speaker
I don't think we can do anything. All we can do is just show the image that is best on screen and hope that that can represent itself as a silent film in an extent.
00:37:15
Speaker
But thinking of all of this right now, cause because I saved my conclusion until the end, even for myself, I didn't know how I would fall on this, but I had an idea and and it's proving true is that You can't understand a film if it's very culturally tied.
00:37:37
Speaker
And when you're working at the level that we are, with your own camera, doing your own thing, it's probably going to be a film that is very subject to its locale.
00:37:55
Speaker
Like, I don't think Dig Head will play...
00:37:59
Speaker
good in markets where ah Halloween isn't beloved. So maybe you don't worry about the subtitles.
00:38:11
Speaker
Anyone who doesn't understand is just going to have to suffer that they don't understand. And that's a terrible and sad place to be at. And I hope if people have the ability to not make it so they should, especially with the closed captions, you know,
00:38:29
Speaker
But that's what this episode's about.
00:38:35
Speaker
Subtitles. And being lost in translation.
00:38:41
Speaker
They can shape a movie from a masterpiece to a total dud where you fall asleep in a theater watching it. And that is a place you do not want to be.
00:38:55
Speaker
Cut.