Here at Transcription City, we offer a huge range of subtitling services for movies in a variety of languages to clients and film production companies worldwide. We also provide transcription services for video and translation services for video (broadcast, online and international).
The Power of Subtitling for Movies
Emmanuelle Bart (Mission Impossible, 1996)
Gerard Depardieu (Green Card, 1990; Life of Pi, 2012)
Juliette Binoche (The English Patient, 1996; Chocolat, 2000)
Jean Reno (The Da Vinci Code, 2006)
Jean-Hugues Anglade (Killing Zoe, 1993)
Eva Green (Casino Royale, 2006)
Despite appearances, these aren’t the answers to a film trivia quiz but they certainly have three things in common.
First, they are all French actors with long and illustrious film careers.
Second, the films in Italics are all English language films.
And third? That’s the not-so-obvious one.
What Are Subtitles?
What? You mean those annoying, strips of text at the bottom of the screen at the cinema and on the telly?’
Precisely.
All of these actors had major careers in France before they became well-known to English cinema-goers, and it’s thanks to subtitles that English-speaking audiences found them gracing their screens in English language films.
Without English subtitles, these actors’ French language films would have been relatively inaccessible to international English-speaking audiences. Subtitles radically transformed film audiences from French-only to English-speaking, so when these actors eventually made the leap to English language films, they were already familiar faces to many.
But when you consider that English-speaking casting directors might not have appreciated their performances and wider appeal had it not been for subtitles, you start to realise just how influential subtitles have been in ensuring that film buffs can not only watch the best actors of their generation, but the best international actors of their generation.
Who remembers (or who can forget) Gerard Depardieu as the boorish composer and pretend husband who accidentally falls in love with Andie MacDowell? Or the ethereal, doll-like beauty of Juliette Binoche when she nurses the dying Ralph Fiennes? Then there’s Emmanuelle Bart and the laxative coffee¦
Some dramatic performances stay with you forever (for whatever reason), but without subtitles, many may never have had the opportunity to make these memories in the first place. For those of us who love films, perhaps we should all be thankful for those little strips of text. They have transformed the film industry without most of us ever realising it.
Here at Transcription City, we offer a range of subtitling services, real time captioning services (for the deaf and hard of hearing), movie translation services, transcription services and video transcription services. We are available seven days a week and always happy to help.
You can download free subtitling software such as Aegisub which is available for both Mac and Windows computers.
