Sisyphean Subtitles

jelewis8 — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 18:00:39 +0000

Subtitling a movie is pretty close, if not identical to, jabbing an ice pick repeatedly into your ocular cavity whilst listening to showtunes and eating your least favourite food. I say this without preamble because the last three days of my life has been devoted to the fine art of Dantean punishment. And as a brief scholar into the realm of Hades during the eighth grade, when I first read the Inferno, my expertise on intellectual pain is fairly well-studied and can be backed by numerous and deadly arrows of logic and reason. Virgil rocks, you know. But that leads me back to subtitles. Which I believe would have had their own circle reserved entirely for failed filmmakers and artists.
We met with our film composer on Sunday afternoon. Note, I said “our film composer.” Yes. He is ours. Inasmuch as he can walk away from the project at any moment. With the disastrous showing, however, he didn’t balk, so there’s reason to suspect that he really does like the film. Let me back up a bit and explain.
See, I’d worked on subtitles all last week too. They’ve been the particular thorn in my side, the pebble in my shoe, the gauntlet in my face for many days now, and I had reached a point of reasonable happiness with their construction and syncopation with the film. But I ran out of time, as is usual in these cases, and didn’t have a chance to test the DVD before rushing off to meet Bobby and our composer. Yes. He is ours…
So we’re watching the film, and as it progresses, the subtitles are growing increasingly behind. First it’s just a micro second. Not bad at all. Then it becomes a macro second. Soon it’s multiple macro seconds, with epochs passing between the actor saying his lines and the subsequent captioning. It was painful. It was hellishly excruciating. It was Sisyphean in its longevity and interminable nature. I was writhing on the inside. But our composer, our poor composer (Yes. He is ours.) sat there and took it in.
Like Hell.
I could sense the pain, the aggravation, the anger he was feeling. I would have been feeling it too. It was bad form to show the film as it was. Unprofessional. But the film finally ended, and he didn’t throw up all over the place, which certainly raised my spirits. He said he liked it, overall. He felt the temp score didn’t do justice to the feel of it. Thought it could be cut down a bit (we agreed). Liked the story. Liked the look of the film. And Yes. He is ours.
So today I’ll be venturing out to his place (my penance) in Sherman Oaks to drop off a new DVD that contains fixed subtitles. I discovered that it was a frame mismatch problem that occurred between the output of the subtitle script and the burning of the DVD. Essentially, differing timecodes get lined up, and thus you’re screwed from frame one. They’re still not perfect, but they at least sync up. And it makes watching so much more palatable.
Did I mention how much I hate subtitles?
But I actually love them. Because it’s just one step closer to a finished film. And that’s a beautiful thing. Dante can go to Hell. I’m in Purgatorio now. Moving upward and onward to Beatrice.

Blogging In the Time of Cholera

jelewis8 — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 17:26:29 +0000

Please excuse the lack of original posting of late. In my spare time I’ve been pumping out a feature script which I started Sunday afternoon and which I am hoping to finish by Thursday evening. That’s 90-120 pages in five days, which for me is unprecedented. It’s more important for me to write uninterupted than to break the flow I’ve got going with blogging. Sorry.
I know it’s a cardinal sin to inform readers that they’re being given the shaft, but at least it’s only temporary.
I’ll be gone all day Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday…basically, I’m pretty strapped for time, and blogging just got moved down the priority list for this week. Don’t worry, I’ve still got some good stuff on the way.
I saw Million Dollar Baby the other night, and will try and post a review before the weekend. In addition, I’m nearly done seeing what Oscar nominated pictures I can get to, though I don’t think I’ll be able to view all of them before the 27th. With that in mind, I’ll be doing my Oscar predictions, with the usual colour commentary you’ve come to expect and hopefully love.
Like I said, sorry for the insubstantial posting of late, but I will get back into the groove after this week. In the meantime, I’ve got a few links for you to check out below.
The Christian Carnival is up at Wittenberg Gate.
Carnival of the Vanities #124 is now up at Ken Sain’s place. Bloggy goodness therein.
I got an odd email from Justin Katz, who I haven’t heard from in a while, not since our last online tete a tete, which was more civil and respectable than the word tete a tete implies. Not that we were ever bosom buddies or anything…anyway, it concerned an article of his that I first read back in December in the National Review, that attempts to explain the rationale of Andrew Sullivan, a man who can’t quite define or pinpoint his own political, cultural, social, and theological beliefs. I’ve stopped reading Sullivan since he started lacking focus with the war issue, and since then have kept up only loosely with his politics since going all blue state over the gay marriage issue.
Justin has now posted his article online at Dust In The Light. It’s long, detailed, but worth a read if you’ve ever, like me, tried to figure Andrew Sullivan out and simply failed after a long bout in the ring.
Greg Piper has a good writeup of the launch of the new DC paper, the Washington Examiner. He notes copious copy errors (no stranger here!), but a launch party filled with champagne and an editorial page note to readers that seems to echo his own alt paper’s (PUNCH) philosophy.
Protein Wisdom (a blog I need to read more) has a McSweeney-like list of 9 names the UN would PREFER we give to the “not genocide” in Darfur. (Via Instapundit)
Lauren is travel blogging. Lots of airport and hotel troubles, so you can probably relate.
Philip Johnson, noted American architect, has died. He founded the US international style of glass towers architecture, and compared corporations to Renaissance figures such as the Medicis and the popes of old.
Languagehat links to an article on the future of the modern Irish language. Speaking of the UK, LH also has a BBC article linked that discusses the ways Londoners speak. Cool stuff.
Okay, I really do have to start my day now, so ta ta for now.

» Fringe Blog – Writing on Film, Culture, and Things on the Fringe

Sisyphean Subtitles

Blogging In the Time of Cholera