Star Trek Fan Films - Subtitles

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Hudson

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Hi all, this is my first post by way of an open question.

I have no hearing problems but am undertaking a project to put subtitles on a downloadable "Fan Film" series of Star Trek movies.

I have a few questions to gauge interest and a sanity check on what I have been doing (since it started as a project for foreign language conversion)

a) are there any Star Trek fans around here that may be interested ?
b ) are there any Fan Films that already have subtitles and what did you think of them ?
c) The work I have done so far has been a verbatim transcription, exact copies of what has been said, is this preferred ? I have read articles suggesting subtitles should be summarised or simplified. I decided not to take that route.
d) Would work being done by an amateur (i.e. Me) put you off ?
e) To what extent should sounds etc be represented ? If they are visually represented, e.g. phaser blasts should this really be subbed ?
f) The subs are simple, no different fonts/colours (for cross platform/player support). I have not been identifying the speaker except when off screen (screen size issues) - Would this be a problem ?

Sorry to ramble on, look forward to your responses.

Regards
Michael
 
a) are there any Star Trek fans around here that may be interested ?

Ooh! Ooh! Me!

b ) are there any Fan Films that already have subtitles and what did you think of them ?

I haven't watched many Star Trek fan films, but I've seen a few Star Wars fan films with subs. It was fun - maybe not a good movie, but for a fan of the show, it's nice to have a continuation, right?

c) The work I have done so far has been a verbatim transcription, exact copies of what has been said, is this preferred ? I have read articles suggesting subtitles should be summarised or simplified. I decided not to take that route.

In general, subs should not be simplified or summarised unless it's necessary to fit everything on the screen. There are exceptions, but they're few and far between. For fanfilms, I'd say one important key is to find the canonical spellings of place names/people names, etc. And it's always nice when key sound effects are shown (so, don't necessarily subtitle "Phaser blast", but if a character hears a door open behind them, off screen, and turns around or gets nervous because of it, *that* should be subbed).

d) Would work being done by an amateur (i.e. Me) put you off ?

Not at all. There's a huge body of high-quality subs done by amateurs. You may even want to submit your subtitles to a subtitle site - opensubtitles.org is one such site.

e) To what extent should sounds etc be represented ? If they are visually represented, e.g. phaser blasts should this really be subbed ?

Oops ... I answered this above. To recap, if the sound advances the plot, show it. A door opens off screen in a dark room and the character is spooked? Sub it. Maybe sub communicator sounds as well, maybe not. But subtitling phaser blasts is generally not necessary. You could still do "[Phaser blasts]" once in a battle, maybe, but not if it interferes with dialog or other important bits.

f) The subs are simple, no different fonts/colours (for cross platform/player support). I have not been identifying the speaker except when off screen (screen size issues) - Would this be a problem ?

No, not an issue. It's usually pretty clear - all you have to do is look and see whose face is moving, right? If you have two characters speaking in one subtitle, show that there's a difference by putting them on different lines and using a hyphen to start those lines; but that's it.

A word of advice: it might not be a bad idea to watch some examples - maybe sci fi, maybe not. You could watch commercial (non-fan) DVDs you already have, or search for fanfic subs (Star Trek or otherwise) on opensubtitles.org.

Hope this helps - post again if you have questions. (And *definitely* post when it's done!)
 
Ah, a fan, excellent :)

I think Star Wrek in the Perkinning has subs but it's original language was finnish I think so they had to do something. More of a parody though.

I did some reading before I started but got a bit bogged down in standards, laws and transmission details for TV.

The original projects started as a way for US audiences to understand Scottish accents and then maybe language translation. But then I wondered if I had a bigger audience than I first thought.

Your thoughts are similar to how I have done it. Only one character speaking sub on the screen at the time (luckily there is almost no overlap) and if they start speaking whilst off camera I started the line with their name.

The correct spellings has been an issue (especially for the Klingon) !

Some door and weapon sounds have been subbed, as you say, if they are central to the plot and obvious.

Luckily I have the support of the production team so the intention is to have the subs as part of the downloadable film which then play automatically in Quicktime or VLC etc

One of the reasons for "simple" subs (No special positioning, no colour etc) is they were designed to be cross-platform, player independant. Doing the clever stuff would have been to restrictive and time consuming (especially since there are 50 episodes to sub).

19 episode have been subbed and being tested.

Feedback from the tester team has been OK although they are hearing. Generally they've not been impressed with UK spelling (sorry it's the way I think - they'll have to live with it) and a bit critical over punctuation (No full stops at the end of lines).

Interesting how subjective it can be if something should be a question or not or explaimed or not. (Also I am having to transcribe most if it as all scripts are ritually burnt or eaten at the end of the shoot !)

I did start watching some programs last night with subtitles and noticed some points - As speakers change, so the colour changes of the text. The text is not centralised but moves about. It was not verbatim.
 
Hudson said:
Luckily I have the support of the production team so the intention is to have the subs as part of the downloadable film which then play automatically in Quicktime or VLC etc
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Out of curiosity, what format are you using? DivX with SRT subs seems to be relatively popular, and works well with VLC, but there are a bunch of different choices.

One of the reasons for "simple" subs (No special positioning, no colour etc) is they were designed to be cross-platform, player independant. Doing the clever stuff would have been to restrictive and time consuming (especially since there are 50 episodes to sub).
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Yup. And if you look at captions (you're from the UK, right? Americans tend to distinguish between captions on the TV, and subtitles on DVDs - wikipedia has more info if you're curious) on TV, or subtitled DVDs, there aren't many uses of those features. A few films have used those features for some incredible effects - Night Watch is a good example - but for subtitling an existing movie, it's not necessarily appropriate.

Feedback from the tester team has been OK although they are hearing. Generally they've not been impressed with UK spelling (sorry it's the way I think - they'll have to live with it) and a bit critical over punctuation (No full stops at the end of lines).
Click to expand...

If you'd like me to test an episode or two, give me a PM.

Interesting how subjective it can be if something should be a question or not or explaimed or not. (Also I am having to transcribe most if it as all scripts are ritually burnt or eaten at the end of the shoot !)
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Yeah, that takes a *lot* longer.

I did start watching some programs last night with subtitles and noticed some points - As speakers change, so the colour changes of the text. The text is not centralised but moves about. It was not verbatim.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I wonder if that's a UK-US difference? In theory, American caption decoders are able to handle color changes, but this ability is very rarely used - backwards compatibility, as you said.
 
ismi said:
Out of curiosity, what format are you using? DivX with SRT subs seems to be relatively popular, and works well with VLC, but there are a bunch of different choices.
Click to expand...

The main format for the file is SRT which is then being converted to Quick Time text and included with the quick time .mov file. This means that once you have downloaded the movie, in Quicktime, they appear under the video in a black box, in VLC they are overlayed at the bottom of the video in white with a slight black border.


ismi said:
Yup. And if you look at captions (you're from the UK, right? Americans tend to distinguish between captions on the TV, and subtitles on DVDs - wikipedia has more info if you're curious) on TV, or subtitled DVDs, there aren't many uses of those features. A few films have used those features for some incredible effects - Night Watch is a good example - but for subtitling an existing movie, it's not necessarily appropriate.
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yes I am in the UK. There is a difference still but the BBC tends to use the phrase Subtitles when it means closed captioned so it is not always clear.

ismi said:
If you'd like me to test an episode or two, give me a PM.
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I will talk to the production team and see if/how this can be done. It may be close to public release, not sure.

ismi said:
Interesting. I wonder if that's a UK-US difference? In theory, American caption decoders are able to handle color changes, but this ability is very rarely used - backwards compatibility, as you said.
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Not sure, but the 3 or 4 channels I checked were colour coded in this way. I was using Sky satellite transmissions. The Sky+ box is a PVR with hard drive and I thought I'd take a look at a recorded show. The subtitles were recorded with it, did not realise it was capable.
 
I'd like to see the old star trek series with Captain Kirk and Spock captioned.

Richard
 
Nesmuth said:
I'd like to see the old star trek series with Captain Kirk and Spock captioned.

Richard
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If they don't exist I will be very surprised, either on DVD, when on TV or available on the internet. Is it something you've tried to get ?
 
Yes, the original Star Trek with Kirk and Spock is captioned. I have the DVDs and I have also seen it on TV and it is always captioned. Unfortunately it is not on TV very often.

I would love to see subtitled fan films, personally...
 
ITPjohn said:
Here's a link to one series of fan films. I cleaned out my favs yesterday, so I know there's at least one more. Good luck with your project.

Star Trek New Voyages

You may be able to find something else on:

TrekToday - the first and only daily updated guide to all things Trek

Star Trek Fan Films

I can help you with Trek questions, but working long weekend shifts means I'm not online everyday. :( WISH!!!
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Oh yes, I'm aware of many of them I was more interested in any subtitled experiences people may have.

After reading the details about captioning from the Captioned Media Program I am feeling happier that my project, whilst not perfect by any means, may well be of use.

They have ended up what I would call Subtitle+. They started as subtitles for foreign language translation but are now peppered with some effects notifications and off screen names etc.
 
Etoile said:
Yes, the original Star Trek with Kirk and Spock is captioned. I have the DVDs and I have also seen it on TV and it is always captioned. Unfortunately it is not on TV very often.

I would love to see subtitled fan films, personally...
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Glad to hear it, there should be an official announcement in the next couple of weeks, I'll make sure I post it here for you.
 
Another possibility

Hudson said:
Oh yes, I'm aware of many of them I was more interested in any subtitled experiences people may have.
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You may want to find the DVD series Trekkies. It's hosted by Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar). It talks about how Trek inspired people's lives. I think there's been three so far. Here's some info on the first one.

Trekkies - Movie Info - Yahoo! Movies
 
ITPjohn said:
You may want to find the DVD series Trekkies. It's hosted by Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar). It talks about how Trek inspired people's lives. I think there's been three so far. Here's some info on the first one.

Trekkies - Movie Info - Yahoo! Movies
Click to expand...

Interesting that you mention Trekkies, one of the cast members has appeared in this Fan series and worked on the Visual Effects for the last Episode of Enterprise (and the film Serenity) !
 
Hudson said:
Glad to hear it, there should be an official announcement in the next couple of weeks, I'll make sure I post it here for you.
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Well, my original estimate was woefully incorrect for which I apologise. However, I can provide some more information now and we are actively working on making them available. I really would like to get some feedback so I am pulling out the stops.

For the Star Trek fans out there, you may be aware of the Fan Film series "Hidden Frontier" (http://www.hiddenfrontier.com). They have produced 50 episodes over 7 seasons and the last episode was recently released.

46 of those now have english subtitles and I am trying hard to get them loaded onto the web servers and arranging for them to be made available. I would hope to get this finished by mid to end of June.

Also being released this weekend is the Scottish made fan film : Star Trek : Intrepid, Heavy lies the Crown (http://www.starshipintrepid.net). This should have english subtitles in about 2 weeks time.

I really hope to see some of you turn up on the forums over there and getting some feedback when the episodes are available.

Regards
Michael
 
Interpretrator said:
If you want to buy the series, Amazon says it's closed-captioned.

Amazon.com: Star Trek The Original Series - The Complete Seasons 1-3: DVD: Star Trek Original Series
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It is. Watch 'em all the time. :)

Also, they've redone them with new special effects, and those are closed captioned as well, on most local stations. :)

Here's information:
STARTREK.COM : Article

Here's the stations that air it:
STARTREK.COM : Article

And this link has a cool video of old and new shots in one of the shows:
Errand of Mercy Screenshots [UPDATED] | TrekMovie.com
 
Capmeister said:
Also, they've redone them with new special effects, and those are closed captioned as well, on most local stations. :)
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Not just that, they had to take out the negatives and clean them up, did some digital clean-ups, edited them to match the original versions and then add the new special effects. They had to do this instead of going back to the original master and the digital masters because in order to turn it into HDTV, they had to use the negatives because the original and digital masters weren't high enough in resolution.

They are going to release it on both Blu-Ray and HD DVD which should be quite nice to look at. It's amazing how much work went into this particular TV series!
 
Banjo said:
Not just that, they had to take out the negatives and clean them up, did some digital clean-ups, edited them to match the original versions and then add the new special effects. They had to do this instead of going back to the original master and the digital masters because in order to turn it into HDTV, they had to use the negatives because the original and digital masters weren't high enough in resolution.

They are going to release it on both Blu-Ray and HD DVD which should be quite nice to look at. It's amazing how much work went into this particular TV series!
Click to expand...

I didn't know that about the negatives, but it explains why things are looking so much better. I can't wait for it to be in high-def.

I assume they're release them on those formats for a lot of money, but it may just be worth it.
 
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