Subtitles

directly into the picture (open subtitles);

embedded in the and later superimposed on the picture by the end user with the help of an external decoder or a decoder built into the TV (closed subtitles on TV or video);

vertical interval

or converted (rendered) to or bmp graphics that are later superimposed on the picture by the end user's equipment (closed subtitles on DVD or as part of a DVB broadcast).

tiff

Heavily reduced: Captioners ignore commentary and provide only scores and essential information such as "try" or "out".

Significantly reduced: Captioners use input to type summary captions yielding the essence of what the commentators are saying, delayed due to the limitations of QWERTY input.

QWERTY

Comprehensive realtime: Captioners use stenography to caption the commentary in its entirety.

[4]

Hearing Impaired subtitles (sometimes abbreviated as HI or ) are intended for people who are hearing impaired, providing information about music, environmental sounds and off-screen speakers (e.g. when a doorbell rings or a gunshot is heard). In other words, they indicate the kinds and the sources of the sounds coming from the movie, and usually put this information inside brackets to demarcate it from actors' dialogues. For example: [sound of typing on a keyboard], [mysterious music], [glass breaks], [woman screaming].

SDH

Narrative is the most common type of subtitle in which spoken dialogue is displayed. These are most commonly used to translate a film with one spoken language and the text of a second language.

Forced subtitles are common on movies and only provide subtitles when the characters speak a foreign or , or a sign, flag, or other text in a scene is not translated in the localization and dubbing process. In some cases, foreign dialogue may be left untranslated if the movie is meant to be seen from the point of view of a particular character who does not speak the language in question. For example, in Steven Spielberg's Amistad the dialogue of the Spanish slave traders is subtitled, while African languages are left untranslated.^[25]

alien language

Content subtitles are a North American Secondary Industry (non-Hollywood, often low-budget) staple. They add content dictation that is missing from filmed action or dialogue. Due to the general low-budget allowances in such films, it is often more feasible to add the overlay subtitles to fill in information. They are most commonly seen on America's Maverick films as forced subtitles, and on Canada's MapleLeaf films as optional subtitles. Content subtitles also appear in the beginning of some higher-budget films (e.g., ) or at the end of a film (e.g., Gods and Generals).

Star Wars

Titles only are typically used by dubbed programs and provide only the text for any untranslated on-screen text. They are most commonly forced (see above).

Bonus subtitles are an additional set of text blurbs that are added to DVDs. They are similar to ' in-movie content or to the "info nuggets" in VH1 Pop-up Video. Often shown in popup or balloon form, they point out background, behind-the-scenes information relative to what is appearing on screen, often indicating filming and performance mistakes in continuity or consistency.

Blu-ray Discs

Localized subtitles are a separate subtitle track that uses expanded references (i.e., "The sake [a Japanese Wine] was excellent as was the Wasabi") or can replace the standardized subtitle track with a form replacing references to local custom (i.e., from above, "The wine was excellent as was the spicy dip").

localized

Extended or Expanded subtitles combine the standard subtitle track with the localization subtitle track. Originally found only on Celestial DVDs in the early 2000s, the format has expanded to many export-intended releases from China, Japan, India, and Taiwan. The term "Expanded Subtitles" is owned by Celestial, with "Extended Subtitles" being used by other companies.

Hard (also known as hardsubs or open subtitles). The subtitle text is irreversibly merged in original video frames, and so no special equipment or software is required for playback. Hence, complex transition effects and animation can be implemented, such as song lyrics using various colors, fonts, sizes, animation (like a bouncing ball) etc. to follow the lyrics. However, these subtitles cannot be turned off unless the original video is also included in the distribution as they are now part of the original frame, and thus it is impossible to have several variants of subtitling, such as in multiple languages.

karaoke

Prerendered (also known as closed) subtitles are separate video frames that are overlaid on the original video stream while playing. Prerendered subtitles are used on and Blu-ray (though they are contained in the same file as the video stream). It is possible to turn them off or have multiple language subtitles and switch among them, but the player has to support such subtitles to display them. Also, subtitles are usually encoded as images with minimal bitrate and number of colors; they usually lack anti-aliased font rasterization. Also, changing such subtitles is hard, but special OCR software, such as SubRip exists to convert such subtitles to "soft" ones.

DVD

Soft (also known as softsubs or closed subtitles) are, like , separate instructions, usually a specially marked up text with time stamps to be optionally displayed during playback. It requires player support and, moreover, there are multiple incompatible (but usually reciprocally convertible) subtitle file formats, but enables greater versatility in post production. Softsubs are relatively easy to create and change, and thus are frequently used for fansubs. Text rendering quality can vary depending on the player, but is generally higher than prerendered subtitles. Also, some formats introduce text encoding troubles for the end-user, especially if different languages are used simultaneously (for example, Latin and Asian scripts). A subtitle track with time stamp also allows for accurate time keeping after having paused the video recording, which would otherwise cause discrepancy between the duration of the video recording since the usually memorized clock time at start and real clock time. Camcorders may record additional metadata such as technical parameters (aperture, exposure value, exposure duration, photosensitivity, etc.).^[26]

closed captions

Cinema

: digital projection of movie in DCP format

D-Cinema

In , the characters of Woody Allen and Diane Keaton are having a conversation; their real thoughts are shown in subtitles.

Annie Hall

In , Japanese dialogue is subtitled using white type that blends in with white objects in the background. An example is when white binders turn the subtitle "I have a huge rodent problem" into "I have a huge rod." After many cases of this, Mr. Roboto says "Why don't I just speak English?", in English. In the same film, Austin and Nigel Powers directly speak in Cockney English to make the content of their conversation unintelligible; subtitles appear for the first part of the conversation, but then cease and are replaced with a series of question marks.

Austin Powers in Goldmember

In , the Beatles use the subtitles of "All you need is love" to defeat a giant glove.

Yellow Submarine

In , one character speaks in a foreign language, while another character hides under the bed. Although the hidden character cannot understand what is being spoken, he can read the subtitles. Since the subtitles are overlaid on the film, they appear to be reversed from his point of view. His attempt to puzzle out these subtitles enhances the humor of the scene.

The Impostors

The movie and its sequel feature two inner-city African Americans speaking in heavily accented slang, which another character refers to as if it were a foreign language: "Jive". Subtitles translate their speech, which is full of colorful expressions and mild profanity, into bland standard English, but the typical viewer can understand enough of what they are saying to recognize the incongruity. Transcript of the dialogue

Airplane!

In , Susie Chef and Mater speak Chinese with English subtitles and Luigi, Mama Lopolino and Uncle Topolino speak Italian with English subtitles.

Cars 2

In parodies of the German film , incorrect subtitles are deliberately used, often with offensive and humorous results.

Downfall

In the comedy The Man with Two Brains, after stopping Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr (Steve Martin) for speeding, a German police officer realizes that Hfuhruhurr can speak English. He asks his colleague in their squad car to turn off the subtitles, and indicates toward the bottom of the screen, commenting that "This is better — we have more room down there now".

Carl Reiner

In the opening credits of , the Swedish subtitler switches to English and promotes his country, until the introduction is cut off and the subtitler "sacked". In the DVD version of the same film, the viewer could choose, instead of hearing aid and local languages, lines from Shakespeare's Henry IV, part 2 that vaguely resemble the lines that are actually being spoken in film, if they are "people who hate the film".

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

In , there is a scene where the actors speak in faux Japanese (nonsensical words which mostly consist of Japanese company names), but the content of the subtitles is the "real" conversation.

Scary Movie 4

In , the nude foreign exchange student character Areola speaks lightly accented English, but her dialogue is subtitled anyway. Also, the text is spaced in such a way that a view of her bare breasts is unhindered.

Not Another Teen Movie

In , the leading characters have a conversation in a crowded club. To understand what is being said, the entire dialogue is subtitled.

Trainspotting

' 2000 short film Telling Lies juxtaposes a soundtrack of a man telling lies on the telephone against subtitles which expose the truth.^[35]

Simon Ellis

commonly use subtitles to present the comical "fake lyrics" (English words that sound close to what is actually being sung in the song in the non-English language). These fake lyrics are a major staple of the Animutation genre.

Animutations

contains a scene spoken entirely in cockney rhyming slang that is subtitled in standard English.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

In an episode of , at one point Norbert begins to speak with such a heavy European accent that his words are subtitled on the bottom of the screen. Daggett actually touches the subtitles, shoving them out of the way.

The Angry Beavers

In the American theatrical versions of and Day Watch, Russian dialogues are translated by subtitles which are designed accordingly to the depicted events. For instance, subtitles dissolve in water like blood, tremble along with a shaking floor or get cut by sword.

Night Watch

The film contains a scene where Jason Statham's character understands an Asian character's line of dialogue from reading the on-screen subtitle. The subtitle is even in reverse when his character reads the line. Later, an exclamation made by another Asian character is subtitled, but both the spoken words and the subtitles are in Chinese.

Crank

In , also directed by Carl Reiner, one scene involving two characters talking about their murder plan in Yiddish to prevent anyone from knowing about it, only to be foiled by a man on the bench reading the on-screen subtitles.

Fatal Instinct

released the film Riff-Raff into American theatres with subtitles not only so people could understand the thick Scottish accents, but also to make fun of what he believes to be many Americans' need for them (mentioned in the theatrical trailer). Many of Loach's films contain traditional dialect, with some (e.g. The Price of Coal) requiring subtitles even when shown on television in England.

Ken Loach

In 's "Tae Do", a parody of Korean dramas in a Mad TV episode, the subtitles make more sense of the story than the Korean language being spoken. The subtitles are made to appear as though written by someone with a poor understanding of grammar and are often intentionally made longer than what they actually say in the drama. For example, an actor says "Sarang" ("I love you"), but the subtitle is so long that it covers the whole screen.

Bobby Lee

In television series , a journalist interviews a group of Afghan terrorists in English, but one of them gets subtitled and sees it. He gets mad because he takes as an insult that he is the only one to get subtitled.^[36]

Skithouse

In film Robin Hood: Men in Tights, the thoughts of the overweight Broomhilde's (Megan Cavanaugh) horse Farfelkugel are shown as subtitles when Broomhilde attempts to jump on to the saddle off a balcony, as Maid Marion had done gracefully moments earlier. As Farfelkugel shudders, the subtitles show "She must be kidding!"

Mel Brooks

In the television series , the character Ling-Ling can only be understood through English subtitles, as his dialogue is delivered in a nonexistent language referred to as "Japorean" by Abbey DiGregorio, the voice actress for the character.

Drawn Together

In the television series episode "Lisa's Mudder Comes for a Visit" (season 5 episode 1), Lisa and her mother converse in Hungarian, with English subtitles. First, Lisa looks down and corrects the subtitles, "No no no, I said you hadn't changed a bit! We have a lot of trouble here with subtitles", and they change. Mother's Japanese chauffeur asks "I begga pardon – I bringa bags inna house?" that elicits a gong sound and Japanese subtitles. This is followed by Mother's Great Dane barking with the subtitles "I've seen better doghouses than this" with Lisa responding "We're not interested in what the dog says", and the subtitles disappear. Later, the subtitles ask farmhand Eb if they will be needing any more subtitles for the episode.

Green Acres

In the UK television series , in episode 6 of Series 13, they purposely mistranslate the song sung by Carla Bruni, having her supposedly denouncing hatred towards the trio of presenters ("but mainly James May") for destroying what is claimed to be her own Morris Marina.

Top Gear

In Vance Joy's music video "Riptide" it shows a woman singing the lyrics to the song. At many points the lyrics which are sung "I got a lump in my throat cause you're gonna sing the words wrong" are deliberately mis-subtitled as "I got a lump in my throat cause you gone and sank the worlds wolf".^[38]

[37]

In 's music video for "Smells Like Nirvana", the second verse is subtitled as a way to mock the supposed unintelligibility of the song. One of the lines is "It's hard to bargle nawdle zouss???" (with three question marks), which has no meaning, but is explained by the following line, "With all these marbles in my mouth". While singing the latter, Yankovic indeed spits out a couple of marbles.

"Weird Al" Yankovic

ESIST Code of Good Subtitling Practice

Proposed set of subtitling standards in Europe

Easy way to Get SRT Subtitles