Multi-Media Localization

How often have we come across dubbing of commercials, serials and sales presentation which are a sheer disgrace to the language and are completely out of synch with the culture of the target audience?

One can clearly make out that the voice over artist have either not understood the context or not been briefed about the subject matter.

A good language version of AV will never be seen as dubbed version in the final release.
It will be red and seen as original itself for common viewers as the script is told in the language of target audience and gets into their wavelength immediate.

The cultural connection is obvious as the voice over artist takes care of correct pronunciation and style of presentation in the target language.

The professional native translator of film script not only understands the medium but also the message for conversion.

The project Manager responsible for Multi-media Localization engages the services of language supervisor during the recording and he directs the voice over artist for online recording in a format that fits the meter.

Another linguist is present during mixing and sound recording in a sound recording studio to get the lip-synch properly and voice over matching the length of each frame.

Similarly the subtitling is done for clarity and goes well against the background of visual.
Whether it is a 30second Ad commercial or corporate AV, a clear brief about the end use and the market should be the starting point.

Professional language translation Services all well equipped with a pool of voice over and dubbing artist who are speakers of the native language in which script translation and audio localization is desired.

Planning for Multi-media Localization

• Decide on your language requirement during master film production stage:
  

  In this approach the creative will think internationalization of the concept and give appropriate allowances both in visual and audio portion of the commercial for changes during localization.

  For example in India, multimedia campaign and pan India release require need for regional exposure as per the major spoken language of target market.

  English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam are important language as per states of India.

  Although English is not the native language, it is always considered as it is the common medium of communication and is understood across India.

  Hindi is a major spoken language and mother tongue of the majority of population and hence cannot be ignored. Other languages follow as per market priority.

• Plan the Localization to culturally connect and speak in their language:

  After the master production, adaptation for local market requires audio localization.

  Advertising Agencies and film production house who have coordinated to produce the original language version is normally approached for doing language version.

  This approach is good if you are doing dubbing and post-production in all language as per marketing plan and advertising campaign simultaneously to save cost, time and at the same time get language adaptation of edits properly.

Specialized translation service agencies that work with film production houses and have multi-media studio facility are the right choice for taking care of localization in Indian and International language at any time.

The source language script is analysed along with visual and the story board with duration and time elapsed for each sequence with brief narration of character in the film is given to professional writers to produce target language version matching the length and duration of each sequence.

Professional scriptwriters in native language are engaged to translate the voice over with appropriate style and lyrics and match the length of audio to the time duration set in the original film.

Extra length of audio will mean speeding up the flow to fit the length with that of original during language edit stage at the studio.

This will lead to distortion or hurry in the flow or a jump which gets noticed after the production of the commercials.

Compromising either on localization of content or production quality will result in a dubbed version which looks and feels like a foreign version to viewers. Adding subtitles is another area of challenge.

Subtitles should not be force fitted to match the length of the video. The purpose of subtitle is to enable to make viewers who cannot understand the audio version, read the subtitle. Rehearsing the subtitle for time taken and adjusting the length of visual stay without increasing the total duration is an art and science which experienced editor does in the presence of expert linguist.

Audio Visual localisation is a key element of multi-media localisation. Much of the information generated by organisations nowadays is in multimedia format, be it in audio, video, animated or online format. In order to successfully communicate with as wide an audience as possible, such content must be localised and adapted in order to meet local linguistic and cultural conventions.

Experienced translation service agency like Shakti Enterprise offers audio-visual localization services in any language for multimedia campaign. The services encompass script translation, voice over and dubbing artist selection, online process to get the language version, Audio-video transcription services, quality analysis and checking to fix within the time frame for each sequence with during of time taken for each frame and time elapsed, sound mixing, recording in a sound studio and final language dubbing for all your international market.