Frequently Asked Questions
Well, it depends on the audience you intend to reach. As professional translators, we are aware that worldwide knowledge of English is frequently overrated. Just subtitling your film into English will make it more accessible and enjoyable for 510 millions of non-native potential viewers.
In a word: because they’re worth it. After all the money, time, and effort invested in your film, you want it to reach as many people as possible, right? But you don’t want to annoy your viewers with orthography/grammar mistakes or desynchronized subtitles, do you? You want them to focus on your film and to view it as it was originally conceived. That’s what you need professional subtitles for.
It depends on multiple factors, the most significant of them being the language combination and the duration of the film. The rate per minute may vary depending on the specific details of the project, but consider that the longer your film is, the more it will cost to subtitle (but believe me, it’s not that expensive). Feel free to contact us to discuss your specific needs.
We wish we did! Sadly, no one masters all the languages in the world, and since we don’t trust automatic translations (and you shouldn’t either!), we can only offer you our services in the languages we do master: English, Spanish, French, German, and Catalan.
Depending on the length of the film and our availability at a particular time, it may vary from a week to a month. If you need the subtitles for a specific date, make sure to tell us. We’ll do our best to have them ready in time.
The most common format for subtitles is SubRip (.srt), which is compatible with most video files and online video platforms, such as Vimeo or Youtube. We can also fulfill any other format requirements you may have (.ssa, .xml, .stl, etc.).
- A screener of the film. It would be impossible to create
subtitles without having access to the complete film. Vimeo, WeTransfer, or Dropbox are very useful for that. Ideally, we should work with the definitive version, as subtitles have time codes and editing changes affect them greatly. - A script or dialogue list. If you don’t have one, we encourage you to make a transcript of the film, as it will surely be of use later on. The idea is that we need some kind of reference material to save time and to avoid possible misunderstandings or misspellings. If no reference material is provided, we’ll have to invest more time in the translation, which will result in a higher rate. And since none of us want that, just make sure you give us something 😉
We won’t try to convince you that you need them, but let’s put it this way: with SDH in English, your film would not just be available for 510 million of non-native English speakers in the world, but also for near a 15 % of the population of the US and the UK who otherwise wouldn’t have access to it. And that’s just in English. Don’t you think such an audience is worth every penny?
Broadly speaking, SDH include more acoustic information than standard subtitles in order to help the deaf and the hearing impaired to follow the plot with as little loss of detail as possible. This information can be coded in the form of colors and notes, depending on the technical possibilities of a given platform.
If your film doesn’t have much dialogue but you still need to subtitle it, we can offer you a special rate different than the normal rate per minute, which will probably not be appealing to you. Contact us to check if your film fits into this category.
We don’t know for sure, but there are theories that he might be cryogenically preserved somewhere around Disney World. We’ll follow closely any news on his condition.
Apart from our subtitling services, we have at our disposal the equipment necessary to screen subtitles on the spot. If you are close to one of our locations (Barcelona & Québec), contact us to check availability.
Yes, you can. We guarantee that your film is in good hands. In fact, if you’re not totally convinced, you can always send us a low quality copy or add a watermark to the film with your name (or ours, if you prefer).
We don’t burn subtitles into DCP, as we are not a laboratory, but we can arrange it for you.