How the new open subtitles technology improves the narration of stories

Zeinabu Irene Davis‘Compensation“Released in movie Festivals 25 years ago, but only now you are receiving Theatrical distribution of Janus Films. His debut on the big screen comes together with his restoration, which Davis calls a “rejuvenation.” As he told indiewire tools filmmaker podcastThe process improved the film: a 4K scan made 16 mm negative details, while the unlocking sound design 5.1 enveloping that was “crushed” on its original monkey track.

But for Davis, the greatest improvement arose from what now makes possible open application technology. “He SubtitlesThat was the gift of heaven, ”said Davis. “Because in ’99, we were only limited to two lines of dialogue, two subtitles lines, 31 max. You had to condense, even the dialogue, I had to condense it to fit, and had to be in the lower center of the screen. ”

“Compensation“It contains two parallel stories, one at the beginning of the 20th century and another in the end. Each one is about a deaf black woman (actress Michelle A. Banks plays both) and what means to fall in love with a man (actor John Earl Jelks plays both) who is not deaf and does not know the American sign language (ASL). The members of the community of Chicag and behind the camera.

For a film that deals with communication and deaf community, Davis adapted the cinematographic language of the early mute film. This included ancient intertitles and subtitles. With a new open subtitles technology, Davis worked with the auditory filmmaker Alison O’Daniel (“The Tuba Thieves”) to create completely new subtitles that opened the film to a new world of tales narration possibilities. “(O’Daniel) helped us really create the scene of the scene to include subtitles in strategic parts of the frame,” Davis said.

With the ability to use the entire frame and work subtitles in the composition, O’Daniel and Davis placed musical descriptions in the upper left corner of the frame, descriptions of the sound effects in the upper right corner and the altered positioning of the dialogue. “Alison taught us as a team that we must bring the subtitles closer to the person who is talking, if it is a scene of multiple characters, so the deaf and the hearing with problems know who is really talking,” Davis said.

This made a huge improvement for “compensation”, which often lives in shots and uses very few first planes. In the scene in the photo next, Malindy (Banks) talks to other women in a photo. The dialogue placed near the character makes it clear who is talking and helps clarify what is happening on the scene.

The restoration of “compensation” also used subtitles in expressionist forms. During a modern scene, there is a sequence that Davis refers as “depression assembly.” It uses an optical printer, eisenstein edition and an expressionist use of sound design to create an almost submarine effect made even more pronounced with the multichannel enveloping mixture of the restoration. Davis and O’Daniel coincided with this formal joy with their focus on the new subtitles for this scene.

“We did some immersive things with the subtitles,” Davis said. “Make big, capitalized words, make them back and forth, make them appear and shine a little. We can use technology to make you feel what the characters are happening emotionally. ”

With a film that attracts the public deaf and with hearing problems, O’Daniel and Davis focused on subtitles that would make the film more immersive and easier to follow. In the process, Davis also discovered a real benefit for the audience audience by calling attention not only to the use of sound but also of the communication layers.

“It also helps to listen to people to pay more attention: ‘Oh, these sounds are here. I wasn’t thinking about that, or I didn’t hear that part of that music before. I didn’t think about music that way, ‘”said Davis.

“It was a really difficult process to decide: there is already a lot of text in ‘Compensation’ because you have to read title cards that were in the style (De) silent cinema,” he said. “But we also want to make sure that the language was not too onerous: people tell me: ‘Oh, I don’t want to see this movie because I don’t want to read’. But the marriage of using the subtitles on the screen and the intertitles really worked. And I think it makes you have a more immersive experience watching the movie now, regardless of whether you are listening or if you have deaf or auditory disability.”

“Compensation” is currently playing at Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center in New York and the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago. For more information about the next game dates in other cities, please Click here.

To listen to the full interview of the Zeinabu Irene Davis tool kit, signed to Toolkit’s podcast in Apple, Spotifyor your favorite podcast platform. You can also see the full interview in Indiewire’s YouTube page.