Dear All,
The recent flurry of video texts for the novena to Mary Help of Christians highlights a particular set of challenges for the Salesian translator. I would not know how many of you have made use of these texts for some kind of local multimedia adaptation (including in English), but if you have, then you will be aware of these challenges. Let me try to present some of them in relatively simple terms:
Multimedia translation, if undertaken on a professional or commercial basis, is very expensive! That is why Salesian translators often get this job. Otherwise it would cost too much if it passes to commercial enterprises! That is just a reality, not a reference to the translation or our work being ‘cheap’. But, did you know that AI can help in this task at minimal cost, perhaps just USD 40 for a full month of activity? See typecast.ai and if you want to know how it has been used in a Salesian setting, Bro Hilario Seo (KOR) used it to ‘dub’ the Rector Major's video presentation of the Strenna 2024. Yes, it is the RM's voice, and yes, he is speaking Korean!
Multimedia translation, if we were to involve all the factors that are really necessary, takes time, but.... in our case, and this was certainly the case for the MHC video, those producing this video were really facing tempi stretti (as the main producer told me, asking for the translations 'yesterday' if possible) and you can understand why. Testimonies from various parts of the world, which then had to be transcribed, and of course they didn’t all arrive on time.
Multimedia is applied to so many things that it is almost useless as a term, a buzzword. But in our case, at least for the MHC video, it is quite precise: the transfer of monologues in one language into another, but always “text in context”, in other words, while it is possible to translate the text just as one would translate any other text, it is actually quite difficult to do that without watching the speaker as he or she delivers their monologue, whether you understand the spoken language or not. It is not just what meets the eye, but what meets the ear, and several other factors as well. Did you notice the different speaking and background choices made? Some had the same background throughout, others occasionally panned to other shots to show a broader context. And one involved two speakers, Al-Ifrad and Gebramel, the one speaking presumably Arabic, the other speaking a variety of Filipino, whatever variety is spoken on Palawan. Nor was the latter a direct translation of the former. But all of these factors have some role to play in the translation.
So one question you immediately face is: which dominates here, the verbal or the visual? Surely the answer has to be that probably neither dominates; somehow you have to find a balance. The ‘message’ is what dominates, and that is conveyed through both verbal and visual clues.
Another question that prompts itself is to ask how these translations will be used: dubbed (that would also imply lip-sync as far as possible)? Voice-over (which is probably all they have time for back in Rome when putting all this together)? And for you out there somewhere, there are other possibilities, e.g. subtitling, which has its own demands because you have to sum up things in brief sentences.
Then there is the layout of the transcript itself: those table ‘frames’ are a clear message: keep the translation at roughly the same length. And did you note that the transcripts had already made a choice... they did not contain any text that does not get seen (like metadata for the film crew for example) and they also eliminated all the ums... and ers... (or their equivalent in the other languages) and some speech fillers... that will be up to the voice-over person to decide if they wish to reintroduce them or not.
The Best Practice this week is in reference to the above and is taken from our very own EAO Salesian Translators Handbook, 2014, which, incidentally has also been translated into Spanish.
Attached also is a summary of the documents in Part Four of the yet-to-be-published Salesian Sources 2, eleven biographies of early models of Salesian life. This is the last of the summaries for now, until such time as I receive and translate Part One which is still under revision at the UPS. And, again, should you want any of these biographies, just ask and it shall be provided.
The links for the Novena Booklet are below for various languages. The booklet does not contain the text for the Testimonies, but it has the rest that you need. Since the booklets are about 25Mb each it would be too heavy to attach, so best give you the links (which I hope are still open; if not and you need the English, I can send it to you separately. Just ask).
And finally, next Monday, 13 May, is the Feast of Saint Mary Domenica Mazzarello. As we have two FMA members of this group, one from our region and one from Africa, both members of the FMA international ETG or English Translators Group, on behalf of us all I wish them a happy feast day on Monday, and every blessing on this auspicious occasion.
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