If you have been in contact with localization
for some time, you may agree that certain industries are more challenging than
others in translation and all internal processes. One of these industries
is media localization, so in this article, we need to pay special attention to
audiovisual localization, which involves media types such as advertising,
explanatory video, online learning, corporate videos, movies and television.
There are many aspects to consider in the
localization process of audiovisual, such as scripted translation with time
coding, localized dubbing of voice actors, cultural differences, and so
on. If a part is not going as planned, it will affect the entire project
and may cost the customer a lot of money.
So, what makes audiovisual localization so
complicated? Let's talk about it right away.
Audiovisual localization challenge
Length matching
One of the biggest challenges of audiovisual
localization is that all translations must match the length of the
master. Some languages are naturally longer than others, so translators
will naturally ask for a longer time, "just 2 seconds." But the
length is not negotiable, because "only 2 seconds" may mean that the
animation needs to be extended and re-rendered. The project must be
returned to the action designer and then the entire video is changed by
it. All the extra work will obviously incur additional costs, and the
customer may be angry because it may cost 10,000 euros in two seconds.
Cultural understanding
Video production companies have no choice but
to rely solely on their language service providers to have a good understanding
of the culture of the target area. Real localization includes more than
just translation. You may want to consider whether the voice actor should
be male or female, whether you need to adapt any animation, such as changing a
street sign or license plate, or the background sound should sound more like
"walla, walla" or "rhubarb, rhubarb".
Technical file format
From a partial technology perspective, one of
the problems faced by service providers in audiovisual localization is that
there is no framework for file formats. Unlike other industries that use
XLIFF, data is transferred using different tools in each step, a process that
cannot be standardized. Animations are adapted in Adobe After Effects
using XML, audio engineering tools such as Nuendo can be used to process CSV
files, and familiar subtitles are processed in SRT format. These are just
a few, but as you can see, there are a lot of conversions that need to be done
during the localization of media files.
The key to audiovisual localization: plan
ahead!
Although
you should never start any work before the finalization of the image (which
means the editing phase has been completed), it is critical for the translation
provider to participate in the program from the start. After the image
determines a version, a stage timestamp is created to determine the location of
the text. For each piece of text, the language service provider needs to
mark the time code entered and the time code of the output, meaning when each
piece of text begins and ends.Legal translation services after matching
timestamps and text saves time in the long run.
