SUBTITLES - again!

How are people cutting drama scenes with subtitles?

i recently did a doc with lots of subtitles, but that was relatively easy.
people really only say their piece once or twice, and there isn't TOO much inter-cutting, certainly at the early stages.

i'm finding this current drama a lot harder.

having the subs as a floating layer makes throwing the shots around a lot harder.
i'm thinking of burning them in would make thngs easier at this stage.
(obviously there are a lot of problems with that, too, but at this early assembly stage it might be easier.... pitty i have to have this assembled by the end of today!)

anyone out there with experience / tips?



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now here's how i'd LIKE subtitles to be handled in FCP:

the subtitle info is entered via a "Subtitle track".
this track is very much like markers in a clip.
you can enter in & out points, and text.
the in & out point (and the text) should be easy to modify at any time

just like when you are parked on a timeline marker you can see it in the canvas,
you would be able to see the subtitle text at all times, floating in a window.

i wouldn't mind if the text was really simple, like the marker text, but a bit bigger, so you could read it easily
at some stage you could specify a font & style, but that could be switched off, or switched back to the super simple text floater in the interests of more RT.

the Subtitle tracks would trigger the text floater FROM THE AUDIO CLIP, not the video.
so you can cut in as many bits of b-roll or whatver, and the text still shows.
the trigger would NOT operate if the clip is invisible, or un-enabled.

there'd be more subtitles to work out, but that's pretty much it.
FCP8 perhaps?


thanks.
nick

if it helps you could use my Text filter for this ... doesn't float, is linked directly to the video not the audio, but better than actually burning it in maybe

Hi Andy.

yeah, i had thought about that.
thought about how one would go about applying it to the clips.
that's the (sort of) easy part, modifying them could be a bit harder,
but cutting with it should be worth the trouble...
BUT
i dont get very good RT with it, im affraid to say.
one instnce gives an orrange line where it's applied, and it's really ugly RT. looks like hard going for the processor.


i would like to try the technique sometime, but we went ahead and used an overlay.

i've been using Andeas's Text-Up Pro: auto wrapping, bottom justified, outline control (or box or drop shadow)
it would be hard to go back to a simpler generator.

there's also the problem of non-sync image, as you point out.


it's a great idea making the text generator into a filter.
i'd like to learn how you did that one day.


nick

Hmmm .. thats a bugger. I was messing with an FxPlug subtitler that does all the auto wrapping text up malarky a while back. I'll take a look at turning that into a filter at some point as that should improve RT by offloading it to the GPU. Things are busy at the moment tho so that'll be a project for the future I'm afraid.

I know it's late, but for next time, instead of burning in your subtitles, couldn't you just string them out on another timeline, then 'nest' them into your master timeline?

hi jw.

we do the subtitling in a separate sequence,
the subtitles are text generators that sit above the clips.
i wondered about nesting. i was thinking of nesting each slate along with it's subtitles
but that ties the text to the image, which is not always desirable.
is this what you're suggesting?

in my case i just powered on and cut the scene using copy & paste methods, rather than working from the viewer.
luckily it was pretty simple coverage.

oh, you are saynig load the rushes sequnce into the viewer, and work from that?
yes, that's pretty sensible!


thanks
nick

Nick,

You can use the marker method we were talking about. So add markers with the subtitles to the clip and go from there.
If you're done, you can use my markerTool to lift them to the sequence level and then use your TEP to create final subtitles.

Andreas

thanks Andreas.

yes, we are using markers on the clips, too.
this is pretty handy if we get too excited and decide to work without the overlays!


nick