More than half of Hollywood's box office revenue
Office revenue from foreign audiences, it is essential to ship movies quickly.
When a movie is released overseas, usually a few months after its domestic premiere, pirated films have taken most of the tickets --Paid audience
An obstacle to major films being released abroad at the same time is the outdated and often expensive process of dubbing or subtitle films.
For decades, all major studios have continued to rely on
The old system for inserting subtitles on a film print dates back to 1930.
This is because film companies do not invest in technology to convert English.
Language films for foreign audiences.
They prefer to wait until the arrival of digital movie screenings, which will eliminate the delay caused by the tedious process of etching text on a single movie frame.
"Subtitles seem like a trivial thing," said James Corris, chief executive of the University of Southern California's Entertainment Technology Center . ".
But "it does have an impact on a lot of things.
"This could be equivalent to a delay of several months, resulting in a loss of $2.
According to the American Film Association, the world loses 5 billion a year due to piracy. of America.
The delay also prevented the studio from making the most of their millions-
Dollar marketing campaign.
"We want to take advantage of the huge amount of marketing that is already going on," Metro-Gray Ainsworth said . "Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.
Senior Vice President of Technical Services.
"It's hard because you have to create these foreign versions at the same time as the release, and you can't complete the process until the movie is finished.
"So Film companies use some old technology to prepare films for foreign markets.
The film company dubbed the film in a foreign language and released it in 10 markets including France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Russia and Thailand.
Children's movies are also dubbed.
"The principles of everything we do here can be traced back to the end of 1930," said Rob Decker, general manager of Titra, California, based in Glendale, one of the two local stores where most of Hollywood's subtitles work.
"There is little change.
More expensive dubbing--
At least $70,000 per movie-
In addition to the subtitles, because the voice actor must be hired to record the new soundtrack.
This process can take months, and the studio is usually affected by the schedule of voice actors.
The voices of Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone, and other popular actors use only a few actors, so that foreign audiences who often watch movies can hear the same sound from a movie.
However, most of the foreign markets have subtitles.
Subtitles have entered more than 40 markets, including most of Latin America and Asia.
There are three basic skills in subtitle translation.
Laser etching is the most common method, and laser etching may be the cheapest if the studio plans to subtitle only a dozen prints.
Laser costs about $700.
Dekel says etching each piece of print, but the cost will increase if the studio orders more than 20 copies.
Laser etching "is the most expensive way, but in a limited number, it becomes the cheapest," says George shiffley, film editor at Sony film entertainment in Culver City.
Is the veteran of the industry.
But laser etching is slow.
Words are literally etched at the bottom of every 35 words
Mm frame.
Laser takes about seven hours.
Etching a film.
But in dialogue
The heavy "American couple" laser took 12 hours to ship a printed subtitle to Puerto Rico.
If the studio plans to distribute hundreds of subtitle prints, they will use another method.
In this case, a clear overlay of the dialogue containing subtitles will be combined with the movie "negative" and then re-
Shoot a new subtitle print.
In addition to the cost of each print, the cost of coverage is approximately $6,000 and $2,100.
The third method is the most expensive. -
The least common
The method is reserved for widely released foreign films such as Sony Pictures's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, adding subtitles before film negatives are made.
Dekker says the cost of the process is about twice that of about $12,000 per minus.
"But once you have the negative impact of integration, that's it," Dekel said . ".
Several companies have set out to design more efficient systems, including DTS, a company that produces one of three competing digital sound systems for cinemas.
DTS has been working on a booth.
The company says a separate digital subtitle system can save the studio money by eliminating the need for lasers in the lab
Etching subtitles on film print and overlay.
Instead, dts's system projects digital subtitles directly onto the screen.
The system plans to introduce cinemas this fall, mainly for foreign cinemas and film festivals.
Under the DTS system, film companies can send computer disks to cinemas containing movie conversations in up to 40 languages, as well as film prints.
Theater operators can simply load the disk and punch in subtitles in any language they want.
"We are working hard to find a solution that fits the current framework," said Jon Kirchner, President and COO of DTS . ".
"Because the subtitles are separate from the movie, you can open and close the subtitles.
Now it's done once you have Japanese subtitles.
You can't send that photo to China or Brazil.
"DTS, which has been working on portable projectors for two years, plans to sell for about $12,000.
However, all of these subtitle systems may go eight a day. track tape.
"The technology is on the horizon," Hively said . ".
This technique is a digital film in which digital images are projected directly on the screen and do not require physical contact between the projector and the film.
Film prints will be replaced by digital files that can be delivered to theaters or shipped on disk.
This will eliminate the need for laser labs
Etched subtitles by printing.
Instead, subtitles will be included with digital images on the computer disk sent to the cinema.
But industry experts estimate that it will take at least a decade for digital projectors to begin replacing old reel projectors.
The biggest problem is paying for the new system, and theater owners (many of whom have been struggling with bankruptcy) are reluctant to spend about $150,000 on converting screens.
Film companies get the most out of the conversion because digital films will no longer have to spend nearly $0. 8 billion a year making prints to distribute.
"We think the transition to digital cinema is the ultimate solution to some of these problems," said John fizion of the National Cinema.
Theater operators.
"It meets the access needs of deaf and hearing impaired people.