Okay, seriously, why is it taking so long!?

I guess things have really changed since I first started to subtitle Marie Antoinette. It's not a bad thing, not at all, but things are super busy. I've started at a university with a very high work load. I've moved to a new country with all the things that come from that. I live in an apartment block with my friends which means that social activities have also increased. General free time - and sleep time - rather thin on the ground.

Yeah, as normal, if you're interested in what's going on in this general life of mine then there's a link to my personal blog above... I'm not going to bore you with it here.

However, all that said, there is movement with Marie Antoinette. As I type, the whole second act is roughly timed. I'm working on translation and, really depending on how many challenges there are in the language and how many moments I can steal in general life... you should start seeing some updates very soon.

Thanks for bearing with me and I'll try and keep you in the loop a bit more.

Oops.

As you've no doubt noticed, I have been completely and utterly absent. My ideas of continuing with subtitling while at university, well, they were foolish. The workload is intense, to say the least, and I have been flung through my first term hardly knowing where I was. I've loved it, of course, but time has flown with nothing happening on the subtitling front. If you want to know what's going on in my life generally (and to work out how busy I really am!) then I'm adding a link to my personal blog in the menu bar above.

I had actually planned to do all of Marie Antoinette Act Two over the Christmas break but I plugged in my hard drive once I got back to England and it promptly broke. While this is not the end of the world as I do have a back up in the Netherlands, it does mean I can't really do anything during the Christmas break. Actually, I have two back ups in the Netherlands... I've been through the pain of lost files before. Here, however, well, I don't even have the video to work from. I'm starting to see the benefit of internet based file back ups.

Anyway, I am still thinking about it and working on it and will get a part uploaded as soon as is possible. Truly sorry about the delay.

Once Marie Antoinette is finished I do plan to continue translating and subtitling but I also plan to rethink how I go about doing that so that I don't leave you all waiting for months and months.

Practicing with French and a note about Marie

So, Marie's buried in one of my piles of stuff to move with me and ready to go. With that project on hold (only until about September, don't worry*) I've been having fun doing some subbing for friends. I've just about finished subbing Le Roi Soleil from French to English for Nené, who is a dear friend of mine. Although I'm not uploading it onto youtube, it was really exciting for me.

Well, the names were supposed to be in a straight line...

You may remember, back in the LiveJournal days, me moaning about my formatting going up the creek all of a sudden (see right) and I've been using work arounds ever since. After some experimentation, it seems that I've found a way of getting my subtitles to stay in the right position when I want them to and, touch wood, that will be helpful for the future!

The other problem arose when one of my programmes updated and, all of a sudden, my 'special characters', namely any accented letters, became a string of gobbledegook. Again, this may not work out, but it appears that I have solved that problem to. There's something about my programme saving in one text format while the next only accepts a different one and I have to get a different programme to convert... something like that! Anyway, I am so pleased that I got this sorted out because a lot of the French words and names in Marie Antoinette have had to be written without accents and now they can, once again, be written out properly. Exciting!

*I'm not 100% sure when I will upload the next part of Marie Antoinette as there are various factors at play. I'm moving to a new country so will need to spend time doing other things. I'm starting at a new university and will probably need to spend the early weeks focusing on that. I also, importantly, may be without internet for a while. I predict the next part should be uploaded in mid to late September. I guarantee nothing but will keep you updated :-)

General updates and Marie Antoinette Part Eight

Part Eight is finally complete!!!

It's been  hard part for me. The language wasn't any harder than normal but I've done this part probably five times now as, for some reason, files have been deleting themselves. Although it's only been stuff to do with subbing that's been affected, it's ended up with me losing translations and timings more times than I care to remember. I'll be honest, at this point, I am so fed up with this part that I feel I never want to see another video again!

This being the end of act one I am planning on taking a bit of a break. I am moving to the Netherlands this August and there is a lot going on because of that and I do need to focus my attention a little. I'm not saying there won't be an update until after the move but there is going to be a planned break. During this time I am going to focus on getting the Rebecca libretto done and uploaded. I also have a few almost finished translated librettos for Tanz der Vampire, Le Roi Soleil, and Roméo et Juliette, les enfants de Vérone which I am working on for friends. I'd like to get those finished at some point.

I am, of course, continuing with the Elisabeth fanbook project.


Onto the video!

This part features:
Cagliostro brewing a nasty concoction

Le Duc d'Orléans seting a plan in motion

Un veleno mortale - a deadly poison (Italian)

Affare publico - a public affair (Italian)

Alors, que faire. - Well, what to do.

Ah, bon - Ah good 

Très bien - Very good/very well (incidentally, written "trés" in the libretto which is apparently old French)

Renommé - rank 

 

Crowd Parts

I didn't subtitle the all the crowd parts because, with so many people/groups singing it would  have been uncomfortable to read. 

c.08:20-08:50 During Boehmer, the jeweller's, speech the crowd sing in French something that roughly translates to: "Good day ladies, gentlemen. What a day! What weather! Marvellous! Very good. Yes, yes! Good wine. The pie. The gosling. Divine!"

c. 09:20-10:00 This part is included in the subbing. Actually missing the first word because, ironically, I didn't hear it when subbing! The crowd is speaking in German and reacting to what the main characters say so it's a bit more important to have full context: "Listen! Look! Argument! Scandal! What? Brazen! She called him a liar. He can prove it."

c. 11:30-end You can see why I didn't sub this bit! They're saying: "Unheard of! Unbelievable! And you can say that you were there! Impertinent! Inconceivable! Unexpected! This day, without doubt, is a day that no-one will ever forget. Momentous and embarrassing. A Scandal!"

The Affair of the Diamond Necklace

The following part is spoiler ridden (but only for this part) and discusses the history behind the section, in particular the necklace that is discussed.

Cagliostro talks about a necklace and a couple of lovers and is brushing upon one of the great stories in French history, of which there are many! I'm kinda doing this from memory (the period of history around the last three Kings of France is my favourite) so this isn't going to be perfect but it's still a good story!

The necklace he mentions was made for the last mistress of Louis XV and was made up of large diamonds. When Louis XV died and his mistress was banished Louis XIV offered the necklace to his wife but it was rejected (rejected because the money could be better used, because she didn't want something made for someone else, or because Louis withdrew the offer - there are different stories). However, the jeweller really needed to sell this necklace as the cost of materials had pushed him to bankruptcy. Sadly, he couldn't find anyone able to afford it.

Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy, or "Comtesse de la Motte" was born of a illegitimate son of Henry II (I think) and grew up in relative poverty. She was eventually given some money because of her royal linage and was sent to boarding school before marrying Marc Antoine-Nicolas de la Motte and, despite the family having tenuous links to nobility, they assumed the title of Count and Countess. 

It wasn't until she became the mistress of Cardinal Louis de Rohan that things got really interesting. Rohan had offended the Queen, I think through sending reports of her bad behaviour to her mother (!), and was desperate to regain favour. Jeanne was quick to pick up on this and claimed that she was a close friend of the Queen and initiated a correspondence between the Cardinal and "Queen" although the letters from the Queen were forgeries. I think that Jeanne even set up a meeting between the Cardinal and the "Queen", played by a prostitute who looked like Marie Antoinette... suddenly we see where the whole plot of this musical came from ;-)

Eventually, the letters suggested that Marie really wanted the necklace but that Louis refused to buy it because of the financial climate. She therefore asked that Rohan loaned her the money and made the purchase for her. Jeanne took the necklace and it went off to England where it was broken up and the jewels and gold were sold.

However, the affair came to light when the jeweller wasn't paid. A public trial was held and Rohan was acquitted, Jeanne was sentenced to imprisonment although she later escaped to London, and several other parties were involved (I think Cagliostro was imprisoned and then exiled). Although justice was done, the people were quick to jump on the scandal and it further fanned the flames of hatred for the monarchy and was one of the triggering factors for the revolution. 

An Update

Sorry for my absence with regard to the whole subtitling on youtube. Life, as usual, has been pretty hectic. In fact, the last couple of months have been me doing an interview for, and getting into, a university in Amsterdam. The problem with this is that the 'moving process' will see me pretty busy until I start in August... and pretty busy after that too. Oh well, nothing new there!

Anyway, you're not reading this to find out about my chaotic life!

Marie Antoinette

I'm going to sit down and do some work on the next part now. I'm making no promises about  when it will actually be uploaded but I'm working on it! Also worth noting that I have done absolutely no work on this part at all so I am starting from scratch.

Elisabeth

A few things here. As a few people, including Yagami Xeus, have requested I continue with the updated Elisabeth subs, I will be uploading the remainder of the first act over the next period. I'm not 100% sure how I'm going to do this (as youtube hasn't got a feature to replace videos while maintaining comments I don't really want to delete the original versions). Anyway, once I've made up my mind about this, I will upload the updated versions.

Also, please see the fanbook project!

Subbing process

Because I tend to say what stage I'm at when someone asks me when the next part of something will be uploaded I thought it would be worth doing a quick post about the stages of subbing, as I do it. Everyone will be different but this is my list ;-)

Translating

This is the bare bones of the piece. Generally I do quite a loose, clunky translation and then go through it again to make it more elegant sounding, if possible. I will always give priority to the gist and atmosphere over literal translation but attempt to get that balance. If possible, I try to read my translation over a few days to check my English is okay (because your brain starts reading what it thinks is there) but I rarely get a chance to do this. Sometimes I'll do the timing before the translating but it's usually in this order.

Basic timing

This is where I put the subtitles into the video. I try to time the subtitles roughly by listening to cadence of voice and natural gaps. It may be that when I start to put the words in some of my subtitle timings need to be changed but this is usually a fair way to start.

Adding in the words

This is where the subtitles become subtitles. I transfer across the words from the translated libretto. Some lines need shortening and simplifying to make them easier to read. Some timings might need to be adjusted.

Overlapping bits

Whenever there is more than one person speaking at the same time I subtitle the main person and then go back to do the others later. It's easier to do this when there's actual text in place.

Formatting

Although I use a basic template which includes size, font, colours etc there are usually additional tweeks that need to be done, particularly when you have various overlapping dialogues. This can be really quick and easy or it can drive me completely batty.

Convert video type

The program I use to turn the subtitles into hard subs (attached to the video) doesn't use the same video format as my subtitling program so I have to convert the raw video at this stage.

Add subs to video

Self explanatory. However, this is, more often than not, a seemingly endless cycle of proof watching and tweaking of the timings of subs and the formatting, in particular. This is where things tend to go really wrong.

Compress the subbed video

You have no idea how huge these video files like to save themselves. I've had files 100x the size of the original for some mad, mad reason.

Upload

Marie Antoinette Part Seven

This part features:

• Marie Antoinette and Axel's secret meeting in one of the gardens of Versailles
• Axel attempting to bring their relationship to an end
• A harsh warning for Marie

I really like this scene. It wasn't too tricky to translate (for once!) and, like the last scene, really allows us to get to know one of the key women. It's probably the first time that we really see Marie's vulnerability and lack of comprehension of anything outside of her own happiness. It also really gives us an insight into the relationship between Axel and Marie. He obviously really loves her but does she actually love him?

During the farewell song, Gefül und Verstand, which starts at around 3:30, I been overly flexible with one word in particular. "Gefül" translates as "feelings" or "emotions" but, in this context, it translates much more naturally as  "heart" and this is what I chose to use. Obviously, the meaning isn't actually changed (in this context) but the translation is not literal as the literal translation felt a bit clunky.

There's also some icky layout with the overlapping singing. Although I've found a way to get around the layout problems I was having this work around doesn't allow me to fine tune quite as much so we have a bit of ickiness. Technical terms here!

Anyway, the next part, part eight, will be the last part of Act One. I can also reveal that, although I haven't split the Act Two video I have worked out where each split will happen and there will be 16 parts in total.

How's the subbing going then?

Oh yes, that.

Well, life is taking over once again, in oh so many ways. I have a personal blog to talk about all that though so I wont harp on too much. Things aren't likely to get any easier though as I'm still refurbishing a house and, to top it all off, will be traveling out to the Netherlands for a university interview. Okay, I'm not complaining about the latter ;-)

I am, however, going to be making an active effort to sit down and subtitle. This probably means more late night subbing full of typos but it's better than nothing, I suppose. I'm sure that people will quickly point out any mistakes!

I desperately want to get Marie Antoinette finished before the end of June because, come the summer, I will definitely have other things to focus on!

Marie Antoinette Part Five

Drumroll please!

It's worth saying that I embedded this video before it finished uploading. If you see this post and the video doesn't work then we've had last minute technical problems; more that possible!



And now for the, crossposted to my personal blog, post regarding this part

Sorry for the delay with this but it's finally online.

The exact translation in this video is probably a bit sloppy. I'm really out of practice with German which feels weird. It's almost like my old Elisabeth days when I had to stop and look things up every five minutes. Okay, in my really old Elisabeth days I had to look things up every five seconds but I digress. I was also rushing with this part to attempt to get it online and finished it at three a.m.. It's been three months since I uploaded the last part and, although I have good excuse, I feel really bad about that.

Claudia, a friend of mine from Austria, helped me with a line that was causing me real trouble so thank you to her <3

Also, I still can't get accents to render properly on my hard subbing so some words are missing accents. Of course, this doesn't really affect English but this musical does like to chuck in the odd bit of French (translations below).

Anyway, talking about the video:

Axel has this lovely line where he says 'Wir sind freier als die meisten Menschen.' (We're freer than many people). It's a lovely concept. Although they're unhappy he knows that, in comparison, they're lucky and shouldn't complain. Annoyingly, free isn't commonly seen in a comparative fashion, and I'm unsure if technically it can be as you're either free or not. Apparently, there is a word "freer" so that's the one I used.

Maskenspiel is translated as masque not masquerade. A masque is a kind of big entertainment play dance song thing put on by players (within courts). Traditionally, masks would be worn by the players so this is a big metaphorical thing beyond just saying "we wear masks". A masquerade, is a ball at which people wore masks so slight difference :-)

Translations:

Mainly French, again, with a bit of Latin. My Latin is very rusty as I learned it many years ago so may not be accurate. Axel also 'translates it' in the musical. In fact, my French is getting rusty too but that's a complete other story!

Trés jolie, ne c'est pas? - Very pretty, isn't it?

Oui - Yes

Bon soir, Monsieur Orléans! - Good Evening Mr. Orléans!

Palais Royal - Royal Palace

Non! - No

Bien sur. - For sure.

Bien oui - Well yes

S'il vous plaît! - If you please (also means just "please")

Pour le plaisir - For pleasure. (This is kinda creepy in context!)

Dolore Fortiter - Sorrow bravely (Latin)

Quelle que soit - Whatever

Excuse-moi, chéri - Excuse me, dear.

 _____________________________________________________________________

This was originally posted on my LiveJournal account and Digne posted a very interesting comment on the meaning of freedom so it's worth going across there to read that. I also realised that, having posted at 3:00 a.m., most of the post was complete gobbledygook!

Just when I thought technology couldn't hate me any more!

Part four has been hell for me. I think I've already posted a rant about finding bits hard to translate, and not liking the song but that is nothing compared to the technical problems I experienced.

Some subtitles simply refused to appear.

Some subtitles decided to appear in a totally different place to where they should have.

And then this happened. One line of subtitles which seemed to explode into a cloud of names.

Eventually, I managed to get things into some kind of order but it got to the stage where I couldn't actually get any of my edits to save either so there are still mistakes. I'm disappointed with this part, both with the translation and with the formatting, but I can't actually change anything even though I have noticed mistakes.

On the plus side, it's not really an important part for character development so there's no chance you miss out on anything.

Can I also say that the prostitutes' dancing, especially after Margrid's entrance, reminds me of how my late grandmother used to dance, if they're rather more sleazy!

Remind me why I subtitle stuff again?

My goodness, has this been a difficult part to complete. I can't remember if I had problems in the translation because it was so long ago! However, the technical aspects have plagued me completely.

I have ended up with this file as an mp3 (useful when it's got subtitles, I know!). I have ended up with it apparently in HD yet being so fuzzy as to be unreadable. I have ended up with files that have had a predicted save time of several days. I have had upload times that get stuck at three minutes. I hate technology.

As you're reading this, however, I've managed to get something bearable together. It's worth me saying that, having noticed that we were having some problems with them, I have removed all accents from the subtitles. I don't know what the issue is with accents right now but there is an issue! I may sort this for the next part or I may bury my head and cry about technology.

I couldn't up the quality as much as I would have liked so made the subtitles bigger, which is something I had wanted to do anyway, to make them legible.

Oh, and because someone will moan about my lack of translation of 'esprit': this word, despite being used in German is a French loan word and is used in England too. It means lively and witty and, well, spirited.

Anyway, talking about the part, it contains what is probably my favourite song from the musical "Still, Still". It's a beautiful song of hope and of love, made all the more poignant by the circumstances. What's not so clear in the video, Agnés is tending to the children of a dead woman at this point and it is this woman that Margrid doesn't want to end up like. It's a powerful scene.

I also LOVE Louis in this part. I just feel that the role is perfect. Marie Antoinette herself I'm not so keen on as I feel that she is always made into some evil person but oh well.

Subbing, Translating, Reviewing and... stuff!

Ah, free time…
Yep, I’m still not used to not having to study every five minutes. It’s leaving me feeling quite lost to be quite honest!

As promised, I’m here with an update about my subtitling. I’ve roughly timed most of the next part of Marie Antoinette. This is the most tedious part… well, maybe second most tedious so I’m pleased to get it out of the way as it’s usually the bit I’ll procrastinate over.

The really good news is that I had just written a huge apologetic blog post saying how I’ve lost my libretto etc and therefore I didn’t know when I’d be able to finish subbing the part. Went out without posting it and, while out, found the libretto.

So, I’m going to sit down tomorrow and I will attempt to finish this part of Marie Antoinette. I say attempt because you have no idea how much trouble I have with the technical aspects that come after translation and timing. Fingers crossed.

As for Tanz, I think I wrote about how I was going to translate this, I plan to have the libretto done before I go away in late September. I’m actually really looking forward to doing this properly. If you want a copy of the English libretto then please contact me here or elsewhere (see below) with an email address. As always, I will not send things I do not own but if you want English librettos or subtitle files (depending on what I have) I am willing to email those.

Oh, and before I go, I finally got round to reviewing  The Reluctant Empress by Brigitte Hamann, having read it for the third time. If you’re interested then I’ve posted this on my other blog here.

So, until tomorrow... probably. See ya!