Elisabeth Fanbook Project

This post aims to explain the project and  answer some questions. If you want any more information, or have any other questions please feel free to contact Allumerlesoir or myself (Havanah) through tumblr, email, or however :-)

What is it?

A project, coordinated by Allumerlesoir and Havanah, with the aim of thanking the fan-favourite cast members of Elisabeth. Both of us have come across fans of the musical from around the world, united by a love of the brilliant work, and often wanting to say ‘thank you’ in some form. This was what we came up with.

We are planning on collecting various items of fan mail and collecting them in books to send to members of Elisabeth casts past and present. More details below!

Even if you aren't taking part personally, please do feel free to share information with anyone you think might be interested. However, please try to avoid official pages as it would be great (if a little idealistic) if the books were a surprise for the recipients :-)

Who are we making books for?

We asked people to suggest the artists they would most like to create books for and formed this list based on those suggestions. Each artist will have their own, unique, book.

Please make it clear who your submissions are for when sending. If you want to submit to more than one book then that’s fine :-)

The list is as follows:

·         Uwe Kröger

·         Pia Douwes

·         Maya Hakvoort

·         Máté Kamarás

·         Serkan Kaya

·         Annemieke van Dam

·         Mark Seibert

·         Oliver Arno

·         Kurosch Abbasi

·         Dolhai Attila

·         Szabó P. Szilveszter
·         Janza Kata

Joining in

What can be submitted?

Anything that isn’t creepy, can fit in an A4 (210x297mm or 8.2x11.6 inches) book and is flat. Seriously, anything that fits within those boundaries goes. A letter to the recipient of the book, a photo of you meeting them after a show, a piece of fan art, a photo of the Elisabeth themed birthday cake you made… anything! Try to keep the items one sided so that they can be stuck into a book. Also, it may be wise to leave a small border on things so that the main content of the submission is slightly smaller than A4 (to make for neater sticking!) 

The other thing, if you want to write a couple of lines to one person and nothing else then that’s fine. If you want to send several page’s worth to each person then that is also fine. The amount you do is totally up to you and no submission is too big or small (as long as it fits in the book)!

 

What language should I write in?

We’re going on the concept that English is probably most accessible and expect most submissions to be in English. If the person has been a member of the German cast then German would be fine. If they’re a member of the Hungarian cast then Hungarian would be great. If you know that the person speaks another language (because of their own nationality etc.) then please feel free to use that.

 

How to submit?

Submissions will be accepted through email or through snail-mail post.

Guidelines for postal submissions:

Email Havanah (b.chadburn@yahoo.co.uk) for a postal address. Note that this address will be in the U.K. (or if you leave it later to join in, The Netherlands as she is moving) so be aware that it might cost a bit extra if you’re sending from another part of the world. You can send whatever you want to submit here.

Guidelines for email submissions:

Please send all email submissions to Havanah (b.chadburn@yahoo.co.uk). There are, however, some extra limitations for email submissions. If you have scanned a letter or line drawing then please ensure that it is in black and white. Ink intensive pieces or colour cannot be printed because of cost. If you have written a word document letter (etc.) and have used a non-standard font, it might be best to save as a PDF to ensure this transfers properly.

If you want to submit a photo or a piece of art via email then Havanah will pay to have some pieces printed at 6x4 inches, photograph style.

If there are any questions about what can be accepted by email then please do not hesitate to contact either of us :-)

 

When’s the deadline for submissions?

There is no set deadline at the moment.

 

How is it being funded? (a.k.a. do I have to pay to join in?)

If you are posting your submission then you have to pay for your own postage. Other than that, this is being funded by Havanah and therefore it’s free to participate. It’s completely free if you email.

 

Do I have to give any personal information?

Basically, no. You don’t have to give anything you’re not happy giving. While it would be nice to include your name and country/state in your submission this isn’t compulsory. The only information that you need to share is an email address when submitting (as you’ll have to email Havanah) but this will be kept 100% private.

 

After they’re finished

Will I be able to see the finished fan books?

The aim is to photograph the submissions and create a photo gallery online somewhere, probably on the facebook page. If you do not want your submission photographed and uploaded then please state this when submitting – it’s not a problem but obviously we need to know!

Also, please state if you want anything blurred out in the photographs. Addresses and email addresses (if included) will be blurred as a matter of course.  Names and countries/states will be left visible unless you request otherwise.

How are you going to get the books to the people?

In order of preference: Hand delivered at stage door, posted to theatre where they are currently working, posted to a dedicated fan-mail address, posted to an agent. With the postal options we’ll check in advance that the institution is happy to forward to the relevant performer. We’ve managed to locate an address for all performers except for Máté but he’s still actively working so something should come up. Obviously, we can’t guarantee that the person will receive the work as other factors may come into play (like rubbish postal systems) but every effort will be made from our end!

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.

Marie Antoinette Part Six

This part features:

• Blatant foreshadowing that makes Marie unhappy
• The people expressing their distaste for the Queen
• Madame Lapin discovery of the perils of her job
• The people really expressing their distaste for the Queen
• More bad late night translation and subbing, of course

The part between 5 minutes and 7 minutes features some violence which, while crucial to the plot, might be a bit upsetting for some people.

This one was obviously delayed again, firstly due to me struggling with the mummer's song and secondly because I lost my libretto again. I'm not the most organised person ever!

The main difficulty, translation wise was the song performed by the citizens and mummers. It's bawdy and that always makes life hard, I think! I've no doubt that I've made mistakes in this but it's not crucial to the plot so, if I'm honest, I'm not too worried. I'm more worried that my brain went fuzzy because of this and I made error later in the thing but blegh!

There are also some really annoying moments where they're using words that just don't feel right when translated into English. One example is when Margrid calls Madame Lapin her "protectress". Genuine translation. Something like "patron" would feel more natural but change the meaning too much, I guess.

The main song in this part is "Ich weine nicht mehr" and it is really powerful and lovely in a desperate, dark way so :-) 

Of course, technical problems happened along the way... it just wouldn't be me without technical problems! That said, I think I've managed to work out how to solve a lot of the new formatting issues I'd been having. It's involved me having to actually learn some of the subtitle coding but oh well. As long as nothing changes with the programs I use (it was an update that triggered the problems) I should hopefully not have as many problems in future. Yay!

I'll start on part seven a.s.a.p. and it will focus on Marie and Axel... remember them?


Are you a fan of Elisabeth too? If so, please click here for information on a current fan project :-)

Fanbook Project

Chatting to friends and Elisabeth fans I've come across quite a few people who have wanted to send their thanks to the creators and artists behind the musical. Allumerlesoir and I were discussing this a few days back and came up with the idea of creating fan books for the creative team and 'favourite performers'. 

The idea is to create several books to send to members of global Elisabeth shows, past and present - the people who we as fans particularly appreciate and admire. These books would be artist specific (i.e. a book sent to Uwe Kröger would have letters to/pictures to/etc Uwe and would be unique to him). 

As for what the fanbooks would contain: anything that's not creepy and can fit within a book (dimensions to be confirmed but probably A4 which is approx. 210x297mm or 8.3x11.7inches). It would be great if people wrote/made their own things but if people wanted to email letters or messages which could then be printed off that would be fine - I'll only be able to do black and white text printing through because I can't afford to print full colour or ink dense things en mass. I have a (UK) postal address which I can give out to receive submissions and I will then assemble the project and send it on via agents, theatres, or where possible hand deliver to the stage door. More information on the project itself (etc.) when we get things going properly!

At the moment we've spoken to people and worked out that there's some general interest but would like to ask who people would like to send things to. We will create a fanbook for anyone linked to Elisabeth as long as there is enough demand for that person and it is possible to find some way to get the book to them. So, if you would personally be interested, or have any questions, please do contact myself or Allumerlesoir and tell us who you think we should all write to!


Where to contact me:
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