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England and America have produced its fair share of cracking good films over the years – Four Weddings and a Funeral, Batman, Mission Impossible, Harry Potter, Independence Day. It doesn’t always get it perfect but then perfectionism is an ideal. It’s so much more fun to experiment with ideas, put them out there and see what the public thinks. If not, the world wouldn’t have great novels such as Lord of the Rings, James Bond and Harry Potter which have translated to great cinema adaptations.

Not everyone likes the film Harry Potter which is fair enough. However, it is an amazing adaptation of the book. The visuals are absolutely stunning and magical. The problem is if someone can’t speak a word of English or isn’t as fluent in English, and they’re watching Harry Potter, then a significant part of the film would be lost on them. They are entitled to enjoy the film in its entirety as well as anybody else. Language shouldn’t be the reason if a film company can do something about it.

This is where subtitling comes in – as it bridges this language barrier. So, for instance, if an English-language film comes out in cinemas in France, there might one version as is and then one with French subtitles printed at the bottom of the screen.

It takes a great deal of energy to subtitle a film. Depending on how popular an English film is expected to be in Europe, the producers might decide to translate it into a variety of languages such as French, German and Spanish.

Again, taking French translation (Übersetzung Französisch) as an example of the translation process, a team of well-qualified translators and transcribers would need to be searched for, interviewed and employed. Then the English content would need to be translated in such a way that its original meaning is not lost. Once the translation is completed, it would need to go through the proofreading (Korrekturlesen) process. Ideally, it would also be tested on a select number of French speakers for quality checking and feedback. Then, depending on the feedback, the subtitles will most likely need to be re-edited. Then the re-edited draft would need to be tested on a French-speaking group again, going back and forth until the team feels the work has achieved a satisfactory level of subtitling coherency and flow.

That’s the energy involved in subtitling just one language. The more languages the film company plans to put out there, the more intense one can imagine the process can get. To some extent, it might help if some of the translating staff can speak more than one European language as it would save the film company the effort of having to employ more people for a different language.