Audiovisual Production Research Articles

Unsettling the return: Alternative curation and counterarchives

AbstractIn this article, we complicate the notion of sonic return in the context of postmillennial digital media technologies that have transformed how Indigenous people of the Bolivian Andes engage self‐reflectively with their own music and dance practices. We take a capacious approach to the notion of the archive and argue that these media interactions, where people make and circulate their own audiovisual materials, represent a space of counterarchival work. We consider our distinct and changing approaches to sound recordings in our respective fieldwork and highlight how media‐making agency has entered the hands of Indigenous actors. Notable here is a striking preference for the audiovisual over the solely audio, a preference that throws into relief the idea of the sound archive and its future. We point to alternative forms of audiovisual curation that may not be shaped to the ends foreign researchers might imagine, but that nevertheless might lead to more decolonized engagements of the future. We consider a video—created as part of a campaign for women's singing of Potosí to be legally recognized in heritage law—and explore how this seemingly outsider‐focused audiovisual production involved Indigenous people in its making, reception, and recursive recirculation. We approach these issues by drawing on our multidecade and cross‐disciplinary research trajectories in the Bolivian Andes and our more recent collaborative research on heritage lawmaking during the government of Evo Morales (2006–2019).

Clichés that remain: the consideration of female domestic work in recent audiovisual production in Spain

Clichés that remain: the consideration of female domestic work in recent audiovisual production in Spain

Fan indirect subtitling of Cdramas by women in Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract Despite its controversial status, indirect translation remains one of the most prevalent translation methods and efforts have been made to explore the positive effects of this practice. The present article aims to contribute to such endeavours by researching the potential of indirect fansubbing for the promotion of several key areas of the United Nations’ Fourth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). The article reports on a fansubbing community consisting of Chinese to Spanish amateur subtitlers who have mobilised indirect translation to attain linguistic proficiency, translational skills and cultural literacy. Results from fieldwork and qualitative data show that indirect subtitles might enhance Spanish-speaking communities’ appreciation of foreign languages and cultures by providing access to otherwise inaccessible audiovisual products. The present research finds potential for indirect fansubbing as an autodidactic method capable of promoting a culture of lifelong learning, global citizenship, and the appreciation of cultural diversity, factors conducive to the fourth SDG.

Envisioning the future of virtual production in filmmaking: A remote co-design study

AbstractVirtual Production is a new process in the audiovisual industry, taking advantage of emerging technologies and attracting a significant degree of interest in academic and industrial research. This article documents a research process focusing on co-design of innovative solutions for Virtual Production relying on immersive technologies. Two remote collaborative workshops were organized involving audiovisual professionals covering different roles in different phases of the making process of audiovisual production. A range of innovative design concepts was generated as part of the research following group-based iterative discussion and evaluation. The study has contributed a set of innovative design solutions in relation to applications of immersive technologies in the audiovisual industry. The authors argue that the methods adopted have the potential to serve as a blueprint for design and implementation of future remote collaborative co-design processes in relation to audiovisual studies and, more generally, across disciplinary boundaries.

Computing Short Films Using Language-Guided Diffusion and Vocoding Through Virtual Timelines of Summaries

Language-guided generative models are increasingly used in audiovisual production. Image diffusion allows for the development of video sequences and some of its coordination can be established by text prompts. This research automates a video production pipeline leveraging CLIP-guidance with longform text inputs and a separate text-to-speech system. We introduce a method for producing frame-accurate video and audio summaries using a virtual timeline and document a set of video outputs with diverging parameters. Our approach was applied in the production of the film Irreplaceable Biography and contributes to a future where multimodal generative architectures are set as underlying mechanisms to establish visual sequences in time. We contribute to a practice where language modelling is part of a shared and learned representation which can support professional video production, specifically used as a vehicle throughout the composition process as potential videography in physical space.

Chinese audiovisual translation

AbstractThe increasing use of multilingualism in audiovisual products, especially feature films, has attracted attention from audiovisual translation (AVT) scholars; however, such research is missing in the Chinese AVT context. This paper strived to fill this niche by exploring the common methods of the rendition of a third language (L3) in Chinese dubbing, subtitling, and fansubbing. The corpus of the study comprised six English-speaking feature films alongside their fan and professional-created Chinese subtitles and dubs available online, and its contents was mainly selected based on two criteria: (i) the L3s used, for example, French, Indian, Swahili, Xhosa, and Russian, and (ii) the availability of fan and pro-produced Chinese subtitles and dubs. For dubbing, the analysis of the corpus revealed that the Chinese professional dubbing team marked the L3s in a few cases but applied translational patterns inconsistently. the comparison of the pro- and fansubs demonstrated that both did not mark the L3s in their translations and that professional subtitlers performed better than the fansubbers in the rendition of multilingualism in terms of graphic codes and the original films’ storytelling.

An opportunity to develop the skills of the students, "Marketing in Action" a collective meeting place

Goals. Demonstrate the impact and benefit caused by the Mkt in Action institutional event, which is organized by the Business Development career, and which seeks the active participation of the student body. Involve the participation of students to demonstrate the strengths and areas of opportunity through the participation of expert speakers in the area, including the participation of alumn. Promote public relations of the student body of the business career with the business group of the region. Methodology. A quantitative approach to data collection and statistical analysis is used. Descriptive approach. Greater student participation is sought as an audience and as organizers; as well as demonstrate the result of public relations that generate the involvement of the business sector towards the event. Quantitative approach. Population of the Business Development Educational Program of 331 people; with a sample of 116 participants. Investigation. What is the impact and benefits generated by the Mkt in Action for the development of the students of the Educational Program? Contribution. Students carry out activities related to logistics, administration, design, audiovisual production, management of social networks and management of sponsors in order to generate strategic synergy with local companies.

Investigating the Translators’ Strategies in Subtitling and Dubbing of Taboos in American Drama Television Series The Big Little Lies (2019)

One of the most difficult tasks that translators deal with when dubbing or subtitling an audiovisual product is translating offensive terms or expressions such as taboos. Translators must handle the translation of taboos with care, as their equivalents may be contrary to the religion and cultural norms of the target country. To that end, some strategies should be employed by translators to choose appropriate equivalents based on the cultural and religious norms of the target language. Thus, the current study aimed to investigate the strategies employed in subtitling and dubbing English taboos in seven episodes of one American television series using Davoodi’s (2009) model. This was corpus-based research that has a qualitative-quantitative method with a comparative approach. To conduct the study, the American English drama crime TV series The Big Little Lies (2019) season two was chosen as the study corpus. 174 taboos, specifically Sh*t and F*k word, were found based on Sharifi and Darchinian's (2009) model in the above- mentioned TV series. Descriptive statistics have been run to examine the frequencies and percentages of implemented translation strategies in subtitling and dubbing the taboos. The results revealed that “Substitution”, and “Censorship” were the commonly most frequently used strategies in Persian subtitled and dubbed versions of taboos. Moreover, the findings of the Chi-square test indicated that no significant difference was identified between the strategies of Iranian translators in subtitling and dubbing taboos. The findings of this research can be useful for subtitlers, dubbers, and translation students in Iran who specialize in translating English TV series.

IMMERSIVITY, DIGITALIZATION AND POLARIZATION: ELEMENTS RECONDITIONING THE CONTEMPOR ARY STAGE

Used to the immediacy of the cyberspace, theater artists around the world have sought ways to stay relevant in a reality that de-mands increasingly complex visual stimuli. Far from being replaced by audiovisual productions, theater seeks its own identity among the vast film library in streaming services. On the other hand, with the advent of repressive political correctness in the media, the stage runs the risk of entertainment becoming polarized, regardless of the position it comes from. The main characteristic of live productions is the exchange among an audience eager for new incentives, that is the «actor/spectator inter-action». This article explores this «actor/spectator interaction» with the techno-interaction provided by virtual reality tools, thus conditioning a performance into an uncompromising digital piece, providing the audi-ence with the necessary distance to express its opinion, without falling into alienation.

Audiovisual translation: A reception study on Bilingual child language brokers’ linguistic and cultural competences

This paper presents an empirical pilot study conducted from July through September 2019 at César Chávez Elementary School, a public, bilingual English/Spanish primary school in the city of San Francisco (California, USA).
 The research was based on the hypothesis that children enrolled in such bilingual educational programs are exposed to linguistic and cultural content in English and Spanish, and will therefore differentiate the contents of the bilingual audiovisual products they consume both linguistically and culturally.
 The aim was to assess the possible impact of bilingual audiovisual products on the acquisition of linguistic and cultural competences by child language brokers in the bilingual educational system of the USA, a country with more than forty years’ experience in this type of education.
 The research tools used to collect and analyze the data were interviews and experimental tests.
 The conclusions allow us firstly to determine whether audiovisual products are effectively used as a teaching tool in school and, secondly, to assess the use of audiovisual products as a methodological instrument in USA primary education bilingual programs. They can also help us track the origins of child language brokering in a bilingual context.

Multiligual Films: Rendering Multilingual Narrative for Deaf Viewers in Lithuania

Summary The issue of multilingualism often arises in the context of audiovisual translation, when dubbing, subtitling or voice-over is under discussion. This aspect also does not lose its significance in subtitling multilingual films for the deaf and hard of hearing. By applying this mode, the content of audiovisual product is conveyed to the deaf by employing a special instrument of audiovisual translation, namely, specialized subtitles (SDH). In this case, subtitles must include not only a translated dialogue text; the additional information that helps the deaf perceive the off screen non-verbal and verbal cues, understand the narrative and mood of the film and estimate roles of foreign languages must be added as well. The paper aims at exploring strategies for conveying multilingualism to the deaf in the films created by Lithuanian filmmakers. Three Lithuanian multilingual films “Back to Your Arms“ (2010, directed by K. Vildžiūnas), „How We Played the Revolution“ (2011, directed by G. Žickytė) and „Miracle“ (2017, directed by E. Vertelytė) as the research material were selected for the analysis. In the theoretical part, strategies of application of multilingual films suggested by foreign scholars (De Higes-Andino et al., 2013, 2014, Szarkowska & Żbikowska & Krejtz, 2013, 2014) are outlined; insights into multilingualism presented by Lithuanian researchers are reviewed and practical principles that help reveal multilingualism for the deaf audience in Lithuanian films are examined. A descriptive-analytical approach is employed to analyze the rendition of multilingualism to the target audience; whereas, to reveal needs of the Lithuanian deaf the analysis of achieved quantitative data is made. The study has revealed that the process of conveying multilingualism to the deaf viewers in Lithuanian films is a process that requires creativity. Moreover, the results of the analysis suggested that in the analyzed Lithuanian films a multilingual source text was only translated and subtitled by applying a standard subtitling format. With regard to the multilingualism rendering for the deaf, it can been noted that standard subtitles only partially revealed the content of the film; though, the information and aspects about multilingualism as such still remained inaccessible. For this reason, special subtitles (SDH) for the hearing impaired viewers should be prepared; however, this type of subtitles has stayed uncommon for the Lithuanian filmmakers.

Influencer advertising on TikTok: advert formats and illicit product advertising. A study involving Germany, France, Spain and Italy

Advertising by influencers on YouTube and Instagram has become a common practice, which includes the incorporation of advertising into their audio-visual productions as well. This study is being conducted to determine whether TikTok users from Germany, France, Spain, and Italy are using the social network to advertise products and services, and whether they are promoting products that are banned by TikTok. Using content analysis, 320 videos from 16 European tiktokers in Germany, France, Spain and Italy have been studied based on gender and nationality. The tiktokers ranged between 17 and 21 years of age with more than one million followers. The results confirm that tiktokers maintain a balance between the content they post and the advertising they insert. Both genders include a similar percentage of advertising and, based on nationality, French and Spanish tiktokers are the ones who use the most advertising in their work. Product placement is the most popular format for tiktokers of both genders in France, Spain and Germany, whereas branded content is preferred by Italian male tiktokers. None of the tiktokers of the four nationalities have violated the rules imposed by TikTok, as they have refrained from publishing illicit or dangerous products, either because of measures being taken by the social network itself to limit the exposure to these types of products, or as the result of self-regulation by the tiktokers in order to avoid being removed from the social network.

La formazione audiovisiva a distanza in ambito scolastico durante il periodo pandemico

This article intends to present the educational experience in relation to the transition from the face-to-face education oriented to the writing and audiovisual production to distance education, carried out during the lockdown in the winter 2020/21, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The impossibility of carrying out the activity in presence has dictated unpublished conditions not only about the selection of the arguments to be deepened, but also with reference to the different phases of video production, which in this article is conceived as a form of epistemic writing, or an interweaving of languages that allows children to express ideas, to represent their school and extrascolastic reality and to vary their way of observing and interpreting their existences. Due to the new circumstances, the project was adapted. However, it can be considered satisfactory, although the school was not yet ready to host types of remote training with the simultaneous presence of different classes. In this context, it was not easy to manage the process of involvement of the students. The atypical role of the teacher facilitator has led to an on time learning path, which has also provided for the creation of work groups with flexible activities, partly at school and partly at home.

Pivot Templators’ Challenges and Training: Insights from a Survey Study with Subtitlers and Subtitler Trainers

Given the increase of non-English audiovisual content, translating through pivot templates is increasingly common. Yet, pivot templates have attracted scant scholarly attention. Several factors remain unclear. Among the first factors are the questions of who creates pivot templates, from what languages are they translated, into what languages are they translated, and what audiovisual products and channels are they for? Secondly, what are the challenges involved in the creation of templates? The third factor would be whether there is any training available for pivot template creators, and whether this training is effective. To provide more clarity on these issues, we distributed a questionnaire and elicited replies from 100 pivot templators and 75 subtitler trainers based in Europe. The results indicate that most pivot templators translate into English as L2. Because of this, diverse difficulties arise. Training in pivot template making seems rare, especially compared to training in subtitling in general. The training that is offered comes mainly from the industry and not academia. This is problematic for various reasons: (a) the former does not typically cover issues related to subtitler ethics or the sustainability of the profession, and (b) translator training and professional codes of conduct eye L2 translation with suspicion. Drawing on the respondents’ insights, we argue that much can be gained from teaching non-English-language native speakers how to create English-language templates.

English Dubs: Why are Anglophone Viewers Receptive to English Dubbing on Streaming Platforms and to Foreign-Accent Strategies?

Accents are often utilised in fictional audiovisual products to determine the creation of character identity. This is due to the set of cultural connotations typically associated with any given accent in any given language community. However, is there really one monolingual target audience anymore? In the age of streaming platforms, and at the rate the localisation industry is creating subtitles and revoiced versions, the target audience for many products has become multilingual. The English ‘dubbing revolution’, pioneered by streaming giant Netflix, perfectly depicts the broadening of target audiences in global distribution. The subject of this article is the popularly termed ‘foreignisation’ strategy, as it features in English dubs. The strategy is explored in relation to the novelty of (English) dubbing for most viewers as well as the ubiquity of foreign varieties of English in everyday life in the Anglosphere and, consequently, in English-language original fiction. Theoretical insights are also offered on the unique acceptance of English dubbing, in general, and of foreign accents as a dubbing strategy, in particular. The case of the Castilian-Spanish dubbing industry is also explored for contrastive purposes, elucidating the characteristics of (im)mature dubbing audiences: their habits, preferences, and (in)flexibility. The conclusions present a set of hypotheses drawn from the article’s discussion that provide plausible answers to the questions posed in the article’s title.

The Application of Transcreation in Subtitling Cultural References: The Case of Masameer Animated Cartoon

The growing number of people watching audiovisual products in languages other than their mother tongue necessitated translation to bridge the linguistic barriers and ensure complete comprehension as perceived by the source text audience. The translation of cultural references is an increasingly important issue in the translation field, specifically in audiovisual products, and the findings of this study will show the efficiency of applying the transcreation procedure to overcome such challenges. Moreover, the main aim of this paper is to analyze the applicability of the transcreation procedure in translating cultural references found in audiovisual materials, particularly in Masameer animated cartoons, to determine if implementing this procedure will result in a successful translation. The paper attempts to answer the question: How can the application of the transcreation procedure help convey the meaning and effect of the cultural reference found in the source text? This research paper has followed the qualitative method to analyze the implementation of the transcreation procedure on the examples that contain cultural-specific items. It is found that the application of transcreation is essential to fill the cultural gap in a creative way that preserves the meaning of the original. Thus, transcreation is valuable because it gives a sense of creativity, adapts the text culturally, and delivers accurate translation.

Sistemas de recomendación en plataformas de streaming audiovisual: las lógicas de los algoritmos

One of the novelties associated with the expansion of audiovisual streaming platforms are recommendation systems, which provide users with suggestions about which content they should consume. These suggestions are done considering multiple variables, which include the consumption history of that specific user, among others. In many cases, these recommendations are made by machine learning algorithms, and result in a sort of automated curation of the contents, which largely determine the daily consumption of audiovisual productions. This work seeks to characterize some of the logics that guide the activity of these algorithms from a semiotic perspective. Towards the end of the work, it is discussed which are the spaces for novelty, in these systems that always seem to propose consumptions similar to those already carried out.

Tactics in Support of the Strategy to Include Artistic Research as Evidence in Systematic Reviews

Artistic research studies produce a felt and often physically embodied type of knowledge initiated in an artistic experience and consolidated as an art form. The actual art work as the outcome of these studies, complements other types of knowledge and therefore requires attention from systematic review authors who synthesize evidence from primary studies. Working with artistic research evidence in a systematic review context requires a different approach to searching, appraising, analysing and integrating research findings than what is usually promoted by international review organisations. In this paper we outline how the different steps in a systematic review process can be adapted to include art work as as a multimodal type of research evidence in systematic reviews. We discuss useful tactics of identifying artistic research evidence, judging its value, analysing and synthesizing such evidence, hereby building on iconographic, thematic and/or art and design related analytical frameworks. In addition, we feature a gallery approach to present artistic research evidence to end-users and feature a multimodal type of evidence synthesis in which individual art works are comprehensively integrated in an audio visual production.

Translating Multilingualism in Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding

Linguistic diversity is present in many audiovisual productions and has given rise to fruitful research on translation of multilingualism and language variation. Monsoon Wedding (Mira Nair, 2001) is a prototypical film for translation analysis, since multilingualism is a recurrent feature, as the film dialogue combines English (L1) with Hindi and Punjabi (L3), which creates an effect of code-switching. This article analyses how the multilingualism and the cultural elements present in the source text (ST) have been transferred to the Spanish translated text (TT) La boda del monzón. The results show that in the Spanish dubbed and subtitled versions, few Indian cultural elements are left, and little language variation is preserved. Thus, L3 does not play a central role as it does in the source text. In the translation, only a few loan words from Hindi or Punjabi are kept, mainly from the domains of food and cooking, as well as terms of address and greetings, or words related to the wedding ceremony. The results also show that when L3 is not fully rendered in translation, otherness is still conveyed through image and music, thus (re)creating a different atmosphere for Spanish audiences.

Mechanisms to detect and translate audiovisual intertextuality in the dubbing of animated productions into Spanish

ABSTRACT Intertextuality, which can be defined as the interrelationship between texts, can appear anywhere, from an informal conversation among friends to manifestations of literature or cinema. However, its use is normally intentional, and translators should have the tools to detect intertextuality and transfer these references so that the target audience and the original audience are on an equal footing. This article explores intertextuality in the dubbing of audiovisual productions, where references to other productions and characters are constant. Our research is based on the study of two seasons of the animated TV series Family Guy dubbed in Spain, as well as on previous research on this topic. We seek to both determine which intertextual signs (Hatim and Mason 1990, 174) may help audiovisual translators in the detection stage and to develop an integrated method to help them carry out the challenging translation process.