Translation and dubbing of a movie at home - The Mars Underground
This is my first post on Habré, so he hasn’t yet got into the Cosmonautics hub.
I have been doing, or rather, trying to do the translation and dubbing of videos for six months already. Back in the spring, I discovered that the network is full of good videos, from a series of such that “everyone must see,” but most of them are in English. But I don’t have so many friends who know foreign languages well. Therefore, I began to translate it for them. Then he noticed that it became interesting to other people, and it began to turn. So when Zelenyikot approached me with a proposal to voice Robert Zubrin’s film about Mars, I happily agreed. And, armed with the article " Attempting to translate and voice a video at home, " with a dictionary and Google, immediately set to work.
Following the example of the previous topic I will describe the software that I had to use:
-Notepad ++ to write text and break it into fragments;
-Adobe Audition - to record sound;
-Sony Vegas - to synchronize audio and video tracks, translate original labels;
-GIMP image editing.
1. Translation
First of all, it would be convenient to find the subtitles - with them the translation becomes much easier, and the terms of work are shorter. However, among the heaps of garbage and unnecessary information, I managed to find only subtitles in Portuguese. Clearly, double translation will work according to the principle of a “damaged phone”, so we had to translate it by ear. Alas, then I did not think that it was possible to write down the English subtitles in parallel - they would definitely be useful to someone, and immediately translate the phrases written into a notebook. Total translation (along with checks for abbreviations, dates and revisions) took about 20 hours.
2. Sound recording
Audio-Technica AT2020 microphone and M-Audio Fast Track external sound card were used for recording. I am not complaining about the quality, but there is nothing to compare with - I haven’t used other means yet. Software - Adobe Audition. I don’t have a screen, so I just hung all the space around the microphone and the “workplace” in thick covers. I have never had to resort to such means before, but now I will always do that - it is much easier to clean up the residual noise, and the extra reverb disappears. I do not have professional announcer skills, but I tried to keep my voice from “not like a robot” (which is often the point of the audience that my commercials complain about). I can’t objectively evaluate the result, because during the evening the mixing of the sound simply can’t take my recorded voice.
To combat dry throat and, at the same time, excessive saliva production, I prepared a thermos with warm water - by the way, I recommend warm water to anyone who plans to do voice acting. It helps to avoid "plymkaniya" language and generally unnecessary sounds during recording. The text was recorded in a row, without highlighting intonation, but with signatures of names pronouncing the next phrase. In one visit I tried to record as much text as possible, otherwise, as a result, an incoherent voice could be obtained. In total, 79 pieces of different lengths were obtained, which were glued together with Adobe Audition into one before processing. Record was made in one run, and took almost 5 hours.
')
3. Sound processing
Here I have everything going according to the standard scheme - remove extra clicks in declicker, loud whistles in VST DeEsser, add a little bass for solidity in the equalizer, align the sound with a standard compressor, well, remove the noise using Noise Reduction. I'm not sure that professional studios process the tracks in some similar way, but I am satisfied with the output result. I will not describe in detail the steps, perhaps - everything is extremely simple and is on the Internet in two clicks. The sounds of radio communications and interviews of Zubrin in the car were recorded separately after the completion of the rest of the work. They were processed through FFT Filter to give the sound a small echo and radio effect. It took a little time due to the fact that the process for the most part was already automated, and one big track needed to be processed.
4. Sync audio tracks
I tried to read the sound synchronously, but as a result I heard that I was in a bit of a hurry. So I decided to use the excellent decision of the author of the topic about “Death of the Mars Rover” - to impose phrases with a slight delay. Firstly, it will allow viewers to figure out who owns the voice, and secondly, to solve the problem with my haste in reading. For radio communications, 2 additional tracks were solemnly allocated so as not to bother about volume and overdubbing. With Volume Envelope I decided not to indulge, as the result was almost the same as the original, but the transitions in the music became very noticeable. I was in sync for almost 2 hours.
5. Translation of inscriptions
Starting to translate the film, I did not want to be limited to sound. Therefore, it was decided to translate also all the inscriptions on the screen to make the film look as pleasant as possible for the Russian-speaking eye. Long google searches with queries like “remove captions from video”, “remove labels from movie” didn’t really lead to anything, so I had to invent something myself.
As a result, I took a frame that already had text in English (in the case of signatures of interviewees, a frame that appears a moment before their appearance), retouched the image in gimp, cut off the “extra” layer in the frame, leaving only the former text region, and saved in PNG format. Thus, I did not have to deal with the positioning of the “plug” of the original signatures.
However, another problem arose: the picture was static, and the image on the screen was constantly changing! Then my native pan & crop helped me, with which I tried to synchronize the movement of the picture on the screen with the original video track. In the case of an interview, I made two PNG “stubs”, one for the background, the second (usually the shoulders of people), made the “facade” of the composition produced in the editor. I had to tinker for a long time, the result is imperfect, but that's all I could squeeze out of such a method. The abbreviations remained untranslated, and the names of the missions - I thought it was over. This stage of work took another 5 hours (mainly due to the lengthy “operations” of cropping and fitting the pictures).
6. Project Rendering
The total amount of files used in the project was 7 GB, while the original film (honestly downloaded by me to YouTube) "weighs" 900 MB. This makes me think that I was wasting resources (PNG “plugs” in HD resolution, many sound files instead of one), but I tried to meet the deadlines set for myself, so I did not think about it during work. The video rendering lasted almost 7 hours (twice as long as it was planned), so the “premiere”, which was officially announced in front of friends, had to be postponed. Render at 720p using two-pass encoding and variable bitrate (average 8,000,000 bps). I know that this is too much, and the final file weighed 4.2 GB, but I could not risk the loss of video quality, which YouTube was going to pinch for the third time.
7. Robert Zubrin
Usually, before taking up the voice acting, I try to contact the author of the original video in order to get official permission to post it on YouTube. I rarely succeed in this, but so far there have been no problems with the copyright on the video.
However, I decided not to make an exception for the film, and, finding Robert Zubrin (the film’s author) on Facebook , asked him to do so. The answer made me jump for joy, so I just can not share it.
So far I will not publish the trackers, maybe I'll do it later (if I find the HD version, YouTube and now it gives the best quality).
Total for 33 hours, I still managed to master this film, review the preliminary result, and make sure that everything went according to plan.
The result can be viewed on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyouzltT7wY
UPDATE 1: Thanks to everyone who voted in karma, added a topic to the necessary hubs!
UPDATE 2: They sent a question about the font, here it is .
UPDATE 3: If you like it, you can express your gratitude both verbally and ruble (POISON 41001784052094 QIWI +380508594999). This will support my future activities. Ideas and suggestions for the following translations are accepted.
I have been doing, or rather, trying to do the translation and dubbing of videos for six months already. Back in the spring, I discovered that the network is full of good videos, from a series of such that “everyone must see,” but most of them are in English. But I don’t have so many friends who know foreign languages well. Therefore, I began to translate it for them. Then he noticed that it became interesting to other people, and it began to turn. So when Zelenyikot approached me with a proposal to voice Robert Zubrin’s film about Mars, I happily agreed. And, armed with the article " Attempting to translate and voice a video at home, " with a dictionary and Google, immediately set to work.
Following the example of the previous topic I will describe the software that I had to use:
-Notepad ++ to write text and break it into fragments;
-Adobe Audition - to record sound;
-Sony Vegas - to synchronize audio and video tracks, translate original labels;
-GIMP image editing.
1. Translation
First of all, it would be convenient to find the subtitles - with them the translation becomes much easier, and the terms of work are shorter. However, among the heaps of garbage and unnecessary information, I managed to find only subtitles in Portuguese. Clearly, double translation will work according to the principle of a “damaged phone”, so we had to translate it by ear. Alas, then I did not think that it was possible to write down the English subtitles in parallel - they would definitely be useful to someone, and immediately translate the phrases written into a notebook. Total translation (along with checks for abbreviations, dates and revisions) took about 20 hours.
2. Sound recording
Audio-Technica AT2020 microphone and M-Audio Fast Track external sound card were used for recording. I am not complaining about the quality, but there is nothing to compare with - I haven’t used other means yet. Software - Adobe Audition. I don’t have a screen, so I just hung all the space around the microphone and the “workplace” in thick covers. I have never had to resort to such means before, but now I will always do that - it is much easier to clean up the residual noise, and the extra reverb disappears. I do not have professional announcer skills, but I tried to keep my voice from “not like a robot” (which is often the point of the audience that my commercials complain about). I can’t objectively evaluate the result, because during the evening the mixing of the sound simply can’t take my recorded voice.
To combat dry throat and, at the same time, excessive saliva production, I prepared a thermos with warm water - by the way, I recommend warm water to anyone who plans to do voice acting. It helps to avoid "plymkaniya" language and generally unnecessary sounds during recording. The text was recorded in a row, without highlighting intonation, but with signatures of names pronouncing the next phrase. In one visit I tried to record as much text as possible, otherwise, as a result, an incoherent voice could be obtained. In total, 79 pieces of different lengths were obtained, which were glued together with Adobe Audition into one before processing. Record was made in one run, and took almost 5 hours.
')
3. Sound processing
Here I have everything going according to the standard scheme - remove extra clicks in declicker, loud whistles in VST DeEsser, add a little bass for solidity in the equalizer, align the sound with a standard compressor, well, remove the noise using Noise Reduction. I'm not sure that professional studios process the tracks in some similar way, but I am satisfied with the output result. I will not describe in detail the steps, perhaps - everything is extremely simple and is on the Internet in two clicks. The sounds of radio communications and interviews of Zubrin in the car were recorded separately after the completion of the rest of the work. They were processed through FFT Filter to give the sound a small echo and radio effect. It took a little time due to the fact that the process for the most part was already automated, and one big track needed to be processed.
4. Sync audio tracks
I tried to read the sound synchronously, but as a result I heard that I was in a bit of a hurry. So I decided to use the excellent decision of the author of the topic about “Death of the Mars Rover” - to impose phrases with a slight delay. Firstly, it will allow viewers to figure out who owns the voice, and secondly, to solve the problem with my haste in reading. For radio communications, 2 additional tracks were solemnly allocated so as not to bother about volume and overdubbing. With Volume Envelope I decided not to indulge, as the result was almost the same as the original, but the transitions in the music became very noticeable. I was in sync for almost 2 hours.
5. Translation of inscriptions
Starting to translate the film, I did not want to be limited to sound. Therefore, it was decided to translate also all the inscriptions on the screen to make the film look as pleasant as possible for the Russian-speaking eye. Long google searches with queries like “remove captions from video”, “remove labels from movie” didn’t really lead to anything, so I had to invent something myself.
As a result, I took a frame that already had text in English (in the case of signatures of interviewees, a frame that appears a moment before their appearance), retouched the image in gimp, cut off the “extra” layer in the frame, leaving only the former text region, and saved in PNG format. Thus, I did not have to deal with the positioning of the “plug” of the original signatures.
However, another problem arose: the picture was static, and the image on the screen was constantly changing! Then my native pan & crop helped me, with which I tried to synchronize the movement of the picture on the screen with the original video track. In the case of an interview, I made two PNG “stubs”, one for the background, the second (usually the shoulders of people), made the “facade” of the composition produced in the editor. I had to tinker for a long time, the result is imperfect, but that's all I could squeeze out of such a method. The abbreviations remained untranslated, and the names of the missions - I thought it was over. This stage of work took another 5 hours (mainly due to the lengthy “operations” of cropping and fitting the pictures).
6. Project Rendering
The total amount of files used in the project was 7 GB, while the original film (honestly downloaded by me to YouTube) "weighs" 900 MB. This makes me think that I was wasting resources (PNG “plugs” in HD resolution, many sound files instead of one), but I tried to meet the deadlines set for myself, so I did not think about it during work. The video rendering lasted almost 7 hours (twice as long as it was planned), so the “premiere”, which was officially announced in front of friends, had to be postponed. Render at 720p using two-pass encoding and variable bitrate (average 8,000,000 bps). I know that this is too much, and the final file weighed 4.2 GB, but I could not risk the loss of video quality, which YouTube was going to pinch for the third time.
7. Robert Zubrin
Usually, before taking up the voice acting, I try to contact the author of the original video in order to get official permission to post it on YouTube. I rarely succeed in this, but so far there have been no problems with the copyright on the video.
However, I decided not to make an exception for the film, and, finding Robert Zubrin (the film’s author) on Facebook , asked him to do so. The answer made me jump for joy, so I just can not share it.
So far I will not publish the trackers, maybe I'll do it later (if I find the HD version, YouTube and now it gives the best quality).
Total for 33 hours, I still managed to master this film, review the preliminary result, and make sure that everything went according to plan.
The result can be viewed on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyouzltT7wY
UPDATE 1: Thanks to everyone who voted in karma, added a topic to the necessary hubs!
UPDATE 2: They sent a question about the font, here it is .
UPDATE 3: If you like it, you can express your gratitude both verbally and ruble (POISON 41001784052094 QIWI +380508594999). This will support my future activities. Ideas and suggestions for the following translations are accepted.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/204570/
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