English language sub-titles
For some time now, some of the English movie channels in India have been showing Hollywood films with English sub-tittles. I find this absolutely great. In my reckoning, this innovation is right up there with online railway tickets booking and the pop-up toaster (about which I have written elsewhere) .
I mean consider this : before the sub-titles came along, I had to strain my brain so much just to understand the Texan drawl , the Yankee accent and assorted other American mumblings, that the limbic centers of the brain (responsible for visual excitement and pleasure) were so overloaded with trying to understand the mumblings, that watching the movie was about as exciting as attending an inflation-accounting class.
But all that misery is now a thing of the past. I can now follow the movie , even with the worst assembled cast of mumblers, without any problem. But of curse it is not an unmixed blessing. When I could not hear them I thought they were saying things with great wisdom and deep philosophy. It now turns out that most of the time they are saying something very similar to Hindi films.. like Main maa banane wali hoon, Sab theek ho jaayega and Kuttey kameeney main tera khoon pee jaaunga.
I am now waiting for someone to do English subtitles for Manmohan Singh’s rare appearances on TV. He is a mumbler, if there ever was one.
(If you have every wondered why Hollywood movies / actors’ dialogs are so inaudible, there are actually 2 reasons. First is the accent. It varies from what Indians are used to. Second and more important, in Hollywood movies , dialog is recorded live… they do not have post production dubbing like in Indian films. Obviously quality is not as good as studio recorded dialog.)
For some time now, some of the English movie channels in India have been showing Hollywood films with English sub-tittles. I find this absolutely great. In my reckoning, this innovation is right up there with online railway tickets booking and the pop-up toaster (about which I have written elsewhere) .
I mean consider this : before the sub-titles came along, I had to strain my brain so much just to understand the Texan drawl , the Yankee accent and assorted other American mumblings, that the limbic centers of the brain (responsible for visual excitement and pleasure) were so overloaded with trying to understand the mumblings, that watching the movie was about as exciting as attending an inflation-accounting class.
But all that misery is now a thing of the past. I can now follow the movie , even with the worst assembled cast of mumblers, without any problem. But of curse it is not an unmixed blessing. When I could not hear them I thought they were saying things with great wisdom and deep philosophy. It now turns out that most of the time they are saying something very similar to Hindi films.. like Main maa banane wali hoon, Sab theek ho jaayega and Kuttey kameeney main tera khoon pee jaaunga.
I am now waiting for someone to do English subtitles for Manmohan Singh’s rare appearances on TV. He is a mumbler, if there ever was one.
(If you have every wondered why Hollywood movies / actors’ dialogs are so inaudible, there are actually 2 reasons. First is the accent. It varies from what Indians are used to. Second and more important, in Hollywood movies , dialog is recorded live… they do not have post production dubbing like in Indian films. Obviously quality is not as good as studio recorded dialog.)
No comments:
Post a Comment