An Arashi Fan’s Guide to the World of Fansubbing
Have you ever wondered about what exactly goes into a fansub? Or how subbers and subbing teams go about producing their videos? I’m in the tl;dr mode today, so here you go!
An Arashi Fan’s Guide to the World of Fansubbing
Subbing (“sub” being the abbreviation of “subtitles”) is the process of attaching English subtitles onto a foreign television program, or in this case Japanese programs featuring Arashi. Traditional fansubs were produced using analog video editing equipment, but the subbing process was completely digitalized in recent years with the advent of technology.
The main processes in fansubbing are as follows:
1) Raw acquisition
2) Translating
3) Timing
4) Typesetting
5) Spotting
6) Encoding
Part 1: Acquiring a Raw
A raw is basically an unsubbed video. Raw acquisition in the past years have been made easy thanks to the work of LJ communities like DSS, ANJ and KnH, who in turn got their videos from Chinese websites like Weibo. (Just don’t ask me how the Weibo users got their videos.)
However, videos downloaded from Weibo typically range in the Gigabytes, as they come in the form of .TS files. Raw-providing LJ communities will then convert the file into smaller versions whilst retaining high video quality. They are truly indispensable to subbing communities because nothing would begin without them.
Part 2: Translating
This is my favorite part of the subbing process and basically where I started out as a subber, before branching off into other jobs. A translator takes the words spoken in Japanese and rewrites them into English. It sounds easy, but here’s an illustration of how a human translator would do it, versus Google Translate.
(Please note that all translators will do things a little differently, I’m just sharing my perspective. Japanese is my third language while English is my first, and our brains process language a little differently based on what our first language is.)
From Arashi ni Shiyagare, New Year SP
A human translator considers the context of the sentence which he/she is translating. For example, Nino says “Sou desu ne!” twice. Instead of writing, “That’s right!” twice to indicate his agreement, I chose to write it as “I would think so!” It’s the same number of words, but creates greater variety within the sentence and denotes a greater sense of agreement.
Another example would be Matchy’s use of the word “Golden Time”. Golden Time is a Japlish term, and would be more appropriately translated to into “Primetime” rather than having the English words copied over into the translation.
The conversation above lasted about 20 seconds, took me about 2 minutes to mentally translate it, then another 3 minutes to type it out as I'm listening to the speech. (I’m slow, I know.) And that’s not accounting for the time I spent on sentences that I have to replay over and over in order to catch a word I’m unfamiliar with, conducting background research or just trying to figure out the context of the situation.
A translation script for a 45 minute variety show (minus commercials) could have around 10,000 words. By the time I’ve finished the script I would have watched the show about 5 times.
Part 3: Timing
Timing, to me, is the most tedious part of the subbing process because it requires a lot of patience and precision, as well as some basic knowledge of Japanese. Experienced timers will be able to help spot missing sentences and sometimes do the favor of transcribing the missing Japanese speech. I use the program Aegisub for my timing and typesetting jobs.
I learnt all my timing skills from Youtube so I’ll just leave you with a beginner’s tutorial on timing. It’s pretty easy to pick up!
Click to viewPart 4: Typesetting
Typesetting is all about beautifying the video. Communities which provide hardsubs often do so because they have typesetters who use special fonts for their videos which cannot be seen in another person’s computer. Japanese variety shows also have a tendency to use lots of captions themselves, so English subbing teams often have typesetters who will help in creating captions that complement or cover the existing Japanese captions.
Before:
After:
twosen is one of the most meticulous typesetters I know. Do check out her comments here on the intricacies of typesetting.
Part 5: Spotting
The spotting process can also be termed as the editing process. Basically, a translator will look over the video to see if the English lines have been timed according to the actual Japanese speech, check for missing sentences/words, and edit grammar or inaccurate translations.
Part 6: Encoding
Encoding is taking the subtitle file, which is currently separate from the video file, and sticking them together with all the lovely fonts and captions. It’s where the technical expertise of a subbing team comes into play, because competent encoders will get files down to tiny sizes, whilst retaining high video quality. It’s not as easy as just running a video through a program, there can be a lot of trouble shooting to do and it can be frustrating at times. I personally have very little experience in encoding, so that’s why you always see the same file types (.avi) coming from me, I know nuts about converting other file types.
THAT'S IT. (I think.)
And there you have it! It’s not a comprehensive guide, and I left out Karaoke Timing (a can of worms that I have yet to open because I HATE to time), but hopefully you have a better picture of what goes into a subbed video now. It’s not uncommon for a single subber to spend hours on just one episode of an Arashi show.
“Why do people spend so much for their time making fansubs?” you might ask, “Are you guys so hungry for the adulation that comes from the people who view your subs?
I can’t speak for other subbers; while I certainly don’t mind people appreciating my work, a large part behind my motivation to sub lies in a desire to master the navigation between two languages and make a contribution to fandom. Maybe the whole idea of mastery sounds like an ego trip to you, but the ability to level up a certain skill can be very, very satisfying.