Subtitling groups, once hailed as the most outstanding cultural exchange messengers in the past fifty years, have made countless Film and Television enthusiasts bend their backs. With the strengthening of copyright protection, the captioning industry is withering away.
In 2017, I joined an American drama subtitling group and witnessed the fall of this Internet species.
1
When I joined the subtitling team, it was just as winter was approaching in this business.
Movies and American dramas accompanied me in my college days, killing countless hours of leisure Time. After watching more, my attention gradually shifted from movies to subtitling groups. Until my senior year, I got hooked on “Game of Thrones”, which was translated by “Closet Subtitles Group They would carefully introduce the identity of the characters at each appearance; whenever the title song played, hundreds of thousands of fans across the country could see the names of the subtitle team members.
In March 2017, on an impulse, I submitted my resume to an American drama subtitling team. They sent me a translation test, which I was required to do in one day, like a written job test. Compared to the English test, these questions were more oral, with various words and phrases, in different ways. At first, I was a bit confused. I was told that I would not be paid, and I had to take a written test after volunteering for the job.
I didn’t realize that the test questions were just a preliminary screening for the subtitling team. After replying to the email, the other party asked me to add the qq of the subtitle team leader, who added me and immediately explained that translators are not paid, but purely generate electricity for love. Then, he sent a translation guideline, which is quite detailed, including the basic principles of translation, process, and software trial guide. The most impressive one is that the subtitle team translation does not require literary skills, but strives to restore the tone of the characters in the drama and try to be as colloquial as possible.
After that is the trial translation. A 15-minute episode was translated in two hours. My trial translation task was the latest episode of the famous American animation “Horse Boy Jack”, which I had watched a long time ago, and the trial translation episode was not yet available online, so I was happy to see it in advance.
It was only when I really came across this job that I figured out the difficulty of translating subtitles. The characters do not speak as stiffly as in the textbook, but politely and politely, and the lines are mixed with a lot of slang, and not according to grammar, and the fancy subordinate clauses make me dizzy. Even in short sentences, you have to figure out what the characters are thinking. For example, the phrase “OK “, translated as “OK “, “OK “”Okay ” and “OK ” all have nuances. It’s like telling a comic relief story and hearing it on stage as “yes “, “hmmm “, “ah There’s a way and a way behind the words.
After two trial translations, I passed the test, officially titled as a trial translator, out of the novice village. The team leader assigned me a director, who is an architect, and took me to translate several American dramas such as “Fallen Street Saga”, “Mindhunter” and “Will and Grace”. To apply the subtitling software, I installed a Microsoft system to my Apple computer.
After that, I deliberately set aside one day a week to sit in front of the computer and work on translations. Doing what I like and not being disturbed by the outside world became the happiest memory of that period.
I learned a long time later that half of the subtitling team, except for students like me, had jobs, and the translations were done secretly during their working hours. Everyone had a clear division of labor. Every Monday before lunch, someone got the resources and original subtitles, someone split the subtitles, someone compiled the list of volunteer translators and distributed the tasks. At 1pm, the translators who signed up received the original film resources (commonly known as raw meat) and original subtitle files in their mailboxes, and by 3pm, the summaries were given to the director.
The director is the proofreader of a drama. Unlike what you might think, proofreaders are the soul of a subtitle team’s translation. They are responsible for checking all the translations, unifying the language style, and simulating the tone of the characters in the drama, all of which require merit and experience.
After the director modifies it, it is handed over to the timeline and pressing, pressing the subtitles and raw meat resources, adding some subtitle special effects, and by five or six o’clock in the evening, the episodes will appear on the platform, along the invisible network, and enter the viewers’ eyes all over the country.
The whole process is done silently by the subtitling team members, who are not paid and use their free time.
Despite their enthusiasm, since their birth, subtitling teams have wandered into the gray area of the law. Members don’t meet offline, they rely on QQ groups and emails to contact each other, they don’t reveal their real names, and the nicknames in the credits are their masks.
This is a hidden jungle of people.
Unfortunately, the golden age of the jungle is long gone.
In September 2017, my subtitle group’s website was banned, and then the domain name was changed, so that it would not be banned again. Although most subtitling groups are not profitable and require members to pay back money to maintain their servers, this does not change the “infringement” nature of translation. This does not change the essence of the “infringement” of translation.
The law states that subtitles are derivatives of the film and TV series, and the right to translate and disseminate them is in the hands of the copyright holder, and subtitling groups have no right to translate them. In order to avoid liability, the subtitling team will write at the beginning of the film: “For personal study and viewing only, please delete after 24 hours of downloading “.
Such a statement is actually a psychological comfort for the subtitling team and is of little use. Putting the film and subtitles online publicly is beyond the scope of personal use. Being reported and banned is a common occurrence for subtitle group websites.
Domestic subtitling groups, which emerged in 2001, have had the Internet spirit of breaking down cultural walls and sharing and communicating since the very beginning. In 2001 and 2002, a group of anime and foreign drama fans formed the first subtitling groups on their own initiative in online forums, and then Xunlei, eDonkey and other downloading software came on the scene, and subtitling groups further flourished.
At this time, subtitling groups were growing wildly, and regulation was not yet aimed at them.
In 2006, the New York Times brought subtitling groups into the public eye with an article titled “Chinese Subtitling Groups Breaking Cultural Shields”. The head of the Wind Soft subtitling group told the New York Times with gusto that his goal was to cover the entire U.S. mainstream television schedule, making Wind Soft the fastest and best subtitling group for American dramas in the world. Fans of the series also told the New York Times that they were tired of the low-quality domestic movies and wanted a change of pace before going to the Internet and watching foreign series in a slightly more sophisticated way.
That year, the U.S. series “Prison Break” was a hit, and subtitling groups entered their heyday.
In 2009, regulations were introduced to prohibit the distribution of domestic and foreign films and TV shows on the Internet without a license, and in December, 111 audiovisual program service websites, including BitTorrent Chinese, were stopped.
In 2014, U.S. production companies filed large-scale lawsuits against unauthorized translations, and the Motion Picture Association of America published a worldwide survey report on audiovisual piracy, listing a number of websites that provided links to pirated film and television downloads, including the largest and most representative RenRen subtitling group in China.
The sword of Damocles, which was hanging overhead, has finally fallen.
The subtitle resource platform Shooter.com announced the shutdown of its website, and RenRen was seized five servers and officially announced the closure of its site. This is just the first setback for the subtitling team,” said Shen Sheng, the webmaster of Shooter.com, “I hope that the value of Shooter.com is to enable more people to cross national boundaries and learn about different cultures around the world. If this site has helped people, I’m already satisfied. “
The era of needing us has left,” Renren said in a Weibo post. “
3
And, the times are not ready to let them go.
Many subtitle groups continue to spring up, including those specializing in translating small, cold art films. A number of film and television resource vloggers emerged on Weibo, exclusive channels to share foreign film dramas.
In 2011, major audiovisual platforms introduced foreign genuine movies and TV dramas in bulk, and the era of copyright quietly arrived, and the living space of subtitling groups increasingly collapsed. The transformation of the film and television resources V, links are disappearing more and more frequently. Until 2017, B Station introduced a large number of Japanese dramas and Japanese fan animation in genuine form, and then took down all the Chinese videos of Japanese dramas uploaded by subtitling groups, including “Unnatural Death”, and many videos on platforms such as Tencent and Akiyoshi were taken down for Many videos on Tencent, Aikiy and other platforms were shelved for “platform copyright reasons”.
In 2019, FatBirdMovie.com shut down, which was described as the event that marked the complete reign of the copyright era. Since then, subtitling groups no longer have their fingers in the production of subtitles for theatrical movies and popular, already-introduced films and dramas, quietly leaving the scene from the public eye and turning into a niche circle.
Across the phone screen, I witnessed the whole event.
On the evening of March 1, 2019, Fat Bird Movie’s webmaster “Xiaosheng “microblogging suddenly issued a fundraising two-dimensional code, the blog post publisher claimed to be Xiaosheng’s girlfriend, saying that Xiaosheng had been arrested, hoping that people would donate to sponsor. At first many people didn’t take it seriously, thinking it was a scam, until later in the day, a microblogger confirmed that Xiaosheng was detained and fined 150,000, and he lost his job as a result.
At 12:00 on March 2, Fat Choo Movie (Xiaosheng’s microblog, which did not use its website name to avoid suspicion) sent out a microblog: “Sorry, I did break the law and violate the copyright, and I myself am well aware of my mistake. Have taken the initiative to admit their illegal behavior. This tweet quickly received thousands of comments and tens of thousands of retweets. No one asked the reason, just said, “It’s good that people are fine! ” “Always thank you very much The actual fact is that you can find a lot of people who have been in the business for a long time.
According to Xiaosheng’s circle of friends, a subtitle group leader, Xiaosheng is a core figure, once said a widely circulated in the resource circle: “People will not find resources, it does not matter, I will help you find the best “.
Xiaosheng respects the subtitling team, marking the names of the production team and the IDs of individual translators very clearly, which is unique in domestic resource sites, and there are many dated and niche films on Fatbird Films. Netizens can even post movies that they want to see but don’t have access to, and Xiao Sheng goes looking for them.
He has a principle that Fatbird.com does not release upcoming or in-theaters movie resources, and the site’s open registration has long been changed to limited registration, but these cannot change the fact of infringement. Due to the very early upload of a cooked meat resources of a popular Oscar movie, which is about to be introduced, the copyright holder reported and Fat Bird shut down.
At 4pm on March 3rd, Xiaosheng’s best friend announced through the subtitling group’s Weibo account that he had completely abandoned the production of subtitles for theatrical films.
This is the end of an era.
4
After Fatbird shut down, I was unable to find suitable channels for downloading movies and videos, so I started to consciously cultivate the habit of paying for the genuine ones, and topped up my membership of two major video platforms, but before long, I went back to buying pirated resources.
Free video resource sites disappeared, and a group of people specializing in selling movies on WeChat emerged, selling a movie for 5 yuan and a season of episodes for 8.88 yuan. Many movies and episodes are not visible on video platforms, and those that are, are inevitably censored, not to mention the mechanical, or even erroneous, translation of subtitles. In order to see the original film, I did not hesitate to spend an extra share of money to see the subtitle group translation. 2017 after graduation work, due to the inability to ensure attendance time, I withdrew from the subtitle group, to April 2019, suddenly thought up, and then go to the QQ, found that the QQ group has disappeared, can not find the master’s contact information. Tap the group leader avatar, found that he has not online for a long time, I sent a message, “Hello, in, I was in the subtitling group before to. “More than a month later went back to see, never heard back. Then I went to search the site and couldn’t find it anymore. The official microblog that used to update resources and tweets every day also disappeared, as if it was completely erased from the timeline and never existed at all. I know that many subtitle groups have tried to transform after experiencing setbacks, cooperating with video platforms and accepting recruitment. 2014, the popular Korean variety show introduced by Akiyay was produced by the Korean drama subtitle group Phoenix Angel. 2019, A station introduced the American hit anime “Rick and Morty”, and after it went online, it was trolled for too many deletions, translation like machine flip, coding heavy, etc., and fans said “Buy the original, it is better to find our own resources “. December 1, A station announced on microblogging and previously has been translated this anime folk subtitle group electric wave reached cooperation, by the electric wave as a consultant to participate in the translation production, to fans to ensure that there was once the taste. The cooperation with the subtitling group has to some extent saved the reputation of this heavily imported anime, and by now, the play volume of Rick and Morty in A station has exceeded 100 million per season, with the first season close to 200 million, bringing huge traffic to the once weakened A station. Cooperation with the platform and accepting the recruitment has made many subtitle groups show symptoms of unconvincing water and land. The most famous example is the closet subtitle group, which specializes in translating the American drama “Game of Thrones”, which has created a boom in China and is inseparable from the closet subtitle group. In 2016, Tencent bought the broadcast rights to Game of Thrones and expressed its willingness to cooperate with the wardrobe subtitling group, but it did not succeed. According to members of the subtitle group, Tencent paid the subtitle group 200 to 300 yuan per episode for translation, which could not match their payment. Not only that, according to the relevant policy, Tencent must wait for the foreign version of the entire season to be released before it can be introduced, and during this waiting period, the subtitle team is required not to put online cooked meat resources. This is inconsistent with the subtitling team’s usual efficiency, and they think “this is irresponsible to the audience. The example of Renren is more straightforward. Before shutting down, Renren’s subtitling group had accumulated millions of fans, and returned in 2015 after receiving an angel round of investment, transforming into an American drama community, which received another round of financing in September of the same year. Two years later, the original team of the subtitling group announced on Weibo that “due to the large differences and constant conflicts with the investor’s philosophy and values “, completely cutting with the App that has been renamed Renren Video. Until this year, many subtitle groups disbanded and only a few still persisted, but their voices are getting smaller and smaller. Copyright era is supposed to be a sign of progress, but the introduction of genuine has not solved the public’s demand for movie watching, the reason for which, I’m afraid, is not as simple as domestic movie fans being unwilling to pay and contribute a cup of milk tea money to the genuine platform every month.
5
I once had a college roommate who, every night, would sit in front of the computer and watch an art film until after the lights were turned off, alone to the bright light of the screen. Looking at him, I sometimes think that if there were no subtitling teams, many fans would not be able to enjoy foreign pop Culture and cold art films.
What does the existence of subtitling groups mean for domestic movie fans?
Dai Jinhua, a professor at Peking University, once said that watching art films was once a privilege of the world’s filmmaking circles, and the existence of pirated resources has allowed many ordinary film fans to enter the hall of fame.
The existence of pirated resources has made it possible for many ordinary movie fans to enter the classroom. Subtitling groups have not only enriched the lives of movie fans, but also nourished many domestic film and television producers. Whenever a hot British or American drama appears, the next day, film and television industry planners, writers and producers discuss it, and if it’s not a subtitling group, where did they see it from? Not to mention that many domestic film and TV companies plan new dramas to benchmark and borrow from these foreign dramas.
I once asked a screenwriter friend if most people in her circle had seen the films translated by subtitling teams, and her answer was yes. There are a lot of people who speak English, but there are many great films in minor languages.
The meaning of the existence of subtitling teams cannot be killed because of the phrase “piracy They are not only translating popular dramas, but also translating the most popular movies. Their translations include not only popular dramas and art films, but also documentaries, online public lectures and foreign talk shows. Behind high walls, subtitling groups have been acting as cultural movers, allowing domestic netizens and foreign netizens to see the world almost simultaneously.
Underground Literature in the Old Regime” specifies that the most important part of the Enlightenment was the “underground society” composed of pirated book dealers, hired literati, street peddlers and smugglers In the country, it was not until 2011 that people were able to find a way to make a difference. In China, it was not until 2011 that people read the genuine introduction of One Hundred Years of Solitude, while as early as the 1980s, Márquez’s literature nourished a group of contemporary writers such as Mo Yan and Yu Hua through handwritten and pirated books.
Yan Feng, a professor of Fudan’s Chinese Department, has evaluated the subtitle group as the fourth translation activity in history that had a great impact on Chinese culture, the first three being the translation of Buddhist scriptures by Xuanzang and Hatamurash; the translation of Western culture represented by Yan Fu and Lin Shu in modern times; and the systematic translation of modern Western humanities and social science works by Sanlian and Shanghai Translation Press after the reform and opening up.
In 2012, a tweet on Sina Weibo was retweeted 26,000 times: “The greatest Chinese educator in cultural communication in the past 50 years – -Captioner. “The New Weekly’s comment on this tweet also received a lot of retweets: They are humble and low-profile, they are selfless, they follow good advice and moisten things, they teach us more than all Chinese TV stations.
In 2014, the tweet was dug up again and received thousands more retweets.
Some called the subtitling team the Promethean “fire-stealers “.
In them, I saw the most valuable spirit of cultural equality in the Internet era. Once, cultural production and dissemination were in the hands of the elite, but now that culture is more populist, subtitling groups have the technology to master film and television resources, translation, timeline, and suppression, but they do not monopolize and make profits, but share them with the public for free. Because there is nothing to worry about, no work for pay, in order to enjoy this freedom.
This year, I persistently searched for the former subtitle group, as if to find a memory of my own.
Looking through the list of group members, I found that many of the translators from that time were still there, and the master’s avatar had not changed. The website has been repeatedly blocked, many people can no longer be found, the subtitle team and fans of the exchange of sharing position, moved to this group of several hundred people. Fans ask questions about the progress and reflect their problems in the group, and the subtitle team members try to answer them, and even create an online document with the subtitle team’s translation plans. It was business as usual.
Subtitling groups are highly mobile organizations, many people leave because of work, Life, etc., and others join because they love it, times change, circumstances change, and there is always this group of people. The golden age has long since ended, but this group of hermits, itself, is not here to occupy any peak.
“Just because I like it and want to share this joy to more people. “
Under the microblog of the announcement of the shutdown of the site by Renren, a Latin phrase “invictus maneo” was left “, this line is from the American drama “Suspect Tracker”, which means “we are still unconquered “.
Reference.
Yangcheng Evening News: Chinese subtitling group, “The Hidden One The “hidden man” of the jungle
The New York Times: Chinese subtitling groups breaking cultural barriers
China Intellectual Property News: How can subtitling groups regulate copyright when everyone’s videos are finally back on the shelves?
WeChat’s “Poisoned Eyes “: “RenRen The Golden Age of Subtitle Teams is a thing of the past?
Sina Technology: Movie resource site “dramatic change “A small subtitle group’s “life and death choice “
Media Watch: Subtitling groups under cross-cultural communication: behind the seemingly infringing and illegal
Movie Review: From “player from “player” to “expert “: The Historical Tracing and Communication Practice of Subtitling Groups in Cross-cultural Context
Jiang Longshen: “We Are Still Unconquered
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