Pauline Cabidoche : "Subtitling is a solution at last for the language diversity issue."
As I’m about to review my 4th Trinidad and Tobago film in the Karukerament podcast, you might be wondering why I haven’t reviewed a Jamaican or a Cuban film. The reason is quite simple. It’s the language barrier. I have yet developed the skills to understand the different accents in the Caribbean, so I rely on English subtitles. With that said, I believe subtitles should be a basic feature in order to make films available even to those who can’t hear. When I watched “Green Days By The River”, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was subtitled in English. That’s why I was a bit disappointed that “Bazodee” was not. This language accessibility is a serious issue to me, so I reached out to a Caribbean expert of the subtitling industry to talk about the challenges the Caribbean industry faces in this field.
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Hello Pauline, it’s such an honour to have you here. Can you introduce yourself to our Karukerament readers ?
Hi! My name is Pauline Cabidoche, aka Yellowsubmachine, and I translate films for a living. To be more specific, I translate the actors' lines and turn them into subtitles or dubbing lines for both cinema and television.
Okay, let me stop you right there and I might do it a few times because I’m not familiar with the subtitling industry. When you say you translate dubbing lines, you mean you translate what the dubbing actors say…
Exactly. Dialogues for dubbing are written on a rhythmo tape in order to have the best lip-sync effect, which is a very French approach to dubbing.
Got it. So back to your introduction. You’re from Guadeloupe just like me, right ?
Indeed. I was born and raised in Guadeloupe F.W.I, and my Caribbean identity is one of my greatest prides.
That’s what I’m talking about! Now, can you tell us what got you into translating for TV and cinema ?
Everyone has a special talent. Mine is the ability to decipher linguistic systems. At the age of 12, I fell in love with a Brazilian film and decided to become one of those unsung heroes that allow people all over the world to fall in love with foreign language films. It has been my beloved profession for 11 years now. After getting a translatology masters degree at the Sorbonne University, I pursued my quest for the perfect job, travelling through Europe and learning new languages. One last year of technical and cinema studies at the University of Nice later, and there I was a professional audiovisual translator. Fresh off college, I got hired by a parisian post production studio to do live subtitling for TV and to manage subtitling projects from all over the world. Corean, Japanese, Serbian, Dutch, Polish...
Wait. How many languages are you totally fluent in ?
I have yet mastered any language. They are too complex systems to claim to be mastered. On the other hand, my working languages -source languages- are Spanish (Cuba, Mexico, Honduras, Panama, Colombia, Santo Domingo, Venezuela, Spain), English (US/UK), Jamaican and Trinidadian patois, Haitian, Martinican, Guyanese, Reunionese and Guadeloupean Creole, Papiamento de Curaçao, Portuguese (Brazil only) and Italian. I can subtitle into Guadeloupean Creole, French, English and Spanish.
I see. So do you still work for a studio ?
I was lucky enough to discover more languages and more film horizons. Diverse enough to want to go back to my very own favorite horizon: Guadeloupe. At some point, I realized it was time for me to focus on the Caribbean culture and its promotion in a new adventure as a freelancer at home. My career became more meaningful as this choice allowed me to work on huge TV programs such as “Lado a Lado” (Brazil, dubbing).
I loved “Lado a Lado” so so much. That means I got to watch Season 1 thanks to your hard work!
(laughs) Well, I also worked on beautiful feature films such as “Sprinter” (Jamaica, subtitling) or “Bazodee” (Trinidad and Tobago, subtitling).
Oh, yes, “Bazodee” ! It’s actually the reason I wanted to interview you as it’s the subject of Episode 11 of my podcast. I watched it with no subtitle which made the experience more demanding for me because I’m not used to the Trinidadian accent. Since it was a contemporary setting, it was still easy to follow along. What’s your take on the importance of subtitling/dubbing to develop the Caribbean cinema industry ?
Our region being perceived as a touristic destination, only our representation through cinema can offer a different perspective to the world. Yet our cinema does exist already; we can think of several Caribbean classics such as “The Harder They Come” or “Sugar Cane Alley”. The reason why they are not world-wide famous (most French people have never heard of them, for instance) is because their distribution has never been massively international. Distributors get cold feet as long as our cinema is concerned because we have way too many different languages in a small area to represent a strong market for film distribution. We are indeed the true Babel. As of today I have studied more than 10 languages and patois, most of them being spoken in the Caribbean or in South America. Each island has their own laws, currency, language... Euro for instance makes us in the French islands very challenging to collaborate with. Subtitling is a solution at last for the language diversity issue. We now have to establish a legal framework regarding copyrights, that would work in the whole region. Also, the scarcity of audiovisual translators in the area is quite intense. A lot of educational work remains to be done regarding the subtitling process.
So can it be considered a professional field that need more people ?
It is a sector that is both confidential and saturated. Every year, the 4 master’s degree programs in France send about a hundred young people to a market where places are rare. It is necessary to succeed in making one's place. In the Caribbean, on the other hand, professionalization is extremely rare and I would love to train future colleagues in the region.
Do you know the state of the market in the English-speaking Caribbean ?
Unfortunately, I have yet to meet a professional audiovisual translator from the English-speaking Caribbean. There are labs in Mexico, for instance, that oursource the work. Otherwise, most of subtitles are done at an amateur level (students, Google translate, etc.). As for my own working process, I regularly call on specialist colleagues, almost always because I always have a proofreader who is a native speaker of the target language. I have therefore created a valuable network of Caribbean translators (who unfortunately are not specialized in audiovisuals).
Speaking of which. What is the overall process of a film subtitling project?
The subtitling process is made of 4 phases. First, the spotting phase consists in defining the in and out of every subtitle, according to very specific rules (minimum and maximum duration, shot changes...). The second phase is the translation itself, made following an acurate transcript. The spotting will define the content of the translation, according to what we call the reading speed : the human eye can only read a certain amount of characters per second. The international standard is 12 ch/s. This is why the viewer can feel frustrated by the difference between what is said and what is translated. We can hear much faster than we can read. After the translation comes the correction phase. I usually take a few days away from the film to get back with a fresher look. Taking some distance helps adjusting the tone and correcting the typos. Last but not least, is the simulation phase. The film is reviewed with someone else (usually the director or producer) under real conditions, and the last modifications are made.
And how does it work for a musical ? For instance, “Bazodee”, how did you do it because songs are important too ?
In the case of “Bazodee”, as it is a musical, I had to spend two weeks singing chutney soca in French behind my screen, counting the meters and adjusting the rhymes. 90 minutes of film equals about 1100 subtitles. The hardest part really is to check every single word, every single comma.
In fansub, it’s common practice to write translator’s notes on the screen to contextualize references. Professional subtitling doesn’t do that. What’s your take on how to contextualize cultural references ?
Fansubs are originally made by people who want to dig deeper into a specific culture. They are very curious and passionate people, hence the « editor's note ». Their goal is to share their passion. On the opposite, the goal for a professional subtitler is to make the viewer unaware that he is reading. Excellence in subtitling is reached when the audience forgets that they're reading and naturally goes with the film's flow.
Are there specific aspects you pay attention to when you translate a Caribbean film ?
Translating our Caribbean features and documentaries is extremely challenging in terms of conceptualisation. Strange enough, most of the words that seem untranslatable have to do with very caribbean concepts such as colorism or carnival terminology, whose importance is very often underestimated by the foreign audience. « KOUTCHA », « LIME » or « DOUGLA » are recurring examples of untranslatable words. But these exist in every language, and it is precisely a translator's job to go beyond that. Our storytelling is something else, too, something quite unique... and I find it very important to translate its specificity to the audience.
What is the uniqueness of our storytelling?
For instance, Caribbean cinema uses often narrators, especially for short films. This is a direct legacy from the storyteller tradition so dear to our culture. It happens so often that it can lead to a new subtitling/dubbing formalism. The way we tell our stories deserves the most faithful transmission.
This is so fascinating. Thank you so much for your insight into the wonderful world of subtitling. Which advice would you give to someone who wants to become an audiovisual translator?
Thank you for this space allocated to a very unknown profession. It is a tough one, though. Netflix and the other mainstream platforms have caused the uberization of the sector, and you really have to rely on the personal relation with the scriptwriters and film authors you know to make a living out of it. But you also can diversify your skills.
What are your upcoming projects ?
I will soon be touring in Paris with a wonderful theater company and their dramatic play in creole « Happy Birthday, Martha » for which I created a french subtitling. You are all welcome to meet us on stage in October. For more details, follow me @_westindeed_
Bonus question: what comes to your mind when you hear/read the word Karukerament?
Karukerament, a mix between Karukera and medicine… The culture, “sé sèl médikaman nou ni” [t/n: it’s our only medicine].