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  • how to edit foreign language with english subtitles

    Posted by Trevor Ward on March 2, 2009 at 9:09 pm

    I’m working on a documentary with hours of footage in another language. I have the English translations in a word document. I don’t speak that language. I was hoping I could “burn in” the subtitles to the video and then make my edits. I found a plug in that does that but it requires rendering. What would be a good way to do this?

    I thought of one way, but wasn’t sure if I was making this harder than it has to be.

    A. Create a new sequence. Change the start time code of the sequence to match the time code of the master clip of the interview. So if the master clip starts at 00:00:05:12, then my timeline will start at 00:00:05:12.

    B. Drop the master clip into this sequence.

    C. Add my english subtitles using whatever means I think best.

    D. Export the sequence and give it a name like filename_trans.mov. Now I’ve got a clip just like the original, but with the translation “burned in” on the video.

    E. Import this file into my project. This file will have the same time code as the master clip.

    F. Edit the interview the way I want.

    now comes the tricky part. Is this possible?

    G. When the edit is finished and ready to be finalized, can I do some sort of “replace?” Maybe I can make the translated file go Offline. Then I can Reconnect Media to the original master clip and FCP will never know the difference.

    Any thoughts?

    -trevor ward
    Red Eye Film Co.
    http://www.redeyefilmco.com
    orlando, fl

    Trevor Ward replied 17 years, 6 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • Andreas Kiel

    March 3, 2009 at 3:24 pm

    Hi,

    In theory that should work somehow.

    But it will be a PITA.

    If you export your little clip sequences it will take the timecode, but it won’t take the reel. So re-importing those files you manually have to assign the reel for each clip (or in a batch). Otherwise the second reconnect will give you an error on each clip.
    After you’ve done your editing and did replace/reconnect your clips (with correct Reels assigned in the former process) you won’t have both the subtitles and where they belong to and you have to re-assign those again.
    XML could be a solution to figure out which titles are finally used and where, using a going back to the first “clip sequence with title” within a search of all those sequences you hopefully would have saved as XML when using this road of working.

    Andreas

    Spherico
    https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

  • Trevor Ward

    March 3, 2009 at 10:17 pm

    Ok, thank’s. you make a good point about the reel. And also a good point about relinking the subtitles. I’m not too worried about that because the amount of work there is minor compared to the rest of the project. Also, I could create my new subtitles BEFORE (on top of) I unlink and reconnect media. I also think I might “burn in” the timecode as well as the subtitles on the first pass.

    BTW, what’s PITA?

    -trevor ward
    Red Eye Film Co.
    http://www.redeyefilmco.com
    orlando, fl

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