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The Supergiant discussion today reminded me of a talk given at ATA 2019 by the AVD's distinguished speaker, Pablo Romero-Fresco:
The top-grossing films of all time made 50% of their profits in foreign markets, but spent less than 0.1% of their budgets on localization.
The top-grossing films of all time made 50% of their profits in foreign markets, but spent less than 0.1% of their budgets on localization.
(Thread source: Accessible Filmmaking: Integrating Translation into Film Production, presented at the American Translator's Association 2019 conference in Palm Springs, CA by the Audiovisual Division's distinguished speaker) https://www.atanet.org/conf/2019/sessions/
The divorce between entertainment production (be it games, movies, TV, etc.) and the localization of their products (be it subs, dubs, or game loc) is nothing new, sadly. Most producers and directors will never experience their work localized, both before and after it's released.
Romero-Fresco drew attention to this with an apt point: imagine a movie director outsourcing the special effects for their film and never evaluating its quality, either personally or with professionals.
It sounds like a ridiculous comparison, but it makes sense--especially when the quality of a translation has been proven, time and time again, to influence foreign gross.
A good translation gets consumers talking. It makes them excited about your work of art.
A bad translation does just the opposite--just like bad special effects would.
A bad translation does just the opposite--just like bad special effects would.
The entire 2019 talk is absolutely fascinating, but my favorite part is the discussion about how subtitles can drastically affect the visual impact of a film.
It makes sense when you think about it: you're slapping a visual element on top of the director and cinematographer's carefully crafted image, one that will immediately draw the viewer's eye first.
Subtitle blindness is another similar issue, wherein viewers are too occupied reading a long or difficult subtitle to catch important visual elements on screen. Here's a great video (on Romero-Fresco's channel!) that illustrates it visually:
During the talk, Romero-Fresco mentioned that when he'd spoken to creatives and directors about these issues, they took it more seriously. Once they understood how loc affected their art, they began taking steps to ensure that 50% of their viewers wouldn't get a 'worse' version.
tl;dr If you care about the artistic integrity of your work of art, you should care a lot about its localization.
If you don't, or consider localization to be the least important of your problems, then your art will suffer, and so, too, will your profits.
If you don't, or consider localization to be the least important of your problems, then your art will suffer, and so, too, will your profits.
I'd highly recommend checking out more of Pablo Romero-Fresco's written works if you're at all interested in this type of stuff! This website covers most of his talk, and includes discussion on inclusivity for D/HOH and VI viewers: https://accessiblefilmmaking.wordpress.com/
And here's a full list of his publications: http://galmaobservatory.webs.uvigo.es/member/pablo-romero-fresco/