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Enter
the world of fan-subbing, where small communities work together in an
assembly-line of sorts, to produce videos that have English, Portuguese,
Arabic or any other kind of subtitle for movies and TV shows that we –
the fans – could not otherwise watch. These small pockets of society
have their own interests, their own language, their own rules and
culture.
It’s
a mysterious world for any monolingual movie-watcher who has sworn off
foreign films, or for frustrated fans that settle for watching their
favorite K-Pop band or Taiwanese television drama in complete oblivion.
But
as the world gets smaller and entertainment lovers become more globally
aware and connected, fan-subbing may play an important part in our
ability to enjoy music, television and culture on an international
level.
HOW FANSUBBING STARTEDAccording
to Wikipedia, “a fan-sub (short for fan-subtitled) is a version of a
foreign film or foreign television program which has been translated by
fans and subtitled into a language other than that of the original.”
Fansubs
began to surface during the 1980s when Japanese animation (anime)
became a cultural craze. With the limited technology of that decade,
fan-subbing was expensive and difficult to come by. But the turn of the
millennium produced rapid advances in technology and accelerated the
growth of free fansubs.
Following the anime craze, the early 2000s brought with it the Hallyu,
or Korean, wave, most notably the high demand of Korean TV dramas.
With the assistance of YouTube and other video hosting sites, clips of
not only Korean TV dramas, but also Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian
TV dramas spread throughout the world.
Language, however, proved to be a barrier and limited the potential of the Hallyu
wave and other Asian-produced entertainment. That’s where the fans
jumped in. Groups of fans, with little regard for geographic location,
began to ban together and form “subbing teams.”
Why would random fans decide to join together and voluntarily subtitle videos?
“I
wanted to help people read and understand videos,” explains Jonathan
Lee, a timer from Soshi Subs, fan-subbing team for Korean pop girl group
Girls’ Generation.
“If
people do not want to watch [videos] because there are no subtitles,
then I'll take away that reason and provide subs for them,” he says.
THE GROWTH OF FAN-SUBBINGWhat was once limited to anime and the Hallyu wave
eventually spread to other parts of the globe and divided into more
specific niche communities. Pretty soon fan-subbing teams formed to
help fans enjoy everything from Chinese serials to Hong Kong soap operas
to Korean variety shows.
There
are even fan-subbing teams – like Ramen Soup Subs – that specialize in
subbing variety shows. There are even teams who only sub videos related
to a specific artist, such as Soshi Subs and Aff(x)tionate Subs,
focusing solely on Girls’ Generation and f(x), respectively.
Subtitling
is not an easy task and fans often take the hard work of fan-subbers
for granted. Nelson Arciaga, an editor who has been with Soshi Subs for
more than a year, says that his first subbing experience started like a
roller coaster, with many ups and downs.
An
episode of a drama or show goes through five basic steps: translating,
timing, editing, quality checking/encoding, and releasing. And each of
these steps take way more than the 30 minutes or hour it takes to watch a
finished fan-sub; each part of the procedure may take as little as an
hour or as long as a couple of days to perform and complete.
There
are also “terms and conditions” to which people must agree before
downloading the subtitles. For example, many of the soap operas
fan-subbing teams do not allow their subtitles to be hardsubbed, where
the subtitles are a permanent part of the videos. Streaming, public
sharing on other websites (besides their own) and use of subtitles for
commercial purposes is also often forbidden.
These
rules are designed to ensure that everybody has the opportunity to
enjoy the luxury of subtitles for free. They also prevent other people
from taking the fan-subs and claiming credit that belongs to the
volunteers who put in long hours for each project.
However,
many controversies have arisen because of the pervasive presence of
fansubbing. The biggest issue is copyrights. Movies, shows, and music
all have copyright laws protecting them. The question is: does
fan-subtitling violate those laws?
In
order for a fansubbed video to be considered legal, it needs to follow
the copyright laws, which state, “the purpose and character of the use,
including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit
educational purposes.”
The
companies that hire professionals to add subtitles to their movies and
shows claim that putting up free fan subs affect the profit they should
be making from their production. To the general public, fan-subbing is
considered illegal.
Supporters
of fan-subbing maintain, however, that only the distribution of videos
violates the copyright laws. In their eyes, the distribution of fansubs
is actually legal as long as no videos are distributed in the process.
WHY FAN-SUB?Considering
how much time is put into subbing videos, it’s odd that most
fan-subbers say being a part of a fan-subbing team does not cut into
their social lives. It may, on the other hand, cut into their sleeping
hours. Lee says he learned to prioritize things.
“Being
a timer has become almost like a real job, but unlike a real job, I’m
able to take breaks whenever I want to, and put it off until the next
day if needed,” says Cypress Dauz.
“Subbing
has become a part of me,” says Arciaga, “so if I were to stop, I think
that I would feel like a part of me would be missing.”
Another
common factor between these fan-subbers is that many say they enjoy the
new friendships and online communities they’ve built through
fan-subbing. And of course, between staff members and fans, there
exists an invisible thread of trust.
Knowing
that fans trust fan-subbing teams to produce high-quality subtitles and
are eagerly waiting for their released is what motivates fan-subbers
like Arciaga, Dauz and Lee to continue their involvement in the
fan-subbing community, despite the long hours.
“It’s wonderful to hear back, to know that people are watching our hard work,” says Lee.
“The fans,” he says, are what keep him motivated to be a part of such a highly integrated and cooperative team.
“Without
subbers, there would always be that language barrier between us and our
idols and favorite dramas,” Adds Renée, a Korean drama and K-pop fan.
“I probably lost more sleep hours than I did during school,” says Dauz, “but it’s worth it.”
1. Translators have
the most difficult job, listening to every single word on the clip and
interpreting both words and meaning, from one language to another. They
work without the original scripts or the dialogues and have to patiently
listen to them over and over. Plus, there are many instances of
overlapping dialogues and screen texts.
2. Timers match
everything that the translators transcribe with the exact moment they
are spoken or appear in the video, up to the millisecond sometimes.
Dauz, a timer who has been with Soshi Subs for a year, says she puts in
about twenty to forty hours a week to time videos – practically a
part-time or full-time job, depending on which projects she’s working
on.
3. Editors
check for grammar and syntax in the translations. Arciaga only puts in
two to four hours a week editing videos. According to him, his
experience with editing and the Korean language have helped him become
more efficient at his task.
4. Encoders
probably have the most dead weight hours waiting for the videos to
finish encoding. Simply put, it takes a while. The hours that a video
spent at each step may vary, but subbers often work on multiple projects
at a time.
5. Uploaders
have the final task of taking the completed fansubs (videos and
subtitles) and uploading them to various file hosting sites and
releasing the download links to the public.
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