Subtitles

those lines of script in white at the bottom of any tv show not in malay i.e. chinese dramas, spanish telenovelas, english movies, bollywood movies...to help the less linguistically able follow the actions and speech and plot of the actors on the tv screen.

also a source of amusement, especially when you actually understood the original language and saw some horrible literal translations ...
like 'Api' for 'Fire!'...there are some others, but i cannot remember them at the moment.either that or they're for chinese shows, and i m not sure how to transcribe it here.

always wondered how come the actors would be saying so much and the subtitles would be one line or less. i would wonder if the subtitle people were lazy and not willing to translate the whole lot of it...anyone else ever wondered the same thing? maybe they summarised what the person was saying or it was too hard to translate...

but the best bit about subtitles is reading them aloud...oh glory, it's fun! and the last time i had so much fun was when zahir, harn and i went to a&w and zahir and i read aloud subtitles for the Canto drama at 6 on tv3. i m not sure if people stared, i was having too much fun...the best bit being reading out the subtitles in an unsuitable tone of voice...e.g. a bright and chirpy tone for a scene with gangsters/loan sharks trying to settle something. since it's in malay, it's also fun to adopt the malay patterns of speech into the scene on tv, like making something sound grumpy when it's actually supposed to be affectionate...

i can also read subtitles in a Doraemon like voice i.e. high-pitched with suitable intonation, which i've been told sounds creepy as i have a naturally low-pitched voice. if law doesn't work out, i guess i'll have an alternative job as voiceover actor....:)

subtitles, what would we do without them?