Output details

Malentendu- Cross purpose 1

Malentendu- Cross purpose 2

Malentendu- Cross purpose 3.

Any discussion of the future growth and development of international film must come to terms with the question of cinema as an international language. Therefore the issue of whether to dub or subtitle films has to be addressed. Audiences are averse to attending subtitled films, yet in research carried out by Roberts and Stephen Hay (University of Leeds) focus group participants expressed an emotional rejection of any ‘dubbing’. It is food for thought that we could greatly increase the prospect of facilitating audience reception to dubbing if we sought to create a more visual, less verbally driven, even more cinematic medium.

The strategies for film-makers considered by Roberts and Hay have mainly (but not exclusively) focussed on avoiding shooting sync. dialogue in close-ups. Dramatic close-ups are still usable, but in the case of dialogue, might work best as reaction shots, again pushing the medium towards a less literary, less dialogue dependent, more visually driven narrative form. Our aim, as well as making ‘dubbing’ more palatable for audiences, is to discourage formulaic scene construction and encourage inventive, less predictable mise-en-scene.

Roberts and Hay have run a number of showings/focus groups focussing on this issue over the last decade. The recent ‘Malentendu’ (meaning ‘misunderstanding’ in French) project has built upon this knowledge gained and centred on the following research aims: exploring subtitling and dubbing technique; utilising practice as a research tool; increasing the prospect of facilitating audience reception to dubbing; and creating a more visual, less verbally driven, even more cinematic medium.

The three films (posted on our Vimeo account at the beginning of 2013) exhibit

a) A ‘French language’ short film scripted and shot to enable us to complete c)

b) A ‘traditionally’ subtitled version

c) A dubbed version which aims to illustrate our research aims (above)