Accessible Filmmaking: Integrating translation and accessibility into the filmmaking process, 1st Edition

Description

Translation, accessibility and the viewing experience of foreign, deaf and blind audiences has long been a neglected area of research within film studies. The same applies to the film industry, where current distribution strategies and exhibition platforms severely underestimate the audience that exists for foreign and accessible cinema. Translated and accessible versions are usually produced with limited time, for little remuneration, and traditionally involving zero contact with the creative team. Against this background, this book presents accessible filmmaking as an alternative approach, integrating translation and accessibility into the filmmaking process through collaboration between translators and filmmakers. The book introduces a wide notion of media accessibility and the concepts of the global version, the dubbing effect and subtitling blindness. It presents scientific evidence showing how translation and accessibility can impact on the nature and reception of a film by foreign and sensory-impaired audiences, often changing the film in a way that filmmakers are not always aware of. The book includes clips from the award-winning film Notes on Blindness on the Routledge Translation studies portal (http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/translationstudies/), testimonies from filmmakers who have adopted this approach and a presentation of the accessible filmmaking workflow and a new professional figure: the director of accessibility and translation. This is an essential resource for advanced students and scholars working in film, audiovisual translation and media accessibility, as well as for those (accessible) filmmakers who are not only concerned about their original viewers, but also about those of the foreign and accessible versions of their films, who are often left behind.

See below details.
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By Pablo Romero-Fresco

Publisher: Routledge
Content: 320 pages | 227 B/W Illus.

Paperback: 9781138493018
pub: 2019-05-27
Available for pre-order

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: The end of a long divorce
2. Setting the scene: In support of a wider notion of accessibility, translation and film
3. AVT and Media Accessibility for Filmmakers
4. Integrating translation and accessibility into the filmmaking process
5. Integrating AFM into the filmmaking industry
6. Conclusions

Bibliography
Index

Reviews

“Up-to-date, methodical, insightful, innovative and masterly interdisciplinary, this book extends the frontiers of our discipline and is destined to become a seminal contribution to both Film Studies and Translation Studies. Pablo’s arresting way of communicating ideas confirms his reputation as one of the finest scholars in translation today. A must-read, must-have book!”

Professor Jorge Díaz Cintas, University College London, UK

“This wonderfully wide-ranging and thoroughly researched book demonstrates in fascinating detail the extent to which the use (and too frequent abuse) of subtitles, voice overs and different national dubbing practices continue to significantly mediate our experience of watching films on television and in the cinema. Accessible Filmmaking should be read by every kind of practising filmmaker and critic, as well as by all media studies lecturers, students, international film distributors and TV executives.”

Mike Dibb, Bafta-winning director of Ways of Seeing (1972) and Emmy-winning director of The Miles Davis Story (2001).

“Making films accessible across the world, and to those who have difficulty seeing or hearing, is something we should take seriously. Accessible filmmaking is clearly a very important subject that will give us a lot to think about. This book will make a valuable contribution to this and I wish it well.”

Ken Loach, Film Director

“In a ground- breaking book Pablo Romero-Fresco considers why accessibility has been overlooked in film production. He also convincingly proposes strategies for its integration both in the film-making process and in the discipline of Film Studies. Written in a clear style and covering a wide range of interrelated issues concerning production and reception, this timely, clear and thought-provoking book will be essential reading for practitioners, teachers and students interested in the accessibility of films.”

Peter William Evans, Emeritus Professor of Film Studies, Queen Mary University of London, UK

About the Author

Pablo Romero-Fresco is a Ramón y Cajal researcher at Universidade de Vigo (Spain) and Honorary Professor of Translation and Filmmaking at the University of Roehampton (UK). He is also a filmmaker and the leader of GALMA (Galician Observatory for Media Accessibility).