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bricolage \bree-koh-LAHZH; brih-\, noun: -a dump site for anything at hand, in mind-

Friday, September 01, 2006

90s

melrose place menHa! Remember these? I was a TV series translator back in mid 90s.

There were around 20 people who work in shift to translate English-speaking TV series into "Bahasa Indonesia".

"Melrose Place" was a huge hit in mid 90s after "Beverly Hill 90210" became #1 in global TV ratings in early 90s (or was it mid 90s.. I forgot).

So, the TV station where I work bought the series and got it translated.

Wonder how those movie subtitle appear on your TV screen? It was done manually.. hell yes!

A movie so-called "subtitler" has to finish a 30 mins situation comedy or other short movie in one day work (eight hours), and a 60 mins movie or series should be done in two days work (16 hours). Different movie genres are divided to those 20 subtitler in my line of work.

Each person has his/her own specialty. A friend of mine was really into drama, a couple of others have perfect ear and listening abilities plus some experience of living in an English speaking country; so movies without written script from the distributor fell into their lap. Another friend was a son of a NAVY commander or so and it made all war movies his daily bread.

Our supervisor made sure that each person got to translate different genre of movies to improve translation skills. In mid 90s, when "MP" aka "Melrose Place" globalized, everybody lined up to translate it. Simply because they loved it.

melrose womenAs for me, who was more into "X-Files" (remember.. spooky Mulder with sexy lips :> ), "MP" was a nightmare.. A full 120 minutes of bad dream since I had to translate two continuing episodes at once.

Guess how long did it take me to translate those 120 minutes of "chick series"? Freaking 2 weeks!!!! W#$(%*#@(_^*@%

The "two weeks labor" somehow paid off as the day after my episodes were aired, everybody at college started to befriends me and phisically notice my existence..

Silly nineties!



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Photo courtesy of Google.com

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6 Comments:

Blogger Makji Esah said...

love your blog.Found it when I was bloghopping.

Sat Sep 02, 12:31:00 AM 2006

 
Blogger Village of Coconut Grove said...

Interesting stuff abou your work.

Tue Sep 05, 01:55:00 AM 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hahahha.. mosok sih dit? but you've always been "extraordinary", speaking at least two foreign languages (english and french, rite?) and if i'm not mistaken u were the ibu lurah for indo-canadian youth exchange, ya kan, ya kan? *winks*

iya ya, apa kabar tuh para pemeran MP? marcia cross has made a successful "comeback" in desperate housewives... but where are the others?

Tue Sep 05, 09:58:00 PM 2006

 
Blogger Radite said...

well, the french thingy is a bit behind. I chose the wrong "donor" country to work with. Should have gone with the European ones *grins*

But, "Melrose Place" indeed help my college-level popularity :P

Thu Sep 07, 05:28:00 PM 2006

 
Blogger Unknown said...

Bldy hell..I lurve Melrose Place especially Doug Savant!!! :)

Fri Sep 08, 03:00:00 AM 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

MP, hmm enak ditonton ga enak diterjemahin. ngerjainnya butuh tiga hari penuh konsentrasi, soalnya cerewet abis dan susah ngompresnya! cuma cocok buat yang "kupingnya" canggih kaya dirimu, Dit

Mon Dec 24, 10:07:00 AM 2007

 

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