New ask Hacker News story: Avatar IMAX 3D re-release: subtitles are messed up
Avatar IMAX 3D re-release: subtitles are messed up
2 by vivegi | 0 comments on Hacker News.
The highly expected James Cameron sequel to the very successful film Avatar (2009) is releasing later this year. The 2009 version was re-released in IMAX 3D version recently (here in India), presumably to capitalize on the hype for the sequel and to re-introduce the film to new audiences. It ran to packed houses. I had watched the film in 2009 but not in 3D. So, I watched the IMAX 3D version this week. The film is great in IMAX 3D. However, I had a couple of issues. The film released with English subtitles (quite common in India) and whoever did the postproduction/processing for the subtitles screwed up. 1. The subtitles were placed almost 1/3rd from the bottom (presumably because they were lazy with doing one pass for both IMAX 3D and regular 3D versions). This was annoying. 2. The subtitles also moved around a lot. Part of it, I guess, was due to the 3D perspective and the subtitle text seemed to jump forward and backward on the z-axis. This was more than annoying, it was disorienting. The part that sucked was the film had English translations for the Na'vi dialogues (burned into the frame with the Avatar typeface). They were perfect and did not have the distortions on the overlaid English subtitles. So, I am wondering why the postproduction/subtitling team couldn't have gone the extra effort to ensure a better quality output. If any industry folks are reading this, please please please, take care of this in your films. Thank you! ps: I don't have a problem with subtitles per se although I prefer films without them. The issue I have is with not taking into account the interplay of subtitle placement in a 3D frame.
2 by vivegi | 0 comments on Hacker News.
The highly expected James Cameron sequel to the very successful film Avatar (2009) is releasing later this year. The 2009 version was re-released in IMAX 3D version recently (here in India), presumably to capitalize on the hype for the sequel and to re-introduce the film to new audiences. It ran to packed houses. I had watched the film in 2009 but not in 3D. So, I watched the IMAX 3D version this week. The film is great in IMAX 3D. However, I had a couple of issues. The film released with English subtitles (quite common in India) and whoever did the postproduction/processing for the subtitles screwed up. 1. The subtitles were placed almost 1/3rd from the bottom (presumably because they were lazy with doing one pass for both IMAX 3D and regular 3D versions). This was annoying. 2. The subtitles also moved around a lot. Part of it, I guess, was due to the 3D perspective and the subtitle text seemed to jump forward and backward on the z-axis. This was more than annoying, it was disorienting. The part that sucked was the film had English translations for the Na'vi dialogues (burned into the frame with the Avatar typeface). They were perfect and did not have the distortions on the overlaid English subtitles. So, I am wondering why the postproduction/subtitling team couldn't have gone the extra effort to ensure a better quality output. If any industry folks are reading this, please please please, take care of this in your films. Thank you! ps: I don't have a problem with subtitles per se although I prefer films without them. The issue I have is with not taking into account the interplay of subtitle placement in a 3D frame.
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