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CORRECTIONS
I do suffer from a
poison induced neurotransmitter disorder, that causes certain
types of errors when writing, but I'm usually able to catch most
of them on my editing run-throughs, but not all. This is semi-individual
to me, but not entirely....
There seems to also
be a function of the brain that seems to be rather universal
to humans and therefore to most all subtitlers. And subtitlers
are not the only ones that suffer from this quirk. Programmers
have said to me that they too suffer from this natural function
of the brain....
It can only be described
this way....
The brain will shut
down on what it's looking at once it's seen it thoroughly once
or twice.
How it works is this...
The subber/programmer
will only THINK that he's looking at the dialog word for word
after working on it repeatedly...but he's most likely not!
The brain seems to memorize what's supposed to be there! It's
very much like the it shuts down the part of itself that is excited
and notices everything, and begins to rely on some other function
of itself. It ISN'T a choice to be that way, but an unconcious
one!
Our first hints of this phenomenon
was that...
Over and over, Bruce,
with his brilliant mind, could not catch his own errors; even
when he was looking straight at them OVER and OVER! Then I'd
just walk by the room and glance at the screen at a quick glance
and see them RIGHT AWAY.
I had the same problem!!
If Bruce saw the work fresh, he could catch mine in the same
way that I could for his!
This told us that
it's not from lack of education or intelligence that we don't
catch them, but that it is a mechanizm of mind that it will shut
down and stop seeing what's in front of it.
Other subbers that
we've talked to have claimed to have experienced the inability
to SEE their errors...even ones right in front of their faces.
How to handle THAT
problem....
The point is is that
if a subber becomes blinded by the redundancy of their own work,
they need others to go over the work.
Picking Proofers
Intelligence not a
deciding factor for a good proofer on it's own. Why? Because
there are people who's minds will automatically compensate for
what should be on the screen. In watching people
watch these works in the pre-master stage, I saw intelligent
people, who cannot see errors because their minds will compensate
for the error and will actually automatically cause them to read
it as it was INTENDED and NOT as it actually IS written! And
there are others who's minds won't compensate for much of anything!
It's a fascinating
study to take a small group of people and test how people's minds
function when they're checking for errors on video.
Out preference would
be now, if we were still subtitlers, to have our second daughter
and our daughter-in-law as checkers for errors. These two seem
to be the best we have available at catching the typos and other
errors.
Our daughter-in-law,
in particular, has a mind that never compensates when watching
the dialog on the screen.
It's wise to have
more that one proofer, and these should not be
watching the work at the same time. Our Number 2 daughter, Colleen
is a good proofer, but she will miss some things. Heidi, our
daughter-in-law is one of the best proofers I've ever seen...something
like a hound dog with her nose to the ground on the hunt. But
even Heidi can miss things occasionally. And, I've seen cases,
where I'll find something myself, that both missed.
It's always best to
have proofer who hasn't seen the work in advance, so that the
mind doesn't shut down, so it's excited and still alert.
Though we didn't have
proofers for most of our subtitling it's something that I would
recommend..providing the chosen persons are DIPLOMATIC. Writing
scripts can be a little like putting your soul on display. (^_^) |
