Key Consideration #3.
The Language Production Process
When we produce an audio language project, there are specific processes we go through. This section will address what they are and how we determine which production style is right for a particular project. We’ll also show you how the production styles relate to each other’s cost.
Assessment:
• We assess what type of project it is:
• What languages are involved
• How many voice talent are needed and the gender
• What the deliverables are
• What the time-line is for production
The Language Production Process:
• Receive project elements from client / “you”
• Go over the script(s) and make sure all is in good order
• Recording session prep work
• Voice talent assessment and scheduling of recording session
• The audio production recording session: Recording the voice talent, Editing, which includes audio clean up, timing adjustments to match the English voice track, and audio processing
• Mastering & exporting the full audio le for delivery
• Review process
• Delivery to client usually via our secure FTP server
When all of these steps are in good order the production should go smoothly without cost overruns.
Comparison Of General & Relative Recording Times Only:
• Video: 8 minute Narration 1 hour
• Video: 8 minute UN 1.5 hours
• Video: 8 minute Lip Sync (100%) 3.0 Hours
• Video: 8 minute Lip Sync (50%) 2.0 Hours
• Audio Only: 8 minute script 35 minutes
• Video-20 minute Narration 1.5 hour
• Video-20 minute UN 2.5 hours
• Video-20 minute Lip Sync (100%) 7.0 Hours
• Video-20 minute Lip Sync (50%) 5.0 Hours
I apologize for getting a little nerdy in the next section. It's basically for those who would like more information and it's a more detailed description of the chart above.
Production Styles:
Earlier we went over the different foreign language production styles we can incorporate to the get the best outcome. Now we’re going to take a look at how language production time changes relative to the production style.
As I mentioned above, the production style or styles within a project will determine…
• the amount of production time
• the type of adaptation the translation needs
• the production costs
Let’s start with a video project and I’ll use an 8 minute video as our foundation metric for calculation of cost.
Narration Style: Video (Matching Timings Needed)
A video that needs the Narration production style would generally take 1 hour to record an 8 minutes video.
Plus:
• 15-20 minutes for review and audio fixes (if necessary).
• The editing time would be around a 30 minutes
• The Mastering time would be around 10 minutes.
The total amount of studio production time would be around 2 hours.
For comparison, a 20 minutes video using all of the metrics above, would be around 4.0 hours of total production time.
UN / Interpreter Style: Video (Matching Timings Needed)
Let’s take a comparative look at the time involved with an 8 minute video that needs the UN Style.
A video that needs the “UN” production style would generally take 1.5 hours to record an 8 minute video.
Plus:
• A 1/2 hour for reviews and audio fixes if necessary.
• The editing time would be around 1/2 hour
• The Mastering would be around 20-30 minutes
This makes the total amount of studio production time somewhere around 3 hours.
For comparison, a 20 minutes video using all of the metrics above, would be around 4.5 hours of total production time.
Lip Sync Style: Video (Matching Timings Needed)
Let’s take a comparative look at the time involved with an 8 minute video that needs the Lip Sync Style. A video that needs the “Lip Sync” production style and it has a presenter on camera 100% of the time, would generally take 3.0 hours to record an 8 minute video.
Plus:
• A 1/2 hour for reviews and audio fixes if necessary.
• The editing time would be around would be around 1 hour
• The Mastering would be around 20-30 minutes.
The total amount of studio production time around 5 hours.
For comparison, using all of the metrics above, the total amount of studio production time for a 20 minutes video would be around 7 hours.
One thing to note here is that any project video could have a
"single production style" or any combination of "all production styles".
Lip Sync
Here is an example of a Lip Sync video with multiple production styles and how that would compare to the 100% style we just covered.
Let’s take an 8 minute video that had 50% narration and 50% Lip Sync. So half the video has a simple narration and the other half has people “on camera”. The narration of 50% would take around 1.5 hours to record. The Lip Sync 50% would take around 3.75 hours to record.
Plus:
• A 1/2 hour for reviews and audio fixes if necessary
• The editing time would be around would be around 1 hour
• The Mastering would be around 20-30 minutes
This makes the total amount of studio time somewhere around 5.0 hours.
The cost of the same video with a 50% Lip Sync is now around 40% lower.
Audio Only Style: (No Matching of Timings Needed)
I have one more example for you and that is the style for a Simple Audio Only file. This is the easiest and fastest because there are not any timing restrictions.
Let’s take the same 8 minute video length as a reference.
A moderate pace would have a person speaking somewhere around 150 words per minute. So our 8 minute script would be around 1200 words. Our average, language voice talent read around 2000 +/- words per hour. That would make this recording session around 35 minutes to record.
For comparison, a 20 minute script would have around 3000 words. This recording session would take around 1.5 hours to record.
E-Learning
E-Learning is usually a combination of Audio only and Video.
Audio occupies the majority of these types of projects but there are times where we’ve seen a lot of videos as well. The video portion of the project would have the same metrics applied to the Video styles we just covered above.
The editing costs however are a bit higher due to the fact that E-learning can have hundreds if not thousands of individually named audio files. Each file requires a unique name in order for the E-learning program to run correctly.
Case in point: We’ve produced quite a few Spanish E-learning projects for McDonalds that literally had over 20,000 uniquely named audio files per module. The process of adding the unique names to each audio file takes time and is an extra step of the editing process. It’s imperative that attention to detail is employed otherwise the ripple effect of mis-matching the file names to the audio files can lead to big issues.
The third component of E-Learning that we are often asked to provide would be editing of the video on-screen text graphics and any other text screens in the E-Learning course.
And lastly, we have experience with replacing the English files with the new target language(s) to the various e-learning softwares mentioned earlier. Such at Articulate, Captiva etc.
I do hope this gives you a little insight on the processes we do and how the different language production styles compare.
So how would you decide which production style to use?
Narration style for video (Matching Timings Needed)
We mentioned in Key Consideration #1 that the Narration style does not have anyone on camera. So anytime there is a video with just images and text, this is the only style we would use.
Audio Only and Power Point Projects
Since there are not any timing restrictions with these types of project we simply record the audio.
UN and Lip Sync Videos:
This is where the real strategy starts. People on camera.
For a video where you have people on-camera, you could use UN or Lip Sync; they both work well. The decision usually comes down to which style the client likes and more importantly what kind of budget they have. 100% Lip Sync vs UN style, for the same 20 minute video, is almost 50% more expensive. This is why, from the client’s perspective, Lip Sync is the least favorite option by far. There are however, clients that prefer to have their top management use the Lip Sync style.
That being said, there are certain situations where Lip Sync is a necessity. In this case, a combination of styles would make sense. What we strive to do is give your client the perfect balance of styles needed for a high quality production while saving them money at the same time.
In this example, you have an on-camera presenter and you also have sections that contain on-camera actors playing out a scene or vignette. A Training video would be a perfect example. There is a presenter and people working together in a restaurant. There are multiple people having conversations about the job they are doing. For this we would use the UN style for the presenter and the Lip Sync style for the vignettes.
The reason why we would use Lip Sync for the vignettes is that if you remember... UN style has the English starting first and then the target language comes in a second or two later. With vignettes like these, the dialog can have quick verbal exchanges between people. There isn’t enough time to establish the English and then bring in the target language. In addition, you would also double the amount of voices talking at the same time causing confusion. This just isn’t an option. So for re-enactment of scenes, Lip Sync is the only way to go.
FYI: We have a web page that contains video examples of everything we’ve talked about in the e-book. If you would like to see them please send me an email and I’ll send you the password to access the videos.
CLICK HERE TO SEND AN EMAIL TO ME
Key Consideration #3 Take Away:
Understanding what production style are needed can help control cost for your client. Matching the translation style to the production style will provide a smooth and successful project.
