Subtitlng BEFORE editing

Hi guys

Strange question but I hope you can give good advise.

I'm going to edit a documenary in Portuguese.

An assistant will transcribe the whole footage before editing, and ideally I'd like to edit clips that display the subtitles at the same time.

What is the most efficient way to do this ?

Thank you !!

You need the subs burned in, correct? You need to be able to see the words so you can edit accurately? Do the subtitles remain permanently or will they need to be removed later?

Burning in subs is one option. In case you do "blow up" your clips by putting a black 4 by 3 plate behind to the original movie and place the subs into the black bars.
Another option is to create .srt - or similar - subtitle files. Import them into FCP using one of the 3rd apps which supports this kind of conversion. Import all clips as usual open each in editor and paste the matching subtitle file into it. from there work with these kind of compound clips.
For finalizing XML will be your friend.

Anyway FCP is not yet ready yet to make it easy.

- Andreas

Thank you for your great answers.

Good question bogiesan, indeed the subtitles need to be temporary, only for editing. As Andreas suggested I could burn them under the image, then all I have to do is to use a lossless recompression, right ?

If I want to go for .srt, do you have a suggestion for a free software Andreas ?

Thank you guys, very helpful

Hi Manou,

What kind of free app do you mean?
The one for the translator to create the .srt or the one for you to import the .srt into FCP?

For the translator there are several both for Win and Mac just Google a bit.
For you the only free app is my XTI . The reason: I assume that a clip doesn't have more than 50 subtitles - and that's the limit of the free version.
Otherwise there is FinalSRT and Annotation Edit.

- Andreas

I think of two ways to do this:
1) To import your master clips, create your subtitles (as titles or pngs depending on the app you will be using), import them to FCPX. Now select the clip, right click > open in timeline and add the subtitles. So the you will have all your master clips with subtitles during your edit. The only problem I think you could have is if the client ask you to export a clean cut, so you'll have to open each used clip and disable the subtitle for each clip in the timeline. That takes me to the second option...
2) Import your master clips, create your subtitles (as titles or pngs depending on the app you will be using), import them to FCPX. Now create a compound clip for each master file and add the subtitles there. So when the edit is done you can disable the subtitles from each compound clip and they will be disabled in the master timeline also. You do it once and they will propagate on all your timeline clips, in the first option you have to turn them off for each clip in the timeline.

Hope it helps!

About the software to create the subtitles, Belle-Nuit is now free. It creates .PNGs instead of in-app titles (which are faster to edit against PNGs if you spot a mistake).
I can't remember right now, but I think Andreas' software (which I bought ) creates in-app titles.

Canelson,

Both of your replies do have some truth. But ...

Both kinds .srt or the timed .png have to come into FCP. They would be either application titles (generators) or just files.
Only Annotation Edit does support this inside the app.
With XTI you have to use X-Title Render a free utility for X-Title *

The biggest advantage of .pngs is the speed of editing and it's way less memory hungry.
Using generators on the other hand allow text editing during the edit.

As you and me suggested working with compound clips would be way to work within this kind of workflow.
To make this work seamless one should make sure these clips do have their own role. This is important once you have to make a final or intermediate without subtitles.

- Andreas

*) www.spherico.com/filmtools/TitleExchange/XTR/XTR.dmg
X-Title Render allows to convert any subtitle only sequence into a png based XML or STL

So you are saying to add a custom role to the subtitles after importing/creating them so then @Manoucho can disable that role on export if needed? WOW! That's a great idea, I'll have to remember it for the future (I don't work using roles very often). Thanks for the tip!

Recall the OP was asking about efficiency.
1. Translator must transcribe the footage, presumably interviews.
2, Transcriptions must be copied and pasted into a subtitle system
3. Subtitles accurately synced with footage
4. Editing commences
5. Subtitles must be removed
6, Subtitle may be re-inserted for release (but they will probably be need to be redone)

My take on "efficiency" is to have a second sound track that has the translator speaking. Easy to keep in sync and easy to make it go away when it is no longer needed. The translator does not need to type, the transcripts don't need to be turned into subs, the subs don't need to be burned in or rendered and then removed. And the nuances of language are probably more apparent in the vocalizations. Maybe.

But that's about editing efficiently in a foreign language if the editor does not have access to a paper edit or selects made by the producer. If the subs are needed for some release of the finished property, the subs should not be created until the edit is golden. Otherwise you're paying to translate 40 times more material than could ever be used.

I can imagine there are many ways to approach the job of editing a piece in a language the editor does not speak or comprehend ion any way. subs on the wild footage does not seem practical to me.

@Andreas

I was asking about a software for my translator but I will indeed do some googling !

@ Canelson

Thanks for the tip on Belle Nuit !

@ all

To be honest I know it's a bit dirty but I like the idea of Andreas to burn in the subtitles on some black bars below the footage, and to remove or mask that bar for the export. It's going to be rather robust.

If not I find all your answers very interesting and comforting because I see there are so many ways to do this !