Tele Talk - Part 5

I think I have vaguely lost the plot with this one but I will include it anyway, as, well, you know.  It’s my blog and I want to whinge and moan.  I just want to. 

5. And now, coming to you from across The Pond…

This is not a complaint about American tele - although I have seen some series that never made it to release in the UK, and could probably come up with numerous decent reasons as to why - it is a complaint about dubbing.

More specifically, bad dubbing.  Oh, and subtitling.  Again.  Bad. 

We often watch these programmes in their original forma and have the Spanish subtitles on.  As my knowledge of Spanish has increased, so has my realisation that the people who actually write the subtitles clearly have not got the faintest clue what the story is about or the humour.  I mean, a lot of what the write doesn’t bear even a passing resemblance to what is said.  I am talking about tone here, not the actual words.  Everyone knows that a language has it’s own way of communicating something.  But. It’s the tone that is wrong.  Sometimes though, it can even be basic facts born of incomprehension of pretty basic English.  Or, I suppose of not hearing what they have said properly.  Either way.  It isn’t the same programme when they get it wrong.  

The above can be said for dubbing.  

They dub a lot here.  Everything that is aired in that was originally in any other language is dubbed rather than subtitled.  It is normal here.  The people see nothing strange in it.  They are used to it.  Spain is one of the only Spanish-speaking countries to bother with dubbing at all.  Most Latin American countries just air the programmes with subtitles.  

Oh, and the voices?  Well, the voices don’t resemble to original voices in any way.  Karen from ‘Will & Grace’ is an example of a character whose voice belies, well, her character but also defines it.  Here she talks normally.  It takes away from the humour of the characterisation.  Homer doesn’t have the same voice, he doesn’t even say ‘d’oh’.  Homer without d’oh.  I’m sorry, what?  

It’s all well and good to say that something doesn’t translate well so they have changed it, but, in that case, don’t air it.  Or don’t dub it.  Just air it as is with subtitles.  Those who get it, get it.  Those who don’t don’t.  

Dubbing also has the added irritation of just being really counter-intuitive.  At least for me.  It’s the mouths moving but the words not matching thing.  There are also times when the mouths have stopped moving and we are looking at someone else but the original person is still talking.  It’s just weird.  

Thank feck for that, I have finished.  I promise, my next blogs will be a more reasonable length and may actually be interesting...although I make no promises about the interesting part!

Tele Talk - Part 4

Beware.  I have lost impetus BUT I have completed points 4 and 5 of my enormously long winded whinge.  Final part of large whining session that I have broken into separate long whiney chunks is about to continue.  Part 4 people.  Only one to go after this. 

We. Can. Make it! 

4. It’s all in the timing

Scheduling.  

I am well aware that here in Spain people keep different hours.  They eat later, stay up later and generally avoid the hot hot hot midday period.  People do however have jobs, most of which start at 8 or 9 and finish at 3 or 7.30 depending on lunch break time allowance and stuff like that.  So, people do actually have to wake up and go to work during the week.  Right, so, could someone explain the wisdom of airing a film that starts at 10pm and can run til 2am with ad breaks midweek?  Do people actually stay up to watch these things?  Clearly they do or they wouldn’t do it.  One show actually closes with a song which is meant for the kids (‘vete a dormir’ – go to bed).  The show closes at 10.15pm by which time most kids in the UK would be long in the arms of Morphius, with any luck anyway.

Actually, it is not so much the late timing of these things it is the fact that the published schedule bears no real resemblance to the times the programmes actually air.  

They always start late.  

Here I come back to point 3.  They start late because of the ad breaks overrunning.  They finish late because of the 20 minute long ad breaks that are inserted unceremoniously every 20 minutes. 

In short, everything starts and finishes later here, by accident or design.  

So, the pIanned schedule is generally later here.  You have to work tomorrow but don’t want to miss the film scheduled for late tonight so; you set your Canal+ (Spanish Sky+) to grab.  It grabs the timeslot as ordered and….you end up with 20 minutes of ads at the beginning and miss the final 20 minutes of the film, which is, let’s face it, when it becomes worth watching.   It would be absolutely certain to happen.

I would be annoyed.  Lucky for me there is nothing worth recording that I can’t watch via some other means.

Phew, that’s a relief.

Tele Talk - part 3

Hurrah, two posts two days in a row!  How do you like them apples??  

What the f*ck am I talking about?

3. Taking a break

Ad breaks.  We all know what they are for.  They are a quick break to allow us to do any of the following: 1) Make a cuppa 2) rush to the loo 3) channel surf.  You have nice little announcements at the beginning an end, giving you due warning that you have 20 seconds to get back infront of the box.  On some channels you get an extra few seconds as the sponsors put on some announcements.  

Not so here chaps.  

Ad breaks here begin completely unannounced and usually in the middle of the action.  I watched Bad Boys 2 a while ago (not a great film, but, you know, it was on) and, I kid you not, an ad for Activia began slap bang in the middle of an explosion.  Granted in this case the film is basically formed of one long sequence of explosions but this was a good sequence.  I seem to recall a car chase, a speed boat veering off a trailer and careering along a freeway…and something about Activia reducing bloating.  

That which begins unannounced ends unannounced.  Need I say more?  The film begins where it left off but without the slightest sign that this is about to happen.  It can be disconcerting.  ‘That forever-stay lipgloss looks good…oh, is that someone’s arm flying across the screen?  Does lipgloss do that?  Wait?  What?’

The confusion of the recommencement of programming is compounded by the fact that many ad breaks in the evening can last as long as 20-30 minutes.  This is absolutely true.  I only wish I was joking.  By the time the film (or whatever) restarts you have forgotten entirely what you were watching.

This said, some channels do restrict their ad breaks to 5 minutes and do announce them BUT, I have found that this happens mainly during the early evening programming and also ups the frequency of the breaks.  Basically, you should view the shows as an interruption to the advertising.

Oh, in case you are wondering, yes, the state-funded channels also have ads.  

Cue switch over to the beeb (no adverts – Hurrah!)

Tele Talk - part 2

You thought I would forget.  Well, I haven’t.  Yet.  

2. Balancing act

One thing that came as a surprise to me, naïve little libertarian that I am, was that the main TV channels (we are talking about the Spanish equivalent of the BBC here, not just some random channel that no one watches) are state funded.  As in, funded by the Government.  As you can imagine, this is not really all that conducive to balanced and unbiased broadcasting.  If there is a change of governing party (right to left or vice versa) the spin (I will use that term because, lets be honest, that is what it is) of a certain news topic can change direction so fast it’ll give you whiplash.  Someone who yesterday was persona non gracia suddenly becomes the flavour of the month. This also works the other way round.  Evil to good, good to evil.

As a result, I watch news coverage on TVE with a pinch of salt, change channels and compare it to other news coverage on other commercially funded channels.  Then, just for fun, I watch the British news coverage and compare.  I may have too much free time but it is interesting to see how the coverage can really diverge, even between Spanish channels.  

Not that I give more credence to the commercially funded channels either, it is just an interesting comparative exercise.  Neither am I saying that the UK news coverage is always the best or unbiased, no way.  For me, all news reporting should be viewed through the prism of scepticism; what is the story, who will benefit, why break it now, what other ‘smaller’ news stories are being obscured? Etc etc.  

Funnily enough, the tendency to bias I have noted here doesn’t just apply to state-funded TV, or to the news.  Coverage here generally has a bias of some sort or another, explicit or implicit.  Funding affects everything.  Commercial channels would NEVER be able to air (let alone produce) programmes like Top Gear or Watchdog, their commercial ad-space-buying funders just would not allow it.  If they did, you could bet that the car company that spent the most on advertising with the network would have produced the Car of the Year for whichever channel made the show.  

And do not get me started on the Grand Prix coverage.  I think that here the only person who actually races, is Alonso.  The main commentator happens to be rather a good buddy of Señor Alonso, which adds wonderfully to the balanced nature of the broadcasting.  At least an hour is spent on Alonso’s qualifying times, his car, any changes and possibly, what his haircut is like this week and how many times he sneezed on Monday.  Then there is the pesky interference of a couple of hours of racing, in which Alonso comes, well nowhere actually but his every move is scrutinized and breathtaking in its perfection.  After this there will be another 30 minutes of interviewing Alonso along with details of his finishing position and what he will have for dinner.  There is then a 30 second mention of the winner, unless it is Hamilton.  If that should occur, apparently, nobody won. Or nobody worth mentioning anyway. 

It could be worse though, it could be Italy. 

p.s. If you don’t know what I am talking about check out Berlusconi’s media holdings and you’ll work it out.