One of the great things about working with Adlabs/Reliance ADAG is that the company is always open, nay, hungry, for new ideas. So when we came to BIG Cinemas with the proposal that we could screen Hindi films that we had mastered with English subtitles, they immediately saw the potential in terms of widening access to new audiences.From Indiantelevision.com:
In a bid to attract the hearing-impaired and non-Hindi speaking audience to its theaters pan India, Reliance ADAG’s theatre chain Big Cinemas is planning to screen the forthcoming movies with English subtitles.If this works out the hope is that all the major Hindi-language films released will have special screenings to benefit 'goras' like myself and non-Hindi speaking Indians, as well as hearing impaired.
To begin with, Big Cinemas will screen the Amir Khan-starrer Ghajini with English subtitles from its second week at digital screens in BIG Cinemas’ Wadala and Metro BIG Cinemas in Mumbai.
“We wanted to expand our audience reach and hence, decided to take up this new initiative. This will ensure that the cinema medium can be enjoyed by a larger number of the public - especially the hearing impaired who could not earlier understand the dialogues,” says Big Cinemas COO Tushar Dhingra.
"The release of Ghajini, being an eagerly awaited film, was an ideal way for us to start offering this facility and will set a trend for future releases,” Dhingra adds.
Adlabs has been subtitling prints that get sent overseas (Ghajini went to no less than 23 countries, including unlikely locations like Norway and New Zealand, on 300+ prints) for many years and we have done some tests in the past, but now this will be an integral part of the Adlabs Digitla Cinema service offering.
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5 comments:
Hi Patrick,
I have a comment and question.
I saw your presentation at the IBC this year and I really liked it. I was amazed by the supersharp/crisp quality of the digital cinema shots you showed.
Since beginning this year I'm a bollywood fan, I'm a dutch guy, no relation (in this life) whatsoever to India.
But after I saw 'Om Shanti Om'
I saw this year more than 50 bollywood movies.
Last night I saw 'Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi'. This was the first bollywood movie I saw in a cinema, really cool, because the great picture quality and sound.
I was happily surprised also by that the movie had 'dutch subtitles' instead of english.
The subtitles/translation was good, but a few times the words where messed up or double.
I don't know why that is or how it's done. But I don't mind to take a look at it to correct it (for free)to raise the standards a bit more for bollywood movies.
Right now I work in the advertising business, but I feel that I'm gonna work in the bollywood movie post industry in the future.
All the best.
The fact is that Bollywood gets hot!
best
leszek
Both Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Ghajini went out on a large number of 35mm film prints across the world, the latter to odd places like Spain and Norway. The subtitles are not always perfect, which I saw for myself when I watched our first digital subtitled film (Sarkar Raj). Glad to hear that we've managed at least one conversion to Bollywood. As a next step I recommend some Tamil/Telugu films. Like Dr Kemal Hasan said, they were Quentin Tarantino before QT started making films. Much faster editing, camera tricks and action than Bollywood 'masala' films. Notably GHAJINI's director comes from the south.
Did you get to see Ghajini?
Oh, subtitles are both a pet peeve and a source of great joy (Harlem substituted for harem still being my favorite). I think most modern Hindi films are doing okay, but the old ones...they need some help. Especially with regards to the songs, when lyrics really really mattered.
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