Itfc Helps More People Enjoy Inglourious Basterds

itfc, a leading London-based media access provider, has provided audio description and subtitling for some of the summer's biggest blockbusters.
The company has just finished working on Inglourious Basterds, the new Quentin Tarantino film starring Brad Pitt, which was released in the UK yesterday.
itfc provided audio description (AD) to ensure that blind or partially sighted people don't miss any part of the story, and subtitling to make it easier for deaf and partially deaf people, as well as foreign language speakers, to follow the dialogue. It took the company a week to prepare subtitles for the 153-minute film.
Characters frequently switch between French, German and English, with a character's life dependent on which language they can understand, so the subtitles had to direct the viewer to the right language at the right time.
Caroline Lomas, DVD Subtitling Coordinator at itfc, said: "The action and body count were Shakespearean in scope. Language plays a key role in the film so it was important to get the dialogue transcription and sound effects just right. Without subtitles, character actions and plot devices would be impossible for deaf or hearing impaired people to follow."
Occasionally, there were no burnt-in subtitles to translate the German dialogue. At these points, itfc added a transcription to 'fill in the blank', even if it was the director's intention to only focus on facial reactions at that point. Lomas explained: "Without subtitles to explain why characters' mouths are moving, deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers would be left wondering what was happening and lose any engagement with the film."
itfc's AD Managing Editor James O'Hara was tasked with describing the film, which involved writing and voicing more than 14,000 words including the burnt-in subtitles and end credits. O'Hara said: "The foreign language subtitles posed a few challenges. I didn't want to confuse the viewer by adding lots of voices to read the translated subtitles so I decided to weave the description around the subtitles and read them myself. This allowed the character's voice to be heard before I read the subtitle so that the viewer would who was speaking."
itfc has also worked with Columbia Pictures, Universal and Paramount to provide audio description and subtitles for other recent films such as Terminator Salvation, Bruno, Public Enemies and Star Trek, ensuring that they are accessible to a wider audience.
Chris Higgs, Managing Director at itfc, said: "It's been fantastic to work on some of the most exciting films of the summer. Many people aren't aware that media access services, particularly audio description, are available - especially in cinemas. It's great that our services allow more people to enjoy these fantastic films on the big screen, and that the number of people using these services continues to grow."
(KMcA)