Chapter 31 | Accessible Filmmaking: Translation and Accessibility from Production

 

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Publication date: 13 September 2018
Copyright date 2019
Hardback ISBN: 9781138859524
E-book ISBN 9781315717166
You can order this volume on the Routledge website

 

 

 

 

 

Despite a greatly increased volume of research over the past decade, AVT and media accessibility and its main services (dubbing, subtitling, SDH and AD for blind and partially sighted people) are still an afterthought in the filmmaking process. This results in a lack of investment in this area and a worrying decrease in quality and working conditions.

This chapter focuses on the notion of accessible filmmaking as a way to tackle this problem by integrating AVT and accessibility during the filmmaking process through collaboration between filmmakers and translators. Firstly, a historical account is provided of the origins and background of accessible filmmaking, from the silent film era and the multiple-language versions to the current invisibility of translation and accessibility in the film industry. This is followed by a section on research in this area, both from the point of view of (ethnographic) film and from AVT studies, with special emphasis on eye-tracking-based reception studies. The chapter concludes with a section on how accessible filmmaking is being implemented in training and professional practice at an international level as well as with a set of final conclusions.

 

 

Pablo Romero-Fresco is a Ramón y Cajal grant holder at Universidade de Vigo (Spain) and Honorary Professor of Translation and Filmmaking at the University of Roehampton (UK). He is the author of the books Subtitling through Speech Recognition: Respeaking (Routledge) and Accessible Filmmaking (Routledge) and leader of the research centre GALMA (Galician Observatory for Media Accessibility), for which he is coordinating the EU-funded projects Media Accessibility Platform and ILSA (Interlingual Live Subtitling for Access).

 

 

The Routledge Handbook of Audiovisual Translation Studies provides an authoritative and straightforward overview of the field through thirty-two specially commissioned chapters written by leading scholars in the field.

This state-of-the-art reference work is divided in four sections. The first part focuses on established and emerging audiovisual translation modalities, explores the changing contexts in which they have been and continue to be used, and examine how cultural and technological changes are directing their future trajectories. The second part explores the interface between audiovisual translation and a range of theoretical models that have proved particularly productive in steering research in audiovisual translation studies. Some of these models are associated with disciplines that have long intersected with audiovisual translation, while others are drawn from areas of knowledge that are only now beginning to make their presence felt in the audiovisual translation literature. The third part surveys a range of methodological approaches supporting traditional and innovative ways of interrogating audiovisual translation data. The final part addresses a range of themes pertaining to the place of audiovisual translation in society: these include the institutionalization, academization and technologization of audiovisual translation, as well as its role as a force for social change, both within and outside the industry. This Handbook gives audiovisual translation studies the voice it needs to make its presence felt within the Humanities research landscape.

 

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