Subtitling Studio Required - Help?
 

Hello, all!

My name is Vega and I am an honours Dramatic Literature student at Brock University. I am searching for a subtitling group to subtitle a video file of a kabuki performance that I will be studying this year for my graduating thesis, and hope that someone here would be willing to accept the challenge.

I have a copy of the script of the play online already, in hiragana (or kanji, I'm not sure which), and available for viewing, which ought to make the subtitling easier - also, it is a stage performance of a very popular anime, "Inu Yasha". The video itself is roughly 2 1/2 hours long, maybe more or less.

The time frame I am looking at is within the next few months. I really need a copy of it before Christmas if possible, and hope that the available script will make it easier for you to subtitle. Your subtitling group will, of course, be awknowledged in the published format of the paper when it's complete.

Please let me know if your group is willing to help me out. Thank you!

--Vega

If you have the script and the film then I can do it for ya....
tho I cannot guarantee (?) the time I get it done...
but I should be able to do it before christmas, if I have the motivation...
^^;

but, ya...
you can send the video and script either in IRC (find either Taimou @ ZiRC or Rizon, or TaMz @ IRCNet or QuakeNet) or thru MSNM (should be a button below) or send to 1gb_box [at] walla.com (does anything even allow that big attachements?)...

- TaMz | Taimou

Kabuki of Inu Yasha...? O_o;

-Tofu

Kabuki of Inu Yasha
 

Tofu-sensei: Yeah, there is a stage performance of Inu Yasha.

It's not technically a "Kabuki" performance in the pre-Meiji era deffinition, but a new-wave "supakabuki". I'm studying it as a part of my graduating thesis paper on how modern kabuki has been westernized, and some modern western performances have been kabuki-ized. Cross-pollination in art goes on everywhere in the world!

From there, once I'm accepted into a Master's Program (Hopefully with Susan J. Napier at her University, the Author for "The Anime Experience",) I'll be able to do a major paper or book on the cross-pollination and history of Manga/Anime and Kabuki.

I'm really excited about it, but only in the way that a super-geek scholar-head like me could be. ^_^

The DVD (Costing $58 US, and no, the DON'T ship to North America) is a recording of a 2002 performance of the play "Inu Yasha" by Masashi Todayama, based on the manga by Takahashi Rumiko. I think it's wonderful, but I need it subtitled to understand everything (my Japanese isn't THAT good yet), and seeing as my Profs speak NO Japanese (well, one does, but that's because that prof is a trained member of a Noh Drama troupe), we all need to be able to know what the heck is being said.

TaMz: I will MSN you immediately and give you the URL of the script. I have decrypted the DVD, but am having some issues with it as I am not a techno-head. I'll send you the files and maybe you'll know what to do with them! Thanks again for the offer - it is very very very very very appreciated. (You're saving my acedemic career, here!!) On top of saving my ass, you'll also be one of the lucky few who actually get to see this DVD in North America! Woot!

--Vega

--Vega

Wow, that's kind of umm... creepy. :D

But wherever you get your motivation from o_O;

Where did you manage to get a japanese script for this thing, might I ask? o_O;

-Tofu

So you're expecting TaMz not to release this when he/she is done with it? Or have you already straightened this out? If you don't want it publicly released, you might want to make that clear, as, well this is a site where people publicly release these such things when they finish translating them.

I for one would like to see it.

Releasing the DVD
 

Tamz and I haven't discussed this issue yet, but when we have, I'll let you know. Even if we decide to to release it, or to release it later, I have a feeling it'll leak out anyway. ^_~

Also, if anyone can help me - I realized that I absolutely have no idea how to rip a DVD. I thought it was as easy as load dvd ripper software, insert disc, hit "go" - apparently not.

I have DLed SmartRipper, DVD-to-AVI and something else and I still can't manage to set it up so it creates a video file of the two main acts of the DVD. Tamz gave me some advice but I couldn't even make that work.

Any help?

As for my wanting to work with Ms. Napier being "creepy" - well, maybe. ^_^ All fans are kinda creepy, though, aren't they?

She's a very intelligent and very kind woman, though, as far as I can tell from her letters, and I hope that she will be willing to work with me. She's starting an Anime Acedemic Journal next year titled "Mechadamia" and I encourage people to read it. As wonderful as anime is, imagine how much more VALID an art form it will become if people study it more closely in a cultural/historical context!

I got a copy of the script from a lovely woman in the States, who in turn bought a copy from a Japanese online auction house. I tried to buy a copy there too, but they never responded to my e-mailes.

--Vega

Help! I need a IY fansub done by x-mas!
 

Hey all!

My name is Vega and I am a university student studying anime. I am in need of some major help - I don't speak Japanese!

I have a copy of the rare Inu Yasha Stage Musical, ripped, and ready to go. I also have the entire script in either hirigana or kanji (I'm not sure which it is) scanned and ready to send to someone as a .zip file.

I really really really would appreciate the help of someone who can put these two elements together and subtitle the whole thing for me!

The stage musical is divided into three "episodes", the first about 1.30 hrs, the second about 1.20hrs and the third about .30hr. There are also three deleted scenes, but those aren't all that important.

What the subtitler would be required to do is merely translate and subtitle what is spoken on the episodes; I will provide the script to help, but if there are descrepincies, then deffinately stick with the audio track as the final version. If possible, I wouldn't mind getting a copy of the teleplay, either.

This musical is being translated for my Dramatic Literature Honors Thesis, whose topic is the relevancy of Anime in relation to Kabuki in the 21st C. This is the kind of stuff that will make Anime a relevant art form in North America, hopefully, so please help me out!

Unfortunately, I really really need these subs by the first of January, so I can prepare for my presentation to the faculty in Febuary with it. I had someone who volunteered to help, but was unable to translate afterall due to personal concerns.

Please, please help me!

Of course, I will allow the work to be posted on the site so everyone can watch it once we're finished.

Get back to me as soon as possible. Thanks! arkaidy@hotmail.com

--Vega

Good luck with that. Just out of curiosity, how does a stage musical make anime a relevant art form in North America, though? Anime may not be mainstream here, but kabuki is downright obscure.

Still interested?
 

Thanks to those who have still shown interest in this thread.

I have the DVD ripped now, and the show is cut into 3 episodes for easier handling.

Tamz and I agreed on releasing the subtitled version sometime after Christmas, depending on how advanced my paper is and what the Japanese society at my school says. It will most deffinately be out by April... IF it gets finished.

Unfortunately, Tamz is finding the translating to be a bit of a workload, as she's still sort of a newbie, so anyone willing to step up and either take over or help her out would be very much appreciated.

Please, please, can someone help us out?

Thanks

--Vega
arkaidy@hotmail.com

If you have that amount of time you could do some of it yourself (learn) and then get someone to help you and look over it :heh:

Um, baby, have you every tried to learn Japanese? You can't learn enough in a couple months to traslate!

Yeah the written script with kanji helps, but it takes a lot of man hours if you know none of the kanji, plus you need to know Japanese implications, direct translations usually won't hold the same meaning in English.

Unfortunately I'm too busy with college coursework, plus my Japanese skill is still rather low, I'll see if I can find some time over Christmas break, maybe I could take a look at it over thanksgiving weekend, I'll have to see how many projects I have.

Japanese and time frames
 

I would love to be able to do the subbing myself - unfortunately, I am a full time university student who is five months away from graduation. No TIME to learn. ^_^ I get an adverage of three hours of sleep a night as it is, and am writing at least ten pages every two days. An essay once a week ...*groan*

Which is why I'm appealing to to people who already know what they're doing.

Yes, I agree, the kanji/hiragana translation fo the script may be tricky, but at least there's the audio track on the DVD rips. That can be translated more easily. The script exists as an aide, only.

I would love to learn the Japanese to be able to do it myself. Unfortunately, my areas of expertise lay in Dramatic Literature and Classical Mythology - no room to LEARN Japanese while at Uni. That's why I'm moving to Fukuoka this coming summer, to learn. So, any and all help is very much appreciated. My Japanese is currently limited to:

"Osuwari!"

"Watashi wa baka gaijin desu."

^_^ (It horrified my Japanese ESL students this summer when they said, "Ah, Sensei, speak Japanese for us," and I'd say that!)

LAatly, the Stage Musical is very much a valid art form. ALL art is valid. This new wave of anime-to-stage theatre is more Popular Culture than High Art, but it deffinately falls under the category of 21st C 'supakabuki', which is a new evolution of westernized kabuki created by ishitaka... something the Third. His name is really long and it's really late right now. Anyway, he's the son of a noble Kabuki Actor's family, and his grandfather was named a Living National Treasure.

Kabuki is by no means obscure! It is the last theatre art form IN THE WORLD were you can watch an ancient, traditional performance in exactly the same manner (costumes, lighting, script, acting style, gesture, make-up, etc) as it was when in it's heyday (about 200 years ago), and in the original theares, too! Tell me, where can you see Shakespeare done with an all male cast on a proper thrust stage in costumes borrowed from the nobility, just like it was done? Just one place - the Globe in London, and they use women, and they make thier own costumes, and it's not the ORIGINAL Globe but a reconstruction.

Kabuki has been performed by the same handful of families, with the same gestures and same stage conventions since about 1690. And it's not DEAD. It may be frozen, but the actors still play to nominally packed houses everyday.

It's only "obscure" in the West because it is "different" and hard to interpret.

And if you don't think Kabuki has had any influence on Western theatre (or Bunraku or Noh, for that matter), may I suggest you read up on each of the three major dramatic forms of Japan, then go watch a performance directed by Peter Brook, one by the Bread and Puppet Theatre, one done in the style of Bertolt Brecht, and then go watch the stage musical of "The Lion King."

If THAT'S not Kabuki, westernized of course, I'll eat all hundred pages of my honours thesis! ^___^

While you're at it, watch at least one episode from pretty much any anime, and find the Kabuki in that. Inu Yasha's oversized sword - Aragato-style weaponry from Kabuki. The colour of his and sess' costume - traditionally heros wore red in Kabuki, and villains blue. The lech monk Miroku - lech monks are very popular in Kabuki. And kabuki is populated with literally hundreds of Kitsune Youkai.

So, *ahem* yes. Sorry for the proffessor-ish rant.

So that's why the "Inu Yasha" stage musical is so important. It's the perfect hybrid of Western and Japanese theatrical traditions. (Plus, I adore Rumiko Takehashi, so that doesn't hurt either!)

Happy reading and subbing, all!

--Vega

I don't really have anything to say about the DVD, but practically anything you put on stage in Japan can fill a theatre; there are just so many people in such small areas compared to the west that even a miniscule percentage of the population interested translates into a large number of people attending.

I dunno about that. Japanese theatre prices and sizes are on par with Broadway ($40-100/ticket, and discounts are nonexistant). You have to chalk a lot of it up to obsessive fans though - supposedly it's impossible to get top seats for Takarazuka (the all female group) because the fan club gets first dibs and buys them all up for every show - and that's for all five concurrently running troupes.

Nobody outdoes the Japanese on fandom overkill. There's an excellent book on Takarazuka (forgot the author's name, too tired to look it up) which spends 2-3 chapters just on the rabidity of the fangirls. I'd like to see a couple of their performances, but while they sell them on DVD, they're prohibitively expensive - around $125 for a disc with no extras.

/needs to hit up people on Winny...

Ok, when I said that kabuki is obscure, I meant it in the sense that your average North American has no clue what it is. I think I may have misinterpreted "relevant" as "accessible".

Kabuki... obscure?
 

*laughs*

Okay, I see. Yeah, I know it is very inaccessable in North America, which is a pity.

I still need help from subtitler if anyone is interested... please let me know!

--Vega

An Inuyasha Kabuki...

That's absolutely freaking terrifying.
No, that's worse than terrifying. That's nightmare inducing. That's a thousand SeraMyu rolled into one death inducing package.


Sure, I'll help.
I know next to nothing about timing and the use of SSA, but I'm probably one of the fansubbing communities more veteran translators by now. If you can get me an avi of the performance and that script, I should be able to give you a translation by Christmas easily enough.

If nothing else, it'll make a fun story to tell.