Special effects

As mentioned above, the film stands out because of the special effects of the subtitles. Temporal considerations aside, about 30 percent of them deviate from conventional subtitling practice in some way, notably in terms of layout.

The subtitles that deviate from the Code of Good Subtitling Practice fall into two categories: (i) those that have a diegetic function and underline the content of the story and (ii) those that have a purely stylistic purpose.

Diegetic Subtitle Design

The subtitles designed to accentuate certain diegetic elements in the film are easily recognisable, as they are clearly related to the plot. One prime example is a subtitle design that is related to one particular recurring aspect of the story and appears in the very same way every time. A vampire lures people to her, particularly a young boy, through a whispering voice that only the victim and the audience can hear. This voice is always subtitled in red and the subtitles take on the form of clouds of blood before they disappear. These subtitles are not placed at the bottom of the screen, in their usual position, but can appear virtually anywhere. In the example shown below, they appear in the water and when they turn into clouds of blood they are automatically connected to the boy’s nose bleeding. They take on the same form as the blood in the water (Figures 3–6):

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Figure 3 Figure 4

Figure 5 Figure 6

This is the only subtitle design that recurs throughout the film in the very same way and is always linked to this one aspect. These subtitles seem to be perfectly integrated into the visual environment in which they are embedded.

The other subtitles in this category are more individually designed and their function is to underline particular aspects of the story. Some fade out slowly, instead of cueing out, in an attempt to emphasise what has been said, foreshadowing future events. For example the subtitle ‘And destroying an innocent child’ fades out and with the fading emphasises the next subtitle ‘is a great sin’ which foreshadows the events. The fading of the subtitle, basically the slowing down of the disappearance from the screen, has the effect of resonating in the audience’s mind.

Some take on a prominent position on the screen like the subtitle ‘Go ahead’ which is positioned in the middle of the screen right next to the potion the protagonist is supposed to drink. Others have a comic style design to underline urgency or the screaming of a character, as in Figures 7-9:

Anna Foerster

Figure 7 Figure 8

Figure 9

Other subtitles change their colour from white to red to highlight a word (Figures 10-12). In this example the word ‘warning’ in ‘TORNADO WARNING FOR MOSCOW’ gradually turns red. This design is reminiscent of karaoke subtitles, the difference being that the whole word gradually turns from white into a light red and then into a dark red instead of a word changing its colour instantly as is the case in karaoke.

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The protagonist in this film is portrayed as living between consciousness and unconsciousness, sometimes hearing people speaking from a distance and echoing in his mind. In what can be interpreted as an attempt to mirror his state of mind, some subtitles exploit the dynamic nature of film, as opposed to the static nature of printed material, and fade in and out, float across the screen, flicker and blink. This subtitle design underlines the main character’s fragile state of mind, unstable and unbalanced like the written text on the screen.

Another subtitle even provides a ‘picture in a picture’-effect. It appears on a TV screen in vision and looks as if the TV programme itself has been subtitled. The subtitle reads ‘We’ll show you the proper techniques for using live bait.’ and features the translation of the narrator in the TV programme on fishing. However, the sentence also refers back to the film’s plot as the drama begins to unfold over the accusation by the dark side that the light side breaks the rules of the agreed truce by using live bait to catch vampires (Figure 13):

Anna Foerster

In the subtitle ‘It’s safer to go through The Gloom’ the words break apart and fly away resembling the swarm of mosquitoes in the picture. The Gloom is a twilight place that exists alongside the real world and is depicted in the film through visual transitions, from small swarms of mosquitoes to networks of blood vessels. Here the subtitle design explains the words of the subtitle, what it means ‘to go through The Gloom’.

In the subtitle ‘So you really did want to kill me.’ the words ‘kill me’ stay on screen longer than the rest of the subtitle, which disappears before the shot change. After the shot change the protagonist appears and, by remaining in vision, the words ‘kill me’ are emphasised and seem to echo in the protagonist’s head. The shot change here is not only a visual story telling device for the photographer, it is utilised by the subtitle to emphasise the words.

As different as the subtitle designs described above are, they all have a quasi-diegetic function, underlining the plot of the story and drawing attention to themselves. They stand out in a way that makes the audience fully aware that they are reading subtitles and in their function they are similar to book illustrations which are often used to provide another layer of the story and to leave an impression on the readers’ mind. Some of the subtitles are designed to reinforce the characters feelings and to ‘illustrate’ them graphically. This way, subtitles provide another layer of meaning that would otherwise be missing. They become an artistic device in their own right.

Stylistic Subtitle Design

The film also features many subtitles with a design that has no diegetic function but mirrors the style of the film, the way it is shot. Henceforth I will call this category ‘stylistic subtitles’. Some subtitles are positioned in a way that suits the aesthetics of the picture composition such as the subtitle ‘… Anton’. It is positioned underneath the character Anton who can be seen on his wedding photo standing next to his wife (Figure 14):

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Another subtitle comes in word by word and resembles the chopping of an onion, as seen in Figures 15–18. This design is related to cumulative subtitles, also known as add-on subtitles used in SDH. Add-on subtitles allow the display of a new subtitle on the screen – that is cued in in synch with the speakers’ utterance – before the previous one has vanished. This allows two, sometimes three, speakers’ utterances to appear in the same subtitle, although not at the same time (Díaz Cintas and Remael, 2007:140). The subtitle design here works in a similar way but instead of different speakers coming in at one time, the subtitle is displayed on screen word by word:

Figure 15 Figure 16

Figure 17 Figure 18

Other subtitles follow certain movements in vision, thus moving in the same way as a particular object which can be a hand, a bottle or, in another instance, an owl. The subtitles do not have a fixed position but move across the screen in the same way as the object moves. This does not necessarily mean horizontally from right to left, as some subtitles or news on news channels do, but also from the bottom to the top of the screen, the other way around or diagonally across the screen.

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Furthermore, there are subtitles where the in and out times are determined by the composition of the picture. For example, they are revealed in synchrony with the opening of a fridge door and cue out as the fridge door closes. The light inside the fridge determines the in and out time of the subtitle.

One subtitle even follows the focus of the camera. The focus of the camera is on the foreground to begin with, and with it the subtitle comes into focus. As the camera focusses on the background, both the foreground and the subtitles go out of focus, as if the subtitle had ceased to be part of the representation of the story on film and had become part of the three dimensional story itself.

This stylistic subtitle design resorts to some of the same strategies as the diegetic subtitle design, but rather than being attached to the content, it underlines the film’s aesthetics. Many of these seem justifiable, as they are pleasing to the eye and in harmony with the pictures. Others contribute something to the film design. How much of these stylistic subtitle designs can be implemented in a film and what designs are being used, also depends on the film’s genre, so as to avoid damage to credibility or atmosphere. A period film, for example, would resort to different effects and designs from an action film.

As the director Timur Bekmambetov said in the audio commentary of the film, this film was made solely with a Russian audience in mind. Only after Fox Searchlight became interested in the film for the American market did they start thinking about the subtitles and decided to “create special subtitles which help to tell the story” (Bekmambetov DVD). So only the theatrical version of the film for the English speaking markets features the added dimension of aesthetic subtitles. The film as it is shown in Russia misses out on any form of aesthetic inserts on screen. On the DVD we can find three versions of the film. The Russian version without subtitles, the theatrical version with the aesthetic subtitling approach and an English dubbed version. Interestingly, as with other DVDs it is possible to watch the Russian version with standard interlingual DVD subtitles, although the theatrical version is available as well.

Evaluation

Seeing the film’s subtitles as an independent entity, it can be concluded that they are in parts very innovative, creative and well executed. However, a close inspection also reveals some major weaknesses. As with many innovative trends, the balance between the advantages and disadvantages of the conventional way and the innovations does not seem to have been found yet. The recurring high reading speeds and the lack of rhythm due to rather

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chaotic subtitle cueing is a clear disadvantage. Whether this happened unintentionally, for lack of proficiency, or whether it deliberately broke the rules cannot be fully ascertained, although the first hypothesis seems more likely.

Since the rules for reading speeds and the timing of the subtitles as applied in conventional subtitling make particular sense, breaking them would almost always lead to loss of quality. A lot of testing has been done to establish appropriate reading speeds for different media and, although reading speeds nowadays tend to be a bit higher than twenty or thirty years ago, the numbers customary in the industry are still well-grounded. The special effects applied throughout the subtitles were often appropriate but resorted to too many different designs. When watching the film one gets the feeling that many subtitles feature an effect just for the sake of it.

The idea of aesthetic subtitling is an interesting start, but in order for this trend to have a future, it is my contention that it has to develop from a simply aesthetic approach to a creative subtitling approach. According to Preiser (1976:5): “A creative achievement emerges from the awareness of a problem and presents something new that in a certain time within one culture is accepted as sensible by experts”. Or as Stein (1953) phrased it: “A creative product is a new product that is regarded usable or satisfactory at a certain time by a certain group”. The evaluation of a creative solution is thus based on two pillars: the awareness of a problem, as innovations generate out of discontent; and sensibility, as innovations have to meet certain parameters and norms to eliminate the discontent and to be regarded as satisfactory by experts (Kußmaul, 2000:17).

The subtitling approach in Night Watch meets the first requirement of a creative product. It presents something new which emanates from an awareness of the problem – the unpopularity of subtitles in the target market, USA. However, it does not meet the second requirement. It does not meet all the criteria necessary to be regarded as satisfactory by experts. The reasons are the weaknesses of the subtitles described above. The cueing of the subtitles, as well as the high reading speed, do not seem to have a diegetic or stylistic function that supports the film. The same can be said about the overuse of different designs that appear to be rather sporadic and seem to be implemented just because it was technically possible. Therefore the subtitling of Night Watch is an aesthetic approach but, according to the parameters of a creative product as defined above, cannot yet be called creative on every level. A creative subtitling approach would be a combination of new aesthetic elements and features from the standard subtitling practice that are proven to be sensible. Together, they might form the essence of an approach that is professional and yet of artistic value.

Anna Foerster