ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to provide filmmakers (as well as film scholars, translators and translation scholars) with relevant and research-informed knowledge about what happens when their films are translated (through dubbing, voice-over or subtitling) or made accessible (through subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing and audio description for the blind and partially sighted). The first section deals with dubbing and the impact it has on both the film and the viewers. The impact of dubbing on the film is presented through the analysis of some of its main features: its invisibility, the need to abide by a series of synchronies, the use of dubbese and the difficulty involved in dubbing multilingual films. The impact of dubbing on the viewers is analysed by introducing the so-called dubbing effect, an unconscious eye-movement strategy performed by dubbing viewers to avoid looking at mouths in dubbing, which prevails over the natural and idiosyncratic way in which they watch original films and real-life scenes, and which allows them to suspend disbelief and be transported into the fictional world. After a section on voice-over and its translational and ideological role in documentaries, attention is turned to subtitling, the impact it has on the film (through the description of its main features) and on the viewers. The impact on the viewers is analysed by presenting the most relevant eye-tracking data comparing how viewers watch original and subtitled films, for which the notion of subtitling blindness is introduced as a key concept in accessible filmmaking. The final three sections are devoted to subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing (background, users and conventions), creative subtitles (as a way to experiment with font, size, placement, rhythm and effects to overcome some of the limitations of traditional subtitles) and audio description.
