To sub or not to sub, does the audience actually care?

[Warlike Swans]

So I wanted to see what other people think of seeing an unsubbed foreign language AMV at a contest. I personally find it a bit irksome most of the time. That said, I’m probably going to play the hypocrite on this one soon, but I still want other people’s opinions.

[ngsilver]

Myself as a viewer, I honestly only want to see subs in a video like this if there is actual lyric sync. Even then I'd prefer them to be soft so I could turn them off if I wanted. There really isn't much point in knowing what the words actually are unless they have some meaning with what is going on screen. Then there's the whole point of reading the text while the video is going which takes some of my attention off of the video as a whole...

So yeah, I personally don't care for em much as a viewer.

As for the general audience, I don't think they really care either way.

[mirkosp]

If they're soft it's fine. I think it makes more sense to give the translation in the comments of the video so the viewer knows more or less about the meaning of the song before watching the video, so he can then just concentrate on the video itself, because as ngsilver said, sutbtiles can be very distracting.

[Kariudo]

There was one AMV entered into my contest last year where I was actually glad that there were subs. Wouldn't have been able to get the story without 'em.

If the subs don't add anything to the video other than having subs, then they shouldn't be in there.

[TritioAFB]

It's just a matter of if they actually help or not. Like watching a russian video without subs and the lyrics have a meaning for the video

[Ileia]

Well, one thing to consider is that they might not even be able to see/read them, depending on the contest set-up. I sent a video with subtitles to a contest that had super low ceilings and so the bottom of the screen was blocked off by the heads of the people in front of me (and I was only a few rows back). I sent the same video to a contest with a much larger viewing set-up, and I had comments that people who were at the very back of the room couldn't read the words, they were just too far back. I considered making the subtitles larger and at the top, but it just ended up looking obnoxious, so I decided against it. So now my opinion on the matter is that unless the audience will be completely lost watching the video without subtitles, or if you're only going to use them a few times, I wouldn't add them.

[Warlike Swans]

Well, one thing to consider is that they might not even be able to see/read them, depending on the contest set-up.

That's how I learned about title safe zones last time I subbed an AMV, though it sounds like there is no true safe zone, something I should have realized since sometimes a single person's head can block like 1/3 of a screen.

Tangent:

Spoiler :

During the storm the last weekend of Oct I was watching TV at a friend's place in central Ct and there was a storm warning running across the bottom of the screen-- outside the title safe zone and too cut off on her TV to read. Very useful.

The AMV I have mostly/probably completed is too fast paced for the subs not to be distracting, but I was still going to see how difficult it is to soft sub before uploading it here. It has more lyric sync than originally intended, but the most important lyric really needs no translation as I'm fairly certain most people can make out "Je suis une princesse." I just wasn't sure if I submitted it to American contests if it would annoy audiences. When I can't understand the lyrics of a song I get a bit annoyed seeing it at a contest unless it obviously has no lyric sync. Sounds like most people are more tolerant than me.

[Shin-AMV]

I think it depends. If the lyrics are neccessary to understand the video as a whole, then probably. But at the same time the visuals should be strong enough on their own and the tone in the singers voice should give away the concept enough that people will be able to infer enough what the song is generally about.

Although, I think we need more Karaoke style AMVs with a cute bouncing head scrolling on top of the lyrics to get the crowd engaged at cons.

[ngsilver]

Although, I think we need more Karaoke style AMVs with a cute bouncing head scrolling on top of the lyrics to get the crowd engaged at cons.

I've turned a few crowd favorites into sing-a-longs over the past few years for The AMV Wars. It really does help the audience get into the video more as they sing along. If only I was better at the whole bouncing ball thing....

[Qyot27]

The AMV I have mostly/probably completed is too fast paced for the subs not to be distracting, but I was still going to see how difficult it is to soft sub before uploading it here.

Softsubbing isn't too hard, but it can be tedious. The tediousness can also be made better or worse depending on how you go about it. I still do it the hard way (having included softsubs on four of my last six main release videos), but if you've got a waveform viewer and Aegisub handy, then it'll be a lot easier.