[SML] Super Titles?

[Stephen Litterst]

On 8/5/15 5:10 PM, Bruce Purdy via Stagecraft wrote:

> Whilst transport wouldn’t be an issue, I do own a couple of fast-fold
> screens. I was thinking about hanging my 9’x12’ version so the bottom
> edge hangs below the proscenium, in front of the Grand valance. In
> retrospect, however, 12’ is probably not long enough - and I like all
> the suggestions to use a darker grey rather than white.

It depends on your proscenium width, but we've been doing it on an 8' 
wide screen (above a 36' proscenium) with great success.  It really 
boils down to how the slides are laid out.

The challenge with a wider screen is that if you increase your slide 
size to match the width, often your height gets out of control.  You'll 
need the height for, at most, 4 lines of text, but more commonly 1 or 
two lines.  At that height, you'll find you won't get much wider that 
10-12 feet.


> The theatre has a huge digital cinema projector which they use to show
> movies on a ~50’ wide screen. I was contemplating - if it has enough
> flexibility - shifting the lens upwards and zooming in. A lot of
> questions to be resolved regarding capabilities and permission.

I'd be surprised if this projector can zoom in enough to work for 
supertitles.  And it may be too bright, be prepared to dial back the 
brightness. One trick I learned from this list is to put up a black 
slide and reduce the brightness until the black is not visible on the 
screen.


> The translations are always done by the producer - and I’ve noticed that
> the singers often deviate from the written “script” that she produced.

A good supertitle translation isn't true to the script for reasons of 
space and timing, so your audience probably won't mind.

> It’s in English, so why Super Titles?? I’d guess that despite the
> talented professionals brought in, some audience members don’t always
> understand the words being sung.

 From what you've described, they're probably doing supertitles because 
"that's what the big-name opera companies do."

I've done English supertitles for English-language opera, but it was a 
contemporary opera.  Between the orchestration and the vocal parts it 
just was not possible to understand what was being sung.

Steve L.


-- 
Stephen Litterst            Technical Operations Supervisor
litterst at udel.edu           Mitchell Hall
302/831-0601                University of Delaware