China Stories

Lost in translation.

30th Apr 2008 14:00, Gerald

Today we've been thinking ahead to when we cut our programmes. I know what you are thinking - "you haven't even shot them yet" (or perhaps you are simply thinking "I'm sick of reading about him, I wonder what I can catch up on watching on the BBC iplayer?").

The thing is, it's pretty important to think ahead in your schedule. After all, editors and editing time need booked, graphics need to be designed and produced and we are by no means the only people filming and editing in BBC Scotland just now - edit suites around here fill up in the summer and become like gold dust.

With our edit there are some particular complications that you might not have on other programmes. None of us speak Mandarin Chinese but all our interviewees will. We have a fixer who can translate for us when we are filming but what about when we get back here? George (our fixer) has said that his company will type out our translations in Beijing while we are over there. But we need them to be very specific to maximise our time in the edit (so that we aren't muddling through translations when we should be making cool looking films). What if he can't provide them in such a way for us?

As back up, we have been in touch with another Mandarin speaker who has worked with some of our colleagues who made some great programmes called Chinese School which you might have seen. Hopefully she will be available to help us out in our edit.

We have worked out we have 2 days to cut a ten minute film (our budget and past experience helps us decide this). We are thinking if we can produce a rough-cut every day and then let her see it to check the 'ins and outs' of the interviews then it gives us a day to finish off the film and make any fixes the translator points out. Then it's on to the next film.

Repeat until complete.

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