Saturday, June 7, 2008

Subtitles and design elements

The other night I happened to be watching CSI:Miami, why I'm not real sure.

Anyway, they were interviewing a Cuban immigrant who was speaking Spanish. The producers subtitled it in a way that required a comment.

The words were moving around the screen, with some of them growing while others shrank. It was the strangest thing I've seen in a while and seemed to serve no purpose. At first I thought it may be hints to the rest of the investigation, but I don't think so.

I can only assume it was a "design element" and the damned director/producer thought it looked edgy. I can only assume I'll soon get a lame ass comment from a subtitle "expert"...

1 comment:

Roland Deschain said...

I've seen this done once before - Tony Scott did it in "Man on Fire." It was kinda cool at first, but it got annoying really quickly.

It did at least fit with the whole visual style of the movie though...I can't imagine a CSI episode having any semblance of "interesting visual style" anymore... :P