Surtitles
Surtitles show above the projection what the actors say: in the language of the show, for people who cannot hear, or translated. They are prepared beforehand from the script, as at the opera; on stage they move on by themselves, following the actors.
The cards
In the editor press Surtitles, next to Media. The first time press Split the script into cards: the program makes one card per line, of at most two rows of 42 characters, and splits a long line where a sentence ends or where there is a pause. From then on the text of the script can no longer be changed, as after the first cue.
Tap a card to correct it. You can rewrite its text and break the rows where you like; a card that is too long turns yellow, but it is saved all the same. Split here shows the words of the card: tap the one the new card must start with. Merge with the next makes one card out of two. Every open card shows the preview, as the audience will see it.
Who speaks comes from the name before the colon at the start of the line in the script. With Characters you give it the name the audience will read, or hide it, for example the narration. The name only appears when the speaker changes.
Add a sound puts a sound before the card, for example "thunder", which the audience reads in square brackets. It can appear when a sound cue fires or when the actors reach that point.
Redo the cards starts again from scratch and deletes corrections and translations.
The translations
Under the title choose the language. Every card shows its translation to write or correct; once you have checked it press Checked. At the top you see how many cards are already checked. If you change the original text of a card, its translation has to be checked again.
A draft can be made in two ways, and it never touches the cards already translated:
- Translate a draft (offline) translates on this computer, without a network and for free. The first time it downloads the translator of that language, about 36 MB, and asks your permission first.
- Draft with Claude translates by reading the whole script, so it does better. You pay in Paddle's checkout, by card or PayPal, and you see the price first. If the translation fails, the payment is refunded. It is there only when the program is connected to the translation service.
Either way it is a draft: it has to be checked.
The screen
Surtitles sit above the video, in the projector window. In Setups every setup has its own Surtitles section: Position, Size, Background and Screen, with the preview next to them. If the show has no internal video, the projector window opens anyway, black, just for the surtitles. It never goes on the main screen.
In the control booth
With the show stopped, at the bottom of the Control booth, choose the surtitle language of the next performance, or None. Next to each language you see how many cards are checked; a card without a translation is shown in the original, in italics.
During the performance the right card appears by itself: when the actor reaches the last two words of a card, the next one appears. After eight seconds of silence the screen goes dark. The surtitle strip shows the card in the hall and the one after it; Back and Next correct on the fly, and it carries on by itself from there. Black turns the screen off until you press it again.
When an actor says something that is not in the script, the line is translated on this computer and appears in italics. If the translation does not arrive within two seconds, the line is not shown.