From: jeffw@or.credence.com (Jeff Winslow)
Subject: Re: Supertitling
Organization: Credence Systems Corp. Beaverton, OR
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 02:07:19 GMT

In OPERA, April 1992, "Sense, Condoms, and Integrity", David Pountney, 
director of productions at English National Opera, writes many sensible
things against surtitles, however, since his company gives operas in the
language of the audience, he has a very easy time of it.  The following
remarks, in the context of performances in languages foreign to the
audience, leave something to be desired...

[Thanks to Jon Conrad for typing all this stuff in!]

>But why *not* have surtitles?  Why not, for instance, contradict the
>efforts of the theatre architects who have spent centuries perfecting
>designs which concentrate the audience's attention on the stage, by
>installing little flashing screens in a part of the proscenium that was
>specifically designed to be looked at only during the interval?...

The force of the sarcasm is diminished considerably with the knowledge that
all it takes to concentrate the audience's attention on stage is to have
people performing there. The fact that something has been done a certain
way for centuries does not show that it took centuries to perfect it.
And does he really believe that a theatre designer, on hearing that someone
looked at this repulsive part of the proscenium during an act, will smite
his forehead, wince painfully and own himself a failure?

>Why not, for instance, contradict the efforts of the composers and
>dramatists who have striven to integrate music, text, and action into
>one concentrated thread by isolating one element miles above our heads?

Because the integration and concentration is improved for a certain large
segment of the audience by doing so? (And, miles, my ass.)

>Why not render useless the priceless comic timing of our singers by
>making the audience laugh at the crib sheet instead?

The one good jab in this section of the article. This could be improved
with technique at the projector.

>Why not, for instance, have surtitles also describing the nature of the
>music: "This bit is in F major," etc. etc.

Because none of those bits of information are necessary for the comprehension
of the performance.

>In fact surtitles do strike directly at the integrity of what we do
>because they are an extraneous technical device superimposed on top of
>an extremely delicately poised balance of interaction and participation
>between audience and performer. 

It's a lovely sentence, but what does it mean? Surtitles are no more
extraneous than librettos and programs, either of which, in the hands of
an insensitive nearby person, can be far more distracting than any
surtitles. The image he creates attempts to convince that somehow the
performers and audience must change their ways in order to accommodate
this new technical device, thus causing some kind of delicate balance to
crumble into rubble. I don't see that the performers have any kind of
adjustment to make, especially if the timing is improved. The greater
part of the audience "adjusts" by getting a little more eye exercise,
which is better than the maladjustment of ignoring words they don't
understand.

>Once you have given in to this
>quick-fix solution, the absolutely inevitable long-term deterioration of
>artistic integrity on all sides may be summed up as "why bother?"  Why
>should the singer bother to acquire the discipline of good diction, etc.

This all sounds so much like the proverbial overprotective parent
haranguing the hapless youth about dirty fingernails leading to pot
smoking leading to a short life of crime, disease and heroin that I have
a hard time keeping a straight face while reading it. The short answer
to "why bother" is that if the performers weren't used to bothering they
wouldn't be there in the first place. I won't say it's impossible for a
performer to get far if all they care about is how a relatively uninformed
part of the audience feels about their work - I'm sure somebody would come
up with counterexamples if I did - but I can hardly believe that's the
usual case. And, the kind of people who are going to be affecting the course
of one's career are not likely to be the ones reading the surtitles. 

						Jeff Winslow


PS. It occurs to me that surtitles could be made less distracting but
nearly as readable through judicious choice of foreground and background
colors - does anyone know of experimentation on this?