Localisation on the silver screen: making movies make sense to international audiences
Missing the mark in translation can have a massive impact on your business or product, and you’ll have read in our case study of branding fails, but localisation is just as important, and the world of cinema relies on it. Why are film titles changed from one country to the next? What guides the choice of making a key plot in a movie based solely on the audience? Read on to find out.
What is localisation?
Before we get started, we had better iron out exactly what we mean when we talk about localisation. It involves adapting a product, service or content to suit a local, regional or national market or culture. It’s part of a translator’s job as we adapt cultural references, songs, images, currencies and date formats so that it feels natural to local users.
Here’s an example:
A French clothing brand is sending a newsletter out to its customers about the trend for wearing pink and uses this strapline: Découvrir le pot aux roses. It’s a common idiom in French that means you uncover a secret, but it plays on the colour “rose”, “roses” themselves and the sense of uncovering a trend before anyone else does.
It’s smart, but translating it literally in English won’t work as we don’t share the same idiom. This is an example of where localisation comes in and there are lots of options open to the translator:
- “La vie en rose” in a nod to Gallic culture, since it is a French brand and everyone would recognise the reference to pink and Edith Piaf
- “On Wednesdays we wear pink” in a nod to Mean Girls in a nod to pop culture
- “Pretty in pink” for a classic English expression that covers the aesthetic and colour
- “Tickled pink” for the implication that the trend will bring the wearer joy
As you can see, the result in the target language may not match up exactly to the meaning behind the source language, but it has to make sense to the local audience and do its job of selling the concept to prospective clients. This is an example of localisation in translation.
Film Titles
A film title has several key functions to fulfil: it gives audiences their first impression of what the movie will involve, hinting at its genre and tone (think about the difference between a rom-com and a black comedy, they’re both comedies but very different in tone and the title should get this across), it has to be distinctive enough for people to remember and want to go to see at the cinema or search on streaming platforms, and it acts as a sales tool to attract its target demographic.
Here are a few examples of localised titles and the reasons behind the choices:
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s in Spanish: Desayuno con diamantes. Tiffany’s wasn’t a very well-known brand in Spain at the time, so the decision was made to drop the brand name and replace it with diamonds. It drives home the sense of luxury and chic behind the film without Spanish audiences assuming that the film is about having breakfast at a woman called Tiffany’s house.
- Mission: Impossible in Chinese: 碟中谍 or Spies in the Disc. Chinese film titles tend to capture the premise of the plot in a few words, meaning any translation has to do the same. The plot of Mission: Impossible involves CDs and them falling into the wrong hands, hence the choice of title. But something you won’t realise unless you speak Chinese is that there’s a little play on words, “dié zhōng dié”, which makes the title easy for audiences to remember.
- The Pacifier in German: Der Babynator. For some reason, the translators working on this film title had a lot of fun (the Spanish title is Un canguro superduro or A super tough kangaroo), but we like the German take on it. It tells us that the plot involves kids and it puts a playful spin on The Terminator franchise, implying that it’s an action movie with its tongue very firmly in its cheek.
- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs in Hebrew:Geshem shel falafel. The Israeli version of the animated movie title, Falafel Rain, replaces meatballs with a more popular food item in the Middle East. Why? To connect with local audiences using a staple that’s part and parcel of their cultural lives.
- Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in Danish: Drengen, der druknede i chokoladesovsen. In 1970s Denmark, the trend was to use dramatic titles to make the films sound more exciting and enticing to audiences. So, they went with one of the darkest scenes in the movie and translated it as The boy who drowned in chocolate. It is clear that the film is about kids, but there’s an ominous tone to it, meaning it may not be for little ones… making it all the more appealing!
- Jaws in French: Les dents de la mer. The French translator managed to make the already terrifying Spielberg title even more frightening with The Teeth of the Sea. The translator must have realised how popular the film would be and how any sequel would fail to live up to the original, as Jaws 2 became Les dents de la mer deux… Say it in your head and you’ll see what we mean!
Plot and Visual Localisation
Film studios choose to adapt the language, jokes, visual elements and plot devices to suit local audiences so they feel the story was made for them rather than the people in the country in which it was made or set. It can also be used to get around censorship rules and ratings boards. Here are a few examples of localisation in action:
- Inside Out: The scene where the child dislikes broccoli saw the vegetable swapped for green peppers in the Japanese version, since Japanese children tend to like broccoli. The North American version of the film has Riley’s dad daydream about hockey but the international versions feature football (soccer) instead.
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier: Steve’s notebook is full of cultural references and historical features depending on where the film is released.
- Zootropolis: Each release region has a different news anchor to suit the local audience, with a panda in China and a koala in Australia.
- Coco: Since the word means “poop” in Brazilian Portuguese slang, the title and character required a name change to avoid the film going down the toilet!
- Demolition Man: When the film first came out, Taco Bell was pretty much unknown outside North America, so the fast food references were replaced by Pizza Hut for international audiences.
- Parasite: The family live off a dish known in Korean as Jjapaguri (a mixture of two different instant noodles), but audiences outside Korea wouldn’t be able to guess the implications and plot choice for the dish. The subtitle came up with Ram-Don instead to give us a sense of the comfort food, ramen soup and udon noodles, without losing the cultural importance.
- The Incredibles: The dinner scene when Violet snaps at Dash and says “shut up” was adapted to different audiences based on their cultures of avoiding family conflicts or local standards of politeness. Germany and Spain had the equivalent of “be quiet” and Japan had “chotto”, an even milder expression of interruption.
Active Languages has translated film scripts and subtitles for full-length feature films and shorts alike. We’ve also worked on plot summaries for film festivals, TV adverts and scripted content for products such as toys which require localisation.
If you need a translation agency to adapt your text to suit local audiences or advice on how to avoid offending target markets with the wrong words, please contact us at info@activelanguages.co.uk
