Subtitles in movies are an essential these days. With a multi-cultural audience both within the country and abroad, subtitles have become the key instrument in attracting the non-language speaking crowd. A movie which is properly subtitled, gives you an wholesome experience with a peek into the intricate details of it. The narrative of a movie could be understood even by a simple translation. It is the subs which lets you get in to the lyric of a song, a comic banter or an expression of any kind. Overall, they help you enjoy the movie even if you do not know the language. 

When a movie in a non-native language finds a release, it is the subtitles that comes to the rescue of the movie-goer. Gone are the days when they were needed only for an overseas market. Also, when a geography has occupants who do not speak the local language, the only factor which would make them shell out time and money for visual entertainment is the assurance that there are subtitles. 

A work of art inherently strives to reach people beyond barriers of language and culture. This breaker-of-walls in the case of movies is subtitling. Without subtitles, movies are bound to a closed audience, elite in their knowledge of a particular language. When we send out a movie without subtitles, we are implicitly sending out a message to the people who speak other languages and thereby, other cultures, that we care not about reaching out to them. Without subtitles, we are refusing to offer a cultural handshake to others. 

Subtitles are a great market expanding tool for regional films especially in foreign countries, where regional films can even appeal to non-regional language speaking population. For Tamil films, especially top hero films have huge demand in foreign countries and the films can appeal to even non-Tamil speaking population if there are sub-titles in them.

 According to an experienced distributor in the USA, around 30% of the income for recent Million dollar hits(Kabali, Theri and 24) came from non-Tamil speaking audience. The recent expansion in foreign markets is possible only because of subtitles.

At the outset, we have considered only the barrier of language but there is another barrier that subtitles break and that is, ability. The hearing impaired would be able to experience a movie fully if it has subtitles. Research on creating audio subtitles for the visually challenged and alternatives for people with multiple disabilities is in progress too. 

There have been studies in Europe which show that countries that subtitle have a greater level of tolerance for other cultures than countries that choose other forms of audiovisual transfer such as dubbing. It naturally follows that India, being a multicultural, multilingual country, should embrace subtitling. 

I wouldn't say there are any disadvantages to a subtitled movie. However, the vocabulary and text used in subtitles could influence the movie watcher, the other way too. For example, if transliteration is used, then the person watching could go away with a completely different understanding of the movie. Also a gender code or rhyming lyric of a song gone wrong could totally spoil the work of the creative techs responsible for the contribution of it. This discredits the overall vibe of the movie. 

Subtitles are a great value addition but, sub-titles for Tamil movie releasing in Tamil Nadu is not necessary and becomes a major distraction for the audience as they are not coming to watch their language films with sub-titles. Hindi films are not released with sub-titles in Northern markets (in the recent case of PINK, it was not released with sub-titles even in Tamil Nadu), Malayalam films are not released with sub-titles in Kerala and in the same way, Tamil films should not be released with sub-titles in TN. 

The presence of text in a visual medium does distract the audience. In a way, it is like watching a movie and reading a book at the same time. Especially, in the case of Indian movies, where we do tend to talk a lot, it’s a huge challenge to produce subtitles that convey the meaning without over-translating.                        

A producer (who wanted to stay anonymous) reveals that adding subtitles in other markets reduce the value of remake rights. Also, technically, subtitles are added only during the final stage of post production after background score. As most of the movies complete the post production formalities at the eleventh hour before release, most producers do not have time to concentrate on subtitles. Others don't believe adding subtitles would increase the movie's prospects.

 Subtitling has it own set of norms to be followed. Language is not the only requisite for it. While an International movie comes with just 150 dialogues a reel, Indian movies have 400+.The profession is demanding in terms of time, both deadlines and work hours. In case of dual subtitling, the challenge is even more as some have a whole manuscript altogether, not to mention the different writing styles (English goes from left to right and Arabic from right to left). Experience, use of proper software and an understanding of the movie biz will help a subtitlist in facing these challenges.
 

While subtitles are essential, there are many challenges inherent in subtitling.  It is bound by the constraints of screen space, scene time, reading speed, character limit and so much more. To offer an analogy, subtitling is to translation what lyric writing is to poetry. A subtitler must have both technical and translation skills to perceive the whole concept of subtitling. They should be trained in the rules of subtitling and must have an understanding of the flow of a movie.                        

 To address the constantly asked and answered question of "don't you think  subtitles are an eye-sore?", I would reiterate that technology has to begin somewhere. Since a movie caters to a multi-cultural crowd, it only makes sense to facilitate the needs of all of them. 

The non-language speaking audience in the local markets of residence (for e.g. TN for Tamil films, Kerala for Malayalalm films) are miniscule and to take care of them, one should not affect the larger audience. If that non-language speaking audience require, the sub-titled version can be screened in select multiplexes with an offer instead of across the State.