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Filming 'Quantum Of Solace' at ESO Paranal, Chile. Photo by: Karen Ballard
Thanks to subtitles and dubbing we can find stories from all over the world and understand them. It does not matter if cable TV actors speak Mandarin or Basque, it is a fact that in a distribution level, language barriers have decreased and almost disappeared.
However, behind the scenes there is a complex process which is much longer than the hour and a half length of the final movie. We’re talking about “production”, a process which is born the moment a story is conceived and goes through countless hands in pains-taking stages, a reality due to the hard work of those who have a passion for cinema graphic arts combined with professionalism and the ever-underappreciated money. The latter is the main reason why two film production companies belonging to different countries would want to work together, especially when it comes to divergent economies.
Chile has become one of the world’s favorite coproduction countries as it has the most geographically diverse locations within relatively short distances, diminishing transportation costs. Furthermore, places chosen as locations warmly open their doors to production companies waving rental fees for the use of their facilities, contrary to practices in other countries where the film industry is more developed than in Chile. As such, locations are able to have a place in the big screen and at the same time promote themselves as tourist destinations.
Technicians and English
The general language of filming, unless it is a production between two Spanish speaking countries for instance, is and will be for a long time the English language. Daniela Espinoza Pinedo, Director of the Film Technicians Union, (SINTECI), shared a story which took place during a filming shoot between the Director of Photography, (D.P.) from the United States and a local Chilean technician while setting up lighting for the shooting. The technician and the D.P. were adjusting the lights for the next scene and the tech asked the D.P. if the “yellow” was good. The director seemed not to understand. The tech repeated the question but this time slower, and again the director just looked at him blankly, clearly not getting the question. Trying once again, this time using thumbs up and down as gestures, he asked insistently: “Yellow good? No yellow?” But the confused head shaking of the D.P., who barely spoke Spanish, drove the technician to dramatically point out an open box on the floor of the set. The director burst out laughing when he realized that the technician was talking about a lighting color gelatin filter that is used to tint stage lights with different colors, called “Jello,” and not the color– “yellow”. This luckily-comical misunderstanding was created by two very simple English errors on behalf of the technician. The first error was his simple mispronunciation of the English letter “J,” very common to native Spanish speakers. He retained the pronunciation of his native Spanish “Y” when speaking in English. His second error was miscomprehension of a word with the mistaken belief that the lighting “gel” color filters were nicknamed after the brand-name of a popular gelatin dessert, “Jello,” (and not the proper production term “gelatin” or “gel”) “English is incredibly necessary, because usually when there is a (international) co-production, directors and producers are brought in from abroad. But the technicians are contracted locally, because it’s cheaper,” explained Espinoza. “The big problem is that the majority (of Chilean technicians) do not speak English or speak very little. The few that can speak English are fought over (by production companies) and end up making more money, since knowing English allows them to get better paid (as they are constantly working),” Espinoza concluded.
There is such a need to have English as a business language on production sets that SINTECI is working on a proposal to present to the Audiovisual Promotional Fund and try to obtain financing for English classes targeting those working in the audiovisual fields.
Behind the scenes
Claudia Pino and Emir Kusturica
Each time Claudia Pino, Professor of Executive Production at DUOC of Concepcion and the Director of the International Film Festival of Lebu, (FICIL), has a chance she repeats to her students that they must learn English, not only for their own movies and short film presentations within the festival circuit, but also to secure financing. “They have to be able to fill out forms, create synopsis and storylines. There are tons of other things they have to do to even apply for international funds. And for all of this, they have to be able to speak far more than just a tiny bit of basic English,” Pino emphasized.
Although this is first on her list of things to do, she admits not yet reaching her personal goal of improving her own English. She doesn’t want to always have to rely on last-minute interpreters, as she did when working with Emir Kusturica and could only communicate with him through a friend’s grandmother who happened to speak Serbian. The friend’s grandmother however ended up becoming Kusturica’s friend and not only attended his concert, but brought with her a grandmotherly care package of empanadas for him.
“It’s not that we can’t co-produce, if we don’t know English. We can. But the road is just much harder, and we lose a bunch of business opportunities,” Pino said.
Within the framework of XII FICIL which will take place in the south of Chile between January the 31st and February the 5th, the guest country will be France. And although some French speak Spanish and others speak a little English, Pino decided to hire an interpreter to streamline production issues and facilitate smooth information exchange. “It´s just that today everyone communicates in English. It creates the connection. If you cannot express what you’re doing clearly, then you’re really limited as an industry,” Pino concluded.
No doubt Chile has a long way to go in terms of the language proficiency among audiovisual technicians and within the creative arts industries as a whole. However, there are some local production companies who have already established themselves in the forefront, such as SOBRAS, Fábula and Alce. They form the vanguard of what the Chilean (film) industry is surely going to evolve into —one capable of producing and telling stories without borders.
March 7, 2011 | Teachers of English as a Foreign Language Can Earn College Credit with a New E-Learning TEFL Certification Course ►
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