2016 Surtitling Internship for Student of Italian at the InScena Italian Theater Festival

Giulia Bertoli is a Montclair State University student majoring in Italian and Linguistics with a passion for translation. She explains how on campus her passion indeed translated into a hands-on experience in the summer of 2016: “I learned about the different aspects of translation when I took Dr. Trubiano’s course in Spring 2016 (ITAL 350 – Intro to Translation). We were given the opportunity to meet famous translators, such as Michael Moore, and audiovisual translators Elena Di Giovanni and Mauro Conti, also thanks to the Inserra Chair that sponsored and organized lectures and in-class talks on this topic. These events inspired me to reach out to Dr. Trubiano and ask about internship opportunities in the field of translation. That’s when she told me about a Surtitling Internship for Kairos Italy Theater (KIT).”

At the beginning of the Spring semester, Giulia met with the director and producer of KIT, Laura Caparrotti, who provided the guidelines to work on three plays under the guidance of Dr. Trubiano: Ocean Terminal, Adam and Eve (my favorite), and Diary of a Serbian Housewife. Giulia was given rough translations of the plays along with the corresponding videos. She started by editing and proofreading the translations in contact, and later created the titles, using the standard rule of 47 characters per line with a maximum of 2 lines per slide. While creating the titles Giulia needed to watch the video and carefully listen to the actors’ lines in order to time the titles. The challenge in the process of matching the lines and the titles is to stay within the standard length. As Giulia further explains: “It’s all about condensing without losing meaning. You can’t have your audience read paragraphs throughout the performance, or they’ll miss the show!” The experience was not just language-based: Giulia stayed in close contact with KIT about cultural references she wasn’t familiar with. As she concludes: “The internship gave me a great insight s into new aspects of Italian culture.”

Dr. Marisa Trubiano commented: “My experience with surtitling is deeply linked to the training of young translators at Montclair State University. Thanks to a wide array of pre-professional and cultural enrichment opportunities organized for our students in the Italian Program with the support of the Inserra Chair, we are opening the way to possible future careers for our students. It’s a dynamic work that allows an international and ever growing audience to enjoy both established and new products of a variety of cultures. Compared to traditional subtitles, surtitles entail a more intense relationship with the text itself,” explained Trubiano. “Working with live performances means to constantly adapt the titles to what’s happening on stage and to make the audience active in terms of the fruition.”

“It has been a very rewarding experience,” stated Giulia “I was able to discover an aspect of translation I’ve never even heard of before, and it was fun! I’m definitely open to pursing a career in surtitling thanks to this experience, and I am thankful to Dr. Trubiano and KIT for giving me this opportunity. I really wish Montclair offered an Italian Translation Major, as they have for the Spanish program, especially since we live in an area in which both Italian companies and U.S. companies that work with Italy are so active.”

InScena Italian Theater Festival took place May 2-16, 2016.
For information, visit www.InScenaNY.com