Editing Film Across Languages: Mandarin Cultural Nuance

Me And My Question

Zachary Chehate Kardos, Editor for Ghosts Awake In Silver

Key Concerns

Language Beyond Words

Language is expressed via facial expression, tone of voice, and pragmatism/irony. These are culturally determined. How to understand Mandarin nuances that only native speakers grasp?

Empathy as a Tool

Is the empathic desire to learn Mandarin cultural/dialect norms enough to produce a genuine, successful edit capturing key story beats of tension and narrative?

Cutting Points & Dialect Weight

Are cutting points harder to understand in Mandarin? English words hold 'power' at scene endings. How to mimic this dialect weight in Mandarin?

How To Tackle The Problem

Sociology & Anthropology

Problems are less about creative intent, more a learning curve in social sciences. Language and social cues across cultures have been researched for years.

Crew Connections

Directors Kai & Ray are both fluent in Mandarin. Discussions will occur about scenes, directorial intent, dialogue and action choices.

Research-Informed Editing

Social sciences research will directly inform editing patterns and understanding of rhythm within narrative. A different edit to anything in the professional career.

Empathic Perspective

The empathic standpoint and desire to understand Mandarin at deeper than face value will offer a subconscious editing perspective, allowing over-analysis of scenes including all aspects of language and body language.

Research: What Is Out There?

Living Language

Ahearn (2016)

Starting point for language dichotomies. Discussions about language use across gender and meaning, providing context to the overall question.

In The Blink Of An Eye

Murch (2001)

Baseline editing textbook. Understanding rhythm, emotion, and editing intuition.

The Chinese Language: Fact And Fantasy

DeFrancis (1984)

Baseline jump into Mandarin studies. Intricacies of the language, social dialect differences, cross-cultural accents (e.g. Taiwan Mandarin dialect differences).

What Is Next?

A lot of research

A lot of discussion with directors Kai & Ray about translations and the understanding of Mandarin

A Duolingo subscription.

References

Ahearn, L. M. (2016). Living language: An introduction to linguistic anthropology (2nd ed.). Wiley.

DeFrancis, J. (1984). The Chinese language: Fact and fantasy. University of Hawaii Press.

Murch, W. (2001). In the blink of an eye: A perspective on film editing (2nd ed.). Silman-James Press.

Questions?

Zachary Chehate Kardos — Editor, Ghosts Awake In Silver