Storywriter

This column will focus mainly on bracketing and its application. Whilst I will relate it to our subbing processes you could use it for absolutely anything. It helps in any situation where you will have a number of people working on making edits and doing work to any common document. It is said that this form of noting and editing is used by the UN when working on documents.

It does not require any fancy applications nor does it really matter what you are accessing the document from. I first stumbled upon it whilst reading an article about it on Lifehacker. They linked to an article on Humanized that focused on it and just due to how simple but effective it was, I decided to try and get this used.

Now at first glance it may actually seem more complicated. You see a load of brackets all over the place and things inserted which make no sense. The beauty of it is that whilst it looks so, in reality it takes a few minutes to learn the idea/formula behind it and to start using it (as I found out when I linked Yume to the article). The articles I've linked to already do a really good job of explaining it all but I will run through one quick example from Okusama wa Majo and just talk about the process and how we used it.

So if we look at the whole process with a quick and simple example:

"Is she a rich families daughter?"

I took that line and came up with the following:

Is she a rich famil[ies][y's][] daughter?[][][Is she the daughter of a rich family?]

So our first bracket denotes something for deletion, the second bracket is for additions and the third is for comments.

So I wanted the "ies" part deleted, I wanted "y's" added in its place. There is no comment directly after the change but it is noted at the end (reason for this is below). The comment here is an alternative suggestion but it also serves as a clarification of the line. In some cases, you'll get a detailed explanation of something troubling you about a line and other times it's a quick note to clear things up (just so you know the train of thought at the time of suggestion). It really is as quick and simple as that.

A quick reason why, due to this being a fansub, things are broken line by line, Yume felt it would be easier for him to have comments right at the end of lines than in the middle. Otherwise in a document, that comment would be in that first set of brackets and the second set would not exist. The beauty is we were able to agree on this due to the nature of work and knowing the original rules but you can tailor it quickly and easily to your own needs.

In the past, Yume would have his file all sorted and send me a copy. I would then look at things and note them in a separate file and we would then discuss it later on for him to implement. This was a rather roundabout way of doing things and it was not the best thing to do in reality but it seemed the only way due to the control he likes over the scripts. Just due to how unwieldy it could get I refrained from making marks on his script, we'd just meet and discuss what I had done but things would have changed all over again and some of my notes would be out of date due to him correcting things or changing lines.

It's not a great way of doing things but we didn't know of much better ways. We took the script as being that and changes would be made by him as it was his script, I'd just note things and comment on those over IM.

The errors that we have noted in some of our earlier work has been due in large to this process. We'd work from separate scripts without really knowing easily what had been changed, how it had been changed and sometimes why such a change had been made. This confusion lead to some anger, confusion and disgust at what we were working on.

I think it was the lack of standard ways that caused us to follow such bizarre methods. We needed something that would always be drilled into us as to how to handle. I'm a little surprised at how we stuck with our original plan and would most likely still be working to that had we not stumbled on this. It seems so simple to implement but we were just travelling along blissfully unaware at how inefficient it all was. This may be something others have used for ages but with us starting from the beginning with no real experience on how others do things or see an insight into how they operate, it was quite a discovery and came at exactly the right time.

The joy of using this system was how much or little information we could place in each note but still have it followed easily. The original will still be there, the edits will co-exist in the original sentence and you can add in notes to explain how you feel or think about something. If I then ship this over to anyone else, they can cross-reference if they have worked on their own copy or they can continue to work on in the same file or just merge things to create a consolidated file.

It's a great little system that can be scaled for more people to use all at once or just used solely to track changes in any work you're doing. It lends itself amazingly well to fansubbing, probably more so than regular documents.

A little note, in the article I linked to on Humanize, there are some tools that will automatically purge brackets from your script/document and replace things as suggested i.e. if you have something that should be deleted it will do so and it will place any additions in as well. Can be handy for cleaning things up quickly without having to do each thing by manually.

Niji

This could turn out to be problematic for some people but I'm not going to try to pull any punches. I'm just stating things as I've seen and experienced them. This, more than any other article so far, will jump around and will be a mess so bear with me.

Something that has long troubled me when it comes to fansubbing is the seeming ease at which fights break out and groups lose members. With the way tensions and stress rise when people are subbing, it's granted you will have some trouble but nothing that could not be overcome. It seems there are only a few reasons as to why things come to a head.

With Okusama, we've had our fair share of problems and we've had people who have not quite managed to do their roles, myself included. I'll draw on a few examples here and outline the problems faced. It should sound similar to other situations you may have heard about at other groups. I'll start with something very common and easy to outline.

When we started on the QC process for the first episode of Okusama, it was initially going to be handed out to someone else to do. I was quite busy and I didn't feel as if I could do things as quickly as Yume wanted. It was passed over to someone experienced and who we'd hoped would join our team. Unfortunately, he fell ill and so he could not go ahead as we had all hoped.

Through no real fault of anyone, other commitments or situations arose that forced stalling on the work. It can be very irritating but cannot be helped.

What could have made this worse is if there was no communication between people when you were being relied on. I told him in advance I could not do it so he was able to make other arrangements. He was informed of the other person being ill so again he was able to rationalise it and try alternatives. If there was no word from either of us, it'd have certainly led to something more. Worst thing you can do is leave someone hanging.

Communication needs to be paramount and with the many ways we have to get messages through, it should not be too much of a problem to get on for 5 minutes to do that. It might be something big like passing on incomplete work just so others can get a feel of what is done. It might be something small like just acknowledging you are working on things but you need to let others know of circumstances. This works both ways and understanding plays a big role which I will touch on later in the article.

So let's go and think further and come to what I think I would call a gulf in expectations. I do see this as being a major part of any tensions that arise. Everyone will have different expectations on all aspects of the work.

A typical example: Yume would hand me a script which I would work on. He'd feel I was going to slow and I'd feel that I didn't want to rush and compromise what I was doing.

He wanted something done quick (I'll try and explain his reasoning in a moment) and I wanted something done as best as I could, if it meant taking a little longer then so be it. The gulf here would be the time taken; from his point of view, my taking too long and from my point of view, him rushing me to deliver.

I personally think that Yume does things in far too concentrated periods. He'll have things to do with the subs and he'll cram in as much as possible into every single moment of time he has. It is tough for him to step away from it due to an all or nothing approach. This approach is something he expects of everyone else, he wants people to put in the same amount of time in with the same dedication.

I share some of his ideas. I think we should be dedicated and strive for perfection as best as we can. However that is about as far as it goes. I am easier when it comes to time put in. When I have something to do with the script, I'll give it as much time as I can, this means I'll organise time I've put aside for whatever else I'd like to do in my spare time. Yet I'm not able to break everything and just go solely into fansub mode from after work until I go to bed. I feel as if it would compromise the quality of work and end up with going from a fun hobby to despised work.

I think as usual, a healthy place to be and where we try and meet, is somewhere between both viewpoints. You need to break away and give more time to the whole process and that means stopping other things temporarily to get things out.

I think there needs to be more structure within the way things work. The structure should set out a loose time frame so you don't lose track of the goal but it cannot be strict or precise as that will not be able to factor in loops thrown up by the episode or other extraneous circumstances. I think this follows into what else can cause unnecessary pressure or stress on people. The time groups believe should be the turn around time.

When you have an anime, I don't doubt that times should be shorter. There is less dialogue to contend with and usually it is very straightforward. Still turn around times of a couple days does lead me to question things, more of which I will touch upon in another article. The thing is, if you are working to very tight deadlines, even a minor problem can turn out to be catastropic.

I cannot remember which group it was but they had a process where they would translate and release a show within a day or two of its airing on Japanese TV. Now their translator had some other commitments which meant that they would not be able to keep upto the schedule. This lead to some outburst on their website which read quite badly on all parties involved. Something that probably should have been sorted behind closed doors was made the domain of all. Again, fall was laid squarely at the translators feet and the translator was shunned.

I think the translator was at fault for not communicating things however, the way the group handled it led to what was a ridiculous situation. A simple note saying an episode was delayed for two days due to some vague but understandable reason would have held things over. Yet it seems that just because they felt that the demanding and strict time frame should hold for all situations, they had to go about vilifying someone. It was not nice to read and it does go about lower the regard you hold for that group.

So jumping on now, I'll now say a bit on understanding in groups. Some people are really, really bad when it comes to empathy. Like communicating, it applies to all, from the person who is running and heading up the project to the person requiring understanding on an unexpected situation. Being able to be flexible in your approach and being able to admit faults or mistakes.

Yume and I do this all the time and it helps us take those lessons and move on, hopefully implementing better practices in future. It's the reason why I rant on these entries. Along the way I'll be changing my mind and I'm hoping this charts and traces my progression of thought and gives me a chance to go back again at a later date and know all of what I was thinking at the time. It is messy to read but maybe more useful for it.

With the whole part of being empathetic, you may need to upset people but I'd rather upset a whole load of people if it meant looking after the people who are most important. In this case, I'd rather disappoint people wanting to see the next episode, if it means that the group stays happy and are able to continue working along and producing quality.

I try not to name particular individualsor groups but I have to highlight Nanashi here. They are a group which didn't bow to all the pressure placed on them from various sources. It could have been easy to buckle and play to what people were demanding or place blame somewhere but they stuck fast and did as they saw best. There are quite a few other groups out there that have done similar but with the level of regard I hold for the actual show and the quality that they have shown, I'm mentioning them.

With this first episode of Okusama, Yume and I got angry at each other, very angry at times. However, we still could put things to one side and joke about even if it did take a little while to cool off. Why we even pranked a friend about a proposed falling out due to our website being offline (due to our host having server problems rather than anything else). I think he may still believe we fell out.

Still it just shows you need to remember you are dealing with a person, a friend and as long as you are getting work done (and not excuses time and time and time again with nothing to show) you have to contend with it. I see people lacking this ability to distinguish the work given and problems that come from that and the problems that arise from just a person not doing what they said.

Over the course of working with Yume on the Committee, we've tried and tested out a number of translators. For one reason or another they've not been able to commit as much time as is needed and we understand that, we have trouble ourselves in this regard. Others who've wanted to go ahead and do something with a script, that's where we've seen some problems that cross over.

As I said, we all understand we get unexpected events occur so we can factor that in when communicated. I guess the worst scenario you can have is when someone keeps promising you something but fails to deliver on repeated occasions. This leads to doubts about a person. Things are further compounded when questions about seeing current work-in-progress are also shrugged off. Has the person actually done the work? Is this just a ruse to cover their laziness? In this instance I'll say fair enough, go and have a right old barney with that person (if you can get ahold of them).

Until then, just keep your wits about you and realise that the person on your team is the one who should be defended. If they make a mistake then chastise them but be understanding. In the face of pressure from the outside, show a firm face externally, even if chaos ensues inside.