Generating Titles & Credits For Recordings

THL Toolbox > Audio-Video > Generating Titles & Credits for Recordings

Generating Titles & Credits for Recordings

Contributor(s): David Germano, Wendekar, Bradley Aaron, James Graves, Chelsea Hall, Steven Weinberger

Overview

After screening your tape's footage, use the guidelines below to generate suggested TITLES. Each title will eventually be its own Final Cut Pro video sequence. You need a title, at least provisionally, early on so that you can make a MediaBase catalog entry for the title. However, you can change the title up until you are finished editing and make the final creation of slides that are inserted into the video at the start (TITLE pages) and end (CREDITS pages).

Once editing is completed, then you must follow THL guidelines (see below) to create standard TITLE pages and CREDIT pages to insert at the beginning and end of the video. The guidelines try to provide comprehensive guidance. It is essential that they are provided in Tibetan, English, and Chinese – in that order – in your video sequence. Also make sure these pages are provided to the approved translator staff for approval of Tibetan, English, and Chinese.

For titles, consult the glossary below for standardized phraseology used. For standardized language used in credits, and in particular as to how English names have been rendered phonetically in Tibetan and Chinese, consult the credits glossaries below.

Please note that any formatting below such as italics, etc. is to be done using Final Cut Pro's own WYSIWYG editor.

Titling

When creating audio-video titles, each title requires a formal name which must adhere to the following principles. These titles are not easily changed, since they are rendered in Tibetan, English, and Chinese, and actually inserted into the video as title slates. Hence they must be formally approved and carefully selected. In terms of translation, the title should be as close as possible in the various languages, while accommodating for issues of clear meaning and smooth reading.

The following are principles to follow:

  1. Titles, captions, and descriptions should all have definite or indefinite articles (“the” or “a(n)”). For example, “A Blacksmith at Work,” not “Blacksmith at Work”. EXCEPTION: Scenery of Kham, Panoramic View of Kham, etc.
  2. Concerning trilingual title slates, there should be only one language for each slate. For instance when titling music, English titles should consist of an English translation of the Tibetan song title. If there are specific terms that are widely known that you feel should be rendered in Tibetan rather than translated, use THL simplified phonetics for all English entries. external link: THL Phonetics
  3. Do include Wylie transliteration for English titles in the Mediabase entry under a separate "Title" field with the language set to "Tibetan" (this will be the fourth title field if Tibetan, English, and Chinese have all been provided)
  4. Tibetan and Chinese titles should be finalized according to translations by native speakers. However, non-native speakers may provisionally input basic information in Tibetan or Chinese.
  5. For all translations of technical terminology, consult the THL AV Title Lexicon and follow its recommendations, or create a new translation equivalent and add to it. For example, Tibetan words like "lha khang," "sgrub chu," or "dmangs srol" should be translated in a standardized manner, with reference to the AV Titles Lexicon.
  6. After colons (":") there should be only ONE space.

Titles in a Series

EXAMPLES

  • A Couple Must Part: Three's Company #01
  • The Story of Milarepa: A Reader of Classical Tibetan (1 of 9)
  1. When dealing with titles within a large series, put the specific content first and then general content second. This helps visual browsing. For multiple titles belonging to a single series, the format should be: "Individual Title Name: A selection from Series Name #01 for example, "A Couple Must Part: Three's Company #01". This applies to titles within such series as A Reader of Classical Tibetan or A Manual of Standard Tibetan. This does not apply to titles such as music recordings, which are grouped in a subseries by performer or location. This information can be found in the cataloging metadata and should not be part of the title.
  2. For a short series of integrally related titles, (for example, a sequential ritual that is long enough that it must be broken into three separate titles), you CAN begin the title with the more general information and proceed to the specific. For example: “Riwo Dechen Festival (1 of 3): Cham Dancing” as opposed to “Tangka Unveiling: Riwo Dechen Festival (1 of 3)”. This is for a relatively small series of substantively related titles within a collection (for example, segments of the same ritual). A different norm is to be followed for a larger series that comprises many more titles that are not so integrally related. For example, titles from within the Reader of Classical Tibetan series: “The Story of Milarepa: A Reader of Classical Tibetan (1 of 9)”. Here we start with the more specific, and follow with the more general, namely, the series of which it is a part. In this case, other titles in the series, say, “The Hungry Tigress”, are not part of the same subject matter as “The Story of Milarepa” – each of them can and should more so stand alone.
  3. When generating a large number of titles for a certain collection, or series within a collection, as you do so keep a list of likely sub-series candidates, into which several titles can be meaningfully grouped. For example, within Oral Traditions-Lhoka, if you notice that 7-8 titles are all dealing with Tangpoché Monastery, make a note to later generate a Tangpoché Monastery sub-series, and note which title numbers and names would be logical candidates for such a sub-series.
  4. Note any creative ideas you may have for how to combine certain titles into more synthetic or composite titles that may, for example, give an alternative and more brief overview of a given topic. For example, you may have a group of 10 titles corresponding to a day-long ritual, where you’ve filmed a bunch of material, and are substantially showing it, across 10 titles. You may, however, also wish to generate a more synthetic title that just grabs a few shots from different portions of the day-long ritual, and offers the viewer a more compact and synthetic glance at the whole event.

Titles in Interviews

EXAMPLES

  • An Oral History of (INSERT NAME OF TOWN, MONASTERY)
  • A Life History of (INSERT NAME OF PERSON)
  • An Interview with (INSERT NAME OF PERSON) on (INSERT TOPIC)
  1. If an interview subject is giving a generic personal history as well as information about a specific topic, break the two portions of the interview into separate titles. For example, if one half of an interview is the subject’s personal history, and the other half is information about famous Yarlung Valley sites, break the two into separate titles.
  2. If someone is being interviewed and is offering an oral history of a given place, the title can read: “An Oral History of…”; you don’t need to include the word “interview” in such a title. The metadata and/or caption information can alert the user that this titles is an interview. However, it is GOOD to stipulate in a title that it is an “interview” if it’s a case where the user might otherwise expect the title to be a song or dance performance if not alerted to it being an “interview”. For example, “Pündün Village: An Interview with Two Veteran Opera Performers”. If you just said “Pündün Village: Two Veteran Opera Performers” the user might expect a performance, and the performance (if there is one at all) might be stashed in a separate title, marked explicitly as a performance.

Titles in Songs

  1. If a group or individual is singing songs, each song is to get a separate title. Someone able to sufficiently understand the language (preferably a native speaker) must listen to each song and try to glean the actual title of the song if possible, and use it as the THL title. Failing that, try to note a line of the chorus or refrain, and use that as the title. Failing that, at least try to glean the song’s subject matter, and use that as the title.

Titles in Architecture and Scenery (without interview or commentary)

EXAMPLES

  • External Views of (INSERT NAME OF BUILDING)
  • Internal Views of (INSERT NAME OF BUILDING)
  • Panoramic View of (INSERT PLACE NAME)
  • Scenery at (INSERT PLACE NAME)
  1. For titles that are not interviews or song or dance performances, but rather are just interesting views of, say, monasteries, or mountains, rivers or valleys, use the following verbal conventions:

  • For buildings: External or Internal Views of Building X. (“External Views of Tangpoché Monastery,” “Internal Views of the Jokhang”); If the title contains both internal and external views, just say “Views of…”.
  • For non-architectural scenery such as rivers, valleys, and mountains, use the words “scenery” or “panoramic view”. Ex. “Panoramic View of the Yarlung Valley” (Do not use words like “shots of…” or “scenes of…” which make the title seem like a tape log or dramatic play.)
  • When generating such titles, begin with the word(s) “Views of…” or “External Views of…”; Do not, for example, write: “Tangpoché Monastery Views” (ending with “…views).

Overview of Title and Credit Slates

Each THL template has a specified font, background color, and so forth, but otherwise follows the same wording guidelines.

Title Page

If the video is extremely short (10 seconds or less), then a special, SINGLE condensed title slate with all three languages together will play for only one second. There will be no credit slates. There are only a few titles that will be this short.

If the video is 11-60 seconds in length, then a special, SINGLE condensed title slate with all three languages together will play for three seconds but there will be standard credit slates.

For videos that are 61 seconds or longer, they will have the standard three-part title and credit slates displayed for the standard duration. For title slates at the start of each video, the standard duration should be 5 seconds for all three titles together.

Combine all three languages in a vertical stack – Tibetan on top, then English, then Chinese

Below and to the left is the URL with the video Mediabase ID: www.thlib.org/av/####

To the right is the date of recording or production (depending on which is most important, which in our case will mostly be the date of recording). The format YYYY/MM/DD, such as 2012/12/4

Tibetan and Chinese translations for standard phrases are found here: Translation Glossaries for Credits.

EXAMPLE:

འབོ་རའི་ས་ཁུལ་གྱི་གཉེན་སྟོན།

A Wedding in Bora

博拉婚礼

www.thlib.org/av/1234 2012/2/3

Place Page

The second page is a place page:

Tibetan, English, Chinese, in a vertical stack and in that order

In each case, give cultural location first, and then national location second

The order for Tibetan and Chinese goes from largest (China) to smallest (Chuma) horizontally. HOWEVER, the order for English is the opposite – it goes from the smallest (Chuma) to largest (China) horizontally.

The smallest site should be the focus or location of the video at the level that still makes sense based upon the subject matter and location – if it’s a temple, then start with the temple name, then village, then township, etc. If the video ranges over multiple sites in one county, then start with the county.

For cultural locations, in English and Chinese terminate with the following broad cultural regions. Make sure to include in the English the parenthetical “Eastern Tibet”, etc.:

  • Ütsang (Central Tibet); 卫藏（青藏高原中部)
  • Ngari (Western Tibet); 阿里（青藏高原西部)
  • Kham (Eastern Tibet); 康区（青藏高原东部)
  • Amdo (Northeastern Tibet); 安多（青藏高原东北部）

EXAMPLE:

ཨ་མདོའི་བླ་བྲང་ཡུལ་གྱི་འབོ་ར་ས་ཁུལ། ཀྲུང་གོའི་ཀན་སུའུ་ཞིང་ཆེན་བསང་ཆུ་རྫོང་འབོ་ར་ཡུལ་ཚོ་ཚ་ངུ་ཐང་སྡེ་བ།

Bora area, Labrang, Amdo (Northeastern Tibet)
Tsangu Tang Village, Bora Township, Sangchu County, Gansu Province, China

安多拉布愣博拉 (青藏高原东北部） 中国 甘肃省 夏河县 博拉乡 参安塔村

Description Page

The third page is a description page which gives any descriptions if provided. It comes in three options:

  • None: none.
  • Short description: this involves a single page with Tibetan, English, and Chinese (in that order) vertically stacked.
  • Long description: this involves three separate pages: one page in Tibetan, one page in English, and one page in Chinese.

A short description should be no more than one or two lines. Anything longer should be relegated to the description field. There should always be a short description entered. It should be a brief, at-a-glance statement that should offer more information that clarifies and elaborates upon the title. After reading a title, a user might still be unclear as to the title’s subject matter; but after reading the short description, it should be clear. Avoid making generic statements about a series and repeating the same short description throughout the series; the goal is to be as specific as possible for each title.

  1. As long as the Tibetan rendering of the short description is present, there is no need for indicating Wylie transliteration of Tibetan terms – place names, people's names, and so forth. The one exception is text titles, which should provide THL Wylie transliteration in parentheses following the phonetic rendering of the Tibetan or following the English translation, as relevant.

  • EXAMPLE: "A presentation on The Stages of the Path (lam rim chen mo) by Khetsun.

  1. To convert Tibetan Unicode into THL Wylie, use: external link: http://www.thlib.org/reference/transliteration/wyconverter.php
  2. To convert Tibetan Unicode into THL PHonetics, use: external link: http://www.thlib.org/reference/transliteration/phconverter.php
  3. After colons (":") there should be only ONE space, NOT two spaces.
  4. If no Tibetan is provided, however, it is essential that Wylie be given in parentheses for every single Tibetan term/name cited.

Ultimately it would be great to add a map of China with the provincial boundaries marked, and the relevant county extracted out and enlarged. There would be no place names.

Please keep in mind that the description does not have to be identical across languages. They might be strictly speaking translations of each other but it is also fine to write different descriptions in the different languages keeping in mind the different communities that use those languages. Thus a description in English might not make much sense for Tibetans.

For formatting, justify on both sides.

EXAMPLE of a single page of short descriptions:

འདི་ནི་ཚ་ངུ་ཐང་སྡེ་བའི་དཀོན་བྷེ་དང་ཏིང་འཛིན་སྐྱིད་གཉིས་ཀྱི་གཉེན་སྟོན་མཛད་སྒོ་ཡིན། ཉིས་སྟོང་བཅུ་གཉིས་ལོའི་ལུགས་རྙིང་གི་ཟླ་དང་པོའི་ཚེས་གསུམ་ཉིན་སྤེལ།

This film documents the wedding celebration of two young Tibetans, Könbhé and Tingdzinkyi,in Tsangu Tang village. The wedding takes place on the third day of the first lunar month in 2012.

参安塔村民贡百和当增吉的婚礼, 这部影片的内容是农历2012年一月三日举行的.

Implementing Title Slates in Final Cut Pro

Once you have approved a title, cut and paste the three slates (Tibetan, English, Chinese) into your project to save time. Then double-click on the slate in the timeline, and click the control tab on the window above. Once you are in the controls window, you can change the text by deleting and inserting the approved titles. This should be centered in the page, but as long as you copy from an existing project you will not have to change the settings for font and placement.

Final Credits Based upon Roles

NOTE: For specific project guidelines for the Kham 2006-07 Film Project, please see Kham 2006-07 Project Credits, which overrides criteria listed below.

In addition to titles slates at the beginning, every video should include standardized ending credits slates at the end of the footage. In other words, the video will be concluded by short credits pages that give credits to the people and institutions behind the production of the video. Each of these is given in three languages – Tibetan, English, and Chinese (in that order) – delivered in sequence as three separate slates. For concluding credits, the duration should be 6 seconds for all three slates together (2 seconds per slate).

Ending Credits Slate #1, 2, 3 – Tibetan, English, Chinese

The first page lists all individuals and organizations involved with the film in question. These should be provided in Tibetan, English, and Chinese sequentially – each language has a separate page. There is no overall title – it just begins after the film finishes by listing the Tibetan credits. A few guidelines:

  • Use the agent form for all credits – Director, not direction, Producer, not production, etc.
  • When only one person performs a role, use singular (Director, not Directors); when more than one people perform a role, use the plural form (Directors, not Director)
  • When crediting institutions, do not use the definite article "the" in front of institutions' names. CORRECT: University of Virginia. INCORRECT: The University of Virginia

The first set of credits slates will detail the following (please list in this sequence):

  1. Directors: the person who is responsible for conceiving and supervising the filmmakers.
  2. Producers: those who actually got the final product out and produced in public.
  3. Facilitators: in general, people who helped with logistics of the filming but were not directly involved in other roles. If they only indirectly made arrangements, this is "special thanks". In participatory work, this includes anyone involved with the overall set up of the work, but who is not one of the local people doing the actual participatory work. Replaces a role they might otherwise have had as "directors".
  4. Cinematographers: Persons involved in sound and camera work.
  5. Editor/Logger: Includes loggers and editors, including such work done in the field.
  6. Interviewers: The person or persons who interviewed the subject
  7. Performance(s): For performers, their role should be specified parenthetically from the controlled vocabulary, and when relevant further detail (such as the name of a character an actress plays) indicated parenthetically. Roles for performers: interviewee, actor, actress, lecturer, reader, music and dance performer.
  8. Filmmakers: for participatory films, this would be all the local "participants". IT replaces the use of most of the granular categories and should appear at the top of the credits.
  9. Transcriber: The person who did the transcription
  10. Translator: of the transcription.
  11. Special Thanks: this category can be used for someone not directly involved with the filming, but who made it possible in some broader way like arranging for permissions, or whatever.
  12. Sponsors: those who provide funding or materials, or act as the institutional support of the project. This is dealt with separately in the Sponsor Credit slate (see below).

NOTE: If there is a group of performers whose names you don't have, you should still generally credit them. For example, for a video showing 7 or 8 stone carvers at work, whose names you don't have, you should still credit them as performers. Try to credit them with some specific descriptive language, such as a town/village or artist group they're affiliated with. In the case of stone carvers above, for example, they could be credited as: "Chonggyé Stone Carvers" or "Shop (name) Stone Carvers." Otherwise, you may credit them as "Anonymous Stone Carvers." Please see the Participants Correlation page for a list of performers.

NOTE: All personal names in credits should be translated phonetically into the other two languages following standard guidelines. Thus a Western name of a person should be transliterated into Tibetan script and Chinese characters for the corresponding credit slates. Each slate should be entirely in one particular language, whether Tibetan, English, or Chinese. Please see Translation Glossaries for Credits for names rendered trilingually.

EXAMPLE

ཕབ་བསྐྲུན་པ། གངས་ལྗོངས་རིག་མཛོད་ཁང་།

འཁྲབ་འཁྲིད་པ། བནྡེ་མཁར།

བརྙན་ལེན་པ། བནྡེ་མཁར།

སྒྲིག་སྦྱོར་བ། བནྡེ་མཁར།

ཁྱད་པར་དུ་བཀའ་དྲིན་ཞུ་ས། ཚ་ངུ་ཐང་གི་སྡེ་མི་ཡོངས།

-Page 2

Producer Tibetan & Himalayan Library

Director Wende Khar

Cinematographer Wende Khar

Editor Wende Khar

Special Thanks to The Tsangu Tang Village Community

-Page 3

制作者 雪域图书馆

导演 完代克

摄影 完代克

剪辑 完代克

特别鸣谢

参安塔村民

Final Credits Slate – Overall Production, Copyright and Production

The second set of final credits slates details the distributor, copyright, and license.

This involves two separate slates – the first one for license and the second one for distribution/copyright. The latter is described first since it is simpler.

The distribution slate is a single page with all three languages together following the standard order of Tibetan, English, and Chinese.

At the top:

  • གངས་ལྗོངས་དཔེ་མཛོད་ཁང་གིས་ཕབ་བསྐྲུན་དང་འགྲེམས་སྤེལ་བྱས།
  • Produced and Distributed by the Tibetan and Himalayan Library
  • 本片由雪域图书馆制作并发布
  • www.thlib.org

OR

  • གངས་ལྗོངས་དཔེ་མཛོད་ཁང་གིས་འགྲེམས་སྤེལ་བྱས།
  • Distributed by the Tibetan and Himalayan Library
  • 本片由雪域图书馆 (www.thlib.org) 发布
  • www.thlib.org

Choose one of above depending on whether we did any work on the video besides recompressing. If we did more work than recompressing, use “produced and distributed”, if not use “distributed”. Middle of page - THL logo

Copyright notice at bottom of that page: © XXX. Get this information on who is the copyright holder from the Mediabase catalog entry for the video. If this was done by THL staff, then it should be Tibetan and Himalayan Library. May be shared by a community or whatever if done collaboratively with them. If done by others, is whatever THEY said, and is NOT THL. THIS MUST BE DONE RIGHT – RAISE WITH SUPERVISORS IF NOT CLEAR OR ANY DOUBT.

  • © གངས་ལྗོངས་དཔེ་མཛོད་ཁང་།, Tibetan and Himalayan Library, 雪域图书馆

The former slate, then, concerning licenses, also integrates all three languages - Tibetan, English, and Chinese in that order - in a single page. The wording can be found below under the relevant license.

For our standard staff produced THL videos, we use “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA)”. For others videos we have to ask them: do you want people to be able to remix segments from your videos in your work? if so, do you want to allow them sale the videos? do you want to insist they use the same license you have used?

*Attribution (CC BY)*

Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA)

  • This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.
  • English URL: external link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
  • Chinese URL: external link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.zh_TW
  • THL Video Final Slide wording in Tibetan: བརྩམས་ཆོས་འདིའི་པར་དབང་ཡོད་ཚད Creative Common ལ་དབང་བ་དང་།  (དབྱིན་ཡིག external link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) ཡང་ན་རྒྱ་ཡིག external link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.zh_TW) ཆབ་སྲིད་དང་འབྲེལ་བའི་བྱ་བར་བེད་སྤྱོད་གཏང་མི་ཆོག
  • THL Video Final Slide wording in English: “Available under a Creative Commons Attribution license (external link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/); in addition, no political uses are allowed.”
  • THL Video Final Slide wording in Chinese: 本作品由Creative Common 版权许可证授权 (external link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.zh_TW); 本作品不得用于任何政治及以政治为目的活动中.

Attribution-NoDerivs (CC BY-ND)

Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA)

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND)

Technical Processing of Title and Credit Slates to Ensure High-Quality Resolution after Compression

Because the nature of compression is to downgrade quality and resolution, you must transcode the titles and credits in a different setting in order to ensure that they display clearly when played or downloaded from the website. This section will explain, step by step, how to separate the titles/credits, change their settings, and re-attach them to the video file so that they can be uploaded and eventually downloaded as one file. If you are not concurrently capturing video, you may leave your settings on DV50 NTSC (and thus you will not have to put your slates on a new sequence and copy and paste), but remember to change them back to HD for capturing.

These are instructions for new project credits; otherwise you can copy credits from an existing project into a new sequence setup to DV50 NTSC, then copy your video file into the same sequence.

Set Easy Setup to DV50 NTSC

This is how you change your settings to a higher rate in order to ensure quality viewing.

  1. Select your sequence that has finished, formatted titles and credits by highlighting it in the project bin window.
  2. Click FinalCutPro menu
  3. Select Easy Setup (which will be set to HDV for capture)
  4. Format should be (all formats), Rate should be (all rates)
  5. Change Use to DV50 NTSC
  6. Click Setup

Copy the Titles and Credits in a Separate Sequence

Once you have finished editing your title and are ready to add titles/credits, open a new sequence for the titles/credits.

  1. Click File menu (OR right click/control click and select new sequence)
  2. Select New
  3. Mouse over to 'sequence'
  4. You should have a new sequence in your project bin; double-click on that to open the timeline.
  5. It is easiest to use an existing titles/credits box instead of creating a new one; simply copy the text boxes from the existing project into your new sequence timeline and alter the names as necessary.

Joining Compressed Video and Titles/Credits

  1. Apple + c (copy) the Title slates and Apple + v (paste) them onto the beginning of your video.
  2. Repeat this process for the ending credits.
  3. Compress as usual.

Provided for unrestricted use by the external link: Tibetan and Himalayan Library