“Song of a Dying Summer” is a coming-of-age tale by Japanese independent filmmaker Kohei Sengen, and his first feature-length film. After playing theaters in Japan, Germany, and France and being nominated for the Nippon Visions Jury Award, the film made its Milwaukee debut on Wednesday, March 13, at the UWM Union Cinema.
There to discuss his work was the film’s translator, Brandon Crisp, a 2019 UWM alum who majored in Japanese and film studies. His two majors are the perfect marriage to allow him to pursue his passion.
Crisp sat down to talk about the film and how to translate a full-length feature movie.
“Song of a Dying Summer” just made its debut in Milwaukee, thanks to you. What can you tell us about the film?
It’s about four friends growing up. They’re in the stage where they’re right out of high school and looking to go their separate ways. Some have jobs; others are working on it. The way film feels and how the story is told, it’s not very “Hollywood.” It’s not about how the scenes interact with each other narratively, but more symbolically, juxtaposing death and life. There are scenes where someone is expecting a child close to scenes where someone is visiting the gravesite of their mother. It’s more about figuring out what everything means scene-to-scene rather than particularly following these characters or what they’re going through.
How did the screening go? What did the American audience think of the film?
I was very pleased with the turnout and the Q&A was even more engaging than I had hoped for! I think most of the people that were there already had an interest in Japan and seemed to receive the film very well.
How did you get the movie to play here in Milwaukee?
I reached out to my old professor, Aragorn Quinn. I was like, hey, here’s a trailer for a movie that I subtitled. I thought he would be interested because he has a Japanese subtitling course at UWM. I thought we could maybe screen it at the cinema. He was like, great! Let me get you in contact with Jocelyn (Szczepaniak-Gillece, director of the Film Studies program).
That was another professor I had, and these two were my favorite professors. One of them got me so excited for Japanese and the other one got me really excited for film. It was cool that I got to talk to both of them again, and everything just came together.
How did you come to write the subtitles for this film?
After I graduated, I went straight into an internship in Tokyo at a study abroad research facility. I was both their receptionist/translator and worked with students to have English seminars with them and teach them English. Usually, the program helps connect you to another company or program so that you can continue your work in Japan. Unfortunately, my internship was cut short by about a month because of COVID, and I had to go back home.
I later found out I had been chosen for the internship specifically because I mentioned in my interview that I liked the films of Yasujirō Ozu. One of the employees at the company also really liked that director, so the fact that I mentioned that in my interview gave me a huge leg up and he really wanted to meet me. We became friends, and he’s directed many films of his own. That was (director) Kohei Sengen. He has an independent art community that he works with and makes films with, and I offered to subtitle films for him. I’ve subtitled four films for him already.
How does one “do” subtitling? What do you need to keep in mind as you add subtitles?
When you’re subtitling, the first thing that they tell you is that even just subtitling in your native language is going to take at least five to 10 times as long as the actual run length of the movie. (When subtitling a foreign language), you can’t just look at the script, translate it, and then throw it in there. You want to watch the film over and over and over again as you’re writing to make sure it matches up as well as you’d want any movie that you’re watching to flow. That made it take even more time; probably another five to 10 times the amount of time it would take to do beyond just adding subtitling. I’d say it probably took me three months to complete, when I was working on it on the side.
It’s important that you think about the end viewer and how they’re going to perceive it. You have to make sure that it all makes sense and it’s true to what the characters are saying and the flow of conversation they’re having.
I’ve heard from other translators and localization experts that many nuances in Japanese don’t translate cleanly to English. How do you handle idioms and other idiosyncracies?
My general philosophy is that I try to be as true to the Japanese sensibilities as possible when I’m translating. I know it’s not always the best for localization purposes, but for independent films, I expect the audience to be a bit more educated or willing to be knowledgeable on the different cultural aspects that have meaning in Japan but might go completely over the heads of western audiences.
For example, the four main characters – Aki, Fuyu, Haru, and Natsu – are just the four different seasons -summer, winter, spring and fall. That might go over someone’s head if they don’t speak Japanese, but I didn’t want to take you out of the movie to quickly explain that.
What was your reaction when you saw the finished film with subtitles?
I think the cool thing was seeing my name in the credits. I have my name in the credits of a movie! That’s a really fun experience. It makes you feel validated. Most people will never read it, but I know it’s there and that I had a hand to play in it.
Do you have advice for people who are considering subtitling or a similar career path?
I know the conventional wisdom is that you shouldn’t do work for free, but I’d say when you’re contributing to the arts, pro bono work is fine and you’ll be rewarded in many ways that don’t necessarily involve instant monetary gains.
For example, I just came back from Tokyo. My friend (Sengen) let me stay with the whole time, fed me lunch and drinks – way too much. He sends me care packages and lets me meet all of these cool people. And now I get to screen this movie at my alma mater, and I did this as a favor to him because I wanted to help out. So never be afraid to start by volunteering your time, because it’s going to be worth more than you think it is.
By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science