How a fansub is born

[takenoko]

*Times relative to Pacific time

Saturday afternoon, Super Hero Time airs from 5-6 PM, during which we record it using a broadcast capture card.

At 6, I'll rip the captions from the broadcast stream (You can see all the original captions on the wiki). For our current process, we log into Toei Tokusatsu Fan Club and rip their streams, which we use for our ultimate encodes. The broadcast stream is still used for subbing commercials and sponsor segments.

After raw videos are encoded, a timer will take the caption and adjust the timing and delete superflous lines. Once a pretime is set up, a translator fills in the lines. Then the script is typeset and effects are added.

An editor will usually go through and look at the script at this point.

A QC encode usually appears Sunday or Monday. QCers will go through and check the video for translation, grammar, timing, typesetting, etc. These are all kept track of in a forum thread. After a list is generated, a translator will look it over, add the changes, and then encode a final QC version of the file.

Final QC is basically just a second QC step. For the first few weeks, there may be more than one pass to make sure we get things right. Once FQC is checked off, it's encoded for distro.

We distro the files through dropbox and then upload them to a seedbox to have it seeded when we put it on our torrent tracker.

When the files up, we'll have it seeded, update the tracker, wiki, front page, channel topic, spreadsheet, etc. And that's when it's public for you guys

[Catastrophe]

What is the creative process for designing the effects? I figure that is the reason that the 1st episode of a weekly release tends to take longer and I've always been curious.

[Phoenix512]

The creative process depends on the person making the effects so I will talking about how I went about it.

Usually most effects are inspired by the actual movements of the belt/item/person. The colors are pretty obvious. The main part of the series that takes a long time is also the simplest to do is the font itself. The font is something that you need to feel it out and usually I would go through a bunch of fonts before deciding on the final font. The main dialogue font is very important since it's the font you will see the most so it must feel right with the show along with being readable. I have a funny story about Agito that when I was doing the initial batch of episodes I went with a different main dialogue font for the first episode and then decided during the second episode I changed the main dialogue font to what Agito's main dialogue font came to be. But you can see what the initial main dialogue font could have been from the TL Notes style. I meant to have the TL Notes to be the same font as the main dialogue font but forgot to switch it and never corrected it.

Then the effects get discussed during the QC process which either get finetuned or need an overhaul since you need another pair of eyes to tell you what you did wrong. As the series goes on, I would just finetuned effects for new attacks/forms or create new effects for different types of Riders/Rangers.

I know it isn't a grandiose process but it can be time consuming especially when the effect isn't working correctly. The time put in is how serious we try to come up with how we want to infuse more personality into a show.

[takenoko]

What is the creative process for designing the effects? I figure that is the reason that the 1st episode of a weekly release tends to take longer and I've always been curious.

I know font choice is always a thing we argue about. Something initially picked might not fly with qc and so we have to find a new one and then see if the new one is better

Same with effects. There's a lot more back and forth of going "does this look good" and sometimes the answer is "no, back to the drawing board"

And if the effect requires drawing a symbol or emblem using vectors, that can take a while too

[Kurokage X]

have you guys ever considered going effect free at one point?

[takenoko]

Maybe for some minor projects, but I think part of the fun is coming up with a way for the text to be expressive along with what's going on

[critHITjace]

Okay, I know this thread is fairly dead, but I was wondering something:

Do you guys have a master list of the fonts used from the different subs?

I love making tokusatsu memes and would like to put some series appropriate fonts to any kind of flavor text on them, as opposed to generic meme Impact font. (Think how Simpsons memes usually have the Simpsons font.)

I saw this really funny Zi-O meme using Simpsons screenshots and I'd love to subtitle it with the Zi-O font.

Hiryu: I knew that in order to become Demon King, I needed to get my revenge on the human garbage otherwise known as Tokiwa Sougo.

Hiryu: Sougo, how do you keep getting back in?

Sougo: I'm the main character. I don't know nothing about how I do anything.

Sougo: -stares in mc-

[takenoko]

The main font for Zi-O we used was FOT-Rodin Pro Bold

[critHITjace]

Thanks! Any chance you might ever have a spot on the wiki or thread here with a list of the fonts used for the meme-ers and fan artists out there who want the level of creativity and accuracy you guys strove for in finding similar fonts to the Japanese logos and such in the subs?

In my case, aside from making tokusatsu memes, I also work on panels for conventions and it would be cool to use some of these fonts for slides when discussing different franchises, seasons, aspects of the fandom, history of the genre, etc. I was just in a panel for Anime Expo Lite earlier this month, and since then I've been building up various panels for when I'm presenting at conventions by myself.

It was a huge honor to be a part of the AX panel since the group of panelists included TJ Storm (Godzilla mo-cap actor, VR Troopers,) Project Nautilus Cosplay (Godzilla suit cosplayer,) Ryan Numrich (a pop culture historian,) and myself (a potato with a modest toy collection who's watched way too much TV & has a photographic memory for wikis. LMAO.) We really wanted to give a wide view of the genre and a better understanding as the fandom is slowly entering the mainstream in the United States. I feel I wouldn't have had as much of a comprehension on the genre without watching your subs since 2012, so I owe a lot of gratitude to TV-Nihon and the community here, so thanks for the subs for all these years. ^_^

[takenoko]

Probably not since I want that power to ultimately be the typesetter's decision. I don't think it'd be cool just to give out their tools of the trade without them having some say in it

[critHITjace]

Gotcha! Still, thanks for the Zi-O font. ^_^ Definitely improved the meme. LOL

It's definitely amazing how they're able to match up fonts like that. I dealt with it a bit with overlays for streams and such, trying to find fonts to match the games I was playing at the time. Mad respect for the typesetters.