Documentary subtitles, from rough words to reviewed lines.

Make subtitles from the assembled film

A documentary may combine a clean narration track, noisy location interviews and archive recordings with very different sound quality. Generate subtitles from the assembled cut you intend to deliver. A transcript from an individual interview is useful editorial material, but its timings will not match excerpts placed elsewhere in the finished film.

Import the final recording into Polyglot and create the source-language draft locally. Keep a cue-review document that identifies difficult passages and the source material needed to check them. If the edit is still moving, treat the subtitle pass as provisional. Retaining a saved project does not make its original timings automatically follow a later recut.

Check quotations against their sources

Review interview answers in context, especially where a cut joins parts of a longer conversation. Listen for qualifying words, dates and uncertain recollections. Use names and locations from production records as spelling references, while keeping the subtitle faithful to what is actually said. Do not let a convincing recognition result substitute for checking a difficult recording.

An archive speaker might name a factory that no longer exists. Compare the audio with your verified production notes; avoid replacing an unfamiliar name with a modern, more familiar word. Keep unresolved readings in the review document. The subtitle file should not present an editorial guess as a confirmed historical quotation.

Separate translation review from speech recognition

Polyglot’s automatic speech recognition supports 25 European languages. Translation targets are a separate capability and do not extend that recognition coverage. Check whether each source recording fits the supported workflow before planning a multilingual production around it. Do not assume mixed-language archive material will produce a complete, reliable draft without review.

Give a fluent reviewer the scene, source wording and relevant context when reviewing translated cues. Preserve the speaker’s degree of certainty, tone and important distinctions. Because translations retain the source timings, longer phrasing may need text refinement or finishing in a separate subtitle editor. Polyglot does not automatically identify speakers or generate a complete accessibility caption track.

Agree the delivery format before exporting

Ask the editor, distributor or festival for the exact caption requirements. SRT is a timed-text handoff, not a promise that every screening package accepts it directly. Polyglot does not create a cinema package or burn the subtitles into the image. Format conversion, positioning and final renders belong in the appropriate finishing tools.

Export reviewed languages with names such as film-lock07.fr.srt and include the matching video version in the handoff. Check the final player or screening export at the first scene, a difficult archive passage and the ending. Keep your source project, terminology decisions and reviewer notes together. When the cut changes, treat subtitle rechecking as part of delivery, not an optional correction after the film has gone out.

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