Guide for making accessible theater subtitles

When it comes to the length of individual subtitles, the general guideline is:

Your goal should be to strike a balance between conveying the full meaning in a way that the audience can comfortably absorb, while advancing through the text at an appropriate pace.

When preparing subtitles for a theater production, one of the most important considerations is how to effectively divide the dialog or lyrics into coherent segments across multiple slides. There are several strategies to keep in mind:

Synchronizing the timing of subtitles with the dialog or lyrics is crucial for an effective audience experience. The surtitles should appear on screen in time with the spoken words, and disappear once that line is complete. Subtitles should appear and disappear at a pace that matches the spoken words. There should not be too much lag time between the dialog and the surtitle appearing on screen. Generally a 1-3 second lag is recommended at most. Pacing of the surtitles is also important - they should not stay on screen for too long or the audience may get ahead of the action on stage. You should also avoid changing them too rapidly, as viewers need sufficient time to read them. The pace should account for the speed of the scene while enabling comprehension. Slower paced scenes may warrant surtitles on screen for 5-6 seconds, while faster dialog could be around 3 seconds. Overall, precise timing and appropriate pacing of surtitles are vital to synchronize with the live theater performance. This enhances the audience's ability to follow along with ease.

Context clues can provide important additional information to convey the full meaning and impact of dialogue in a theatrical performance. However, surtitle creators must use caution and restraint when including contextual cues to avoid distracting from the primary dialogue.