Translating Barroso…down-to-earth and difficult

"As a translator you inevitably get involved," Liz Scrimgeour said. "Even things that don’t really interest you, like fishing, become strangely engrossing." "It was," said her husband and colleague, Bob Vandenbob, "like Stockholm syndrome. "You identify with it all." "It all" has been their bread and butter for the last 15 years, subtitling TV shows about cooking, harrowing documentaries about the Rwandan genocide, Brokeback Mountain, extreme sports, About Schmidt, experimental films for festivals... all sorts.

The couple’s prodigious workload is flexible, up to a point, and supports their artistic endeavours, avant-garde video projects, sound installations and this month the launch of their new record label, Entangled Records. Meanwhile their day-to-day, but anonymous work, is on screens near you.

The Covenant, for example: the story of four teenage friends with supernatural powers. "A very daft thing," Liz said, laughing. Coming up on Arte in March is the more down-to-earth Au Coeur de l’Europe/ The Most Difficult Job in the World, a documentary on José Manuel Barroso.

Working in an airy fourth-floor duplex in St Gilles’s rue de Prague, headquarters of their company Des Airs Productions, the couple are veterans of the delicate art of sous-titrage. They met in the early 1980s at a concert where Bob, a composer and saxophonist, was playing. Liz had studied at the British School and was back in Brussels for a brief visit after university in England. "I decided to stay."

What had been fairly small-scale at the start - subtitling TV films and documentaries - surged in 1996 when AB Sat bought a huge job-lot of films on the cheap and needed to adapt them for the French-speaking market. The couple translated 400-odd very diverse films in two years.

They have given up hiring help from graduates of translation schools: "They were somewhat lacking in general knowledge. We prefer to work on our own."

Liz has it easiest, as subtitles towards English have a full two lines. "Dead easy", says Bob, who translates from English, Italian and Dutch into French and is permitted only one line of 44 characters (including spaces), the other line being for the Dutch subtitle. The average feature film has from 1,000 to 1,400 subtitles, around three days’ work. "Twelve to 15 hours a day," said Liz, "and then it’s over."

Belgium is France’s eastern Europe for film and music production. "We film translators are not unionised," said Bob Vanderbob, "and we’re cheap compared to our counterparts in neighbouring countries." The fruits of the subtitlers labours are still physically burned by laser onto each frame on reels of celluloid.

But big changes are afoot. Once it has been agreed who foots which (enormous) bills for the changeover, the next development in the industry will be digital streaming into cinemas and directly into people’s homes. When that happens, the precise implication for translators is as yet unclear. "For now, there is still plenty of work," said Vandenbob.

• Practical: Subtitling pays up to 58 cents a line, and is much harder than it looks. Jobs: Bob and Liz got started with Laser Title Industry (LTI), 379 rue du Tilleul, B-1140, Brussels. Contact: info@lti.be, tel 02 215 05 40. There are numerous production studios in Brussels: look at www.cinergie.be

General translation: is the ultimate Bohemian job. It pays a rock-bottom minimum of about 8 cents a word up to around 25 cents: much depends on experience/ reputation and the language combination (into English pays best). www.translatorscafe.com/cafe has online offers of jobs.

"As a translator you inevitably get involved," Liz Scrimgeour said. "Even things that don’t really interest you, like fishing, become strangely engrossing." "It was," said her husband and colleague, Bob Vandenbob, "like Stockholm syndrome. "You identify with it all." "It all" has been their bread and butter for the last 15 years, subtitling TV shows about cooking, harrowing documentaries about the Rwandan genocide, Brokeback Mountain, extreme sports, About Schmidt, experimental films for festivals... all sorts.