A film that plays well in one language and stumbles in the other is only half delivered. In the Gulf, most brand videos need to work for Arabic and English audiences, and the difference between a professional bilingual delivery and an awkward one comes down to decisions made in post-production. Here is what those decisions are and how to make them.
Subtitles, captions, and dubbing are different products
The terms get used interchangeably, but they solve different problems.
Subtitles translate spoken dialogue for viewers who do not understand the original language. Captions, sometimes called closed captions, transcribe the dialogue in the same language and include sound descriptions for viewers who cannot hear the audio. Open captions are burned into the picture. Closed captions live in a separate file that the viewer can switch on or off.
Dubbing and voiceover replacement go further and change the audio itself. A second voiceover track lets a corporate film play as a native Arabic film and a native English film, with the same picture and a different sound mix.
Most social videos need open captions, because the majority of feed viewers watch with the sound off. Most broadcast, event, and website videos need subtitles or a second voiceover. Many projects need both.
Arabic changes the layout, not just the words
Arabic is written right to left, and that affects everything on screen. Subtitle alignment, the direction text animates in, the placement of lower thirds, and the position of logos and end cards all flip. A design built for English and simply translated will look wrong to an Arabic reader, even if every word is correct.
Arabic text also runs longer. A sentence that fits on one subtitle line in English often needs two in Arabic, and Arabic voiceover usually runs 15 to 25 percent longer than the English read. This is why we plan for Arabic length at the edit stage rather than discovering the problem at delivery.
Font choice matters more than most clients expect. Many brand typefaces have no Arabic companion, and a mismatched Arabic font undermines an otherwise polished film. We help clients select an Arabic typeface that matches the weight and character of their Latin font.
Timing rules that keep subtitles readable
Subtitles have their own craft. The guidelines we work to are simple to state and easy to break:
- Each subtitle stays on screen for at least one second and no more than seven
- No more than two lines, and no more than about 42 characters per line in English
- Subtitles change on cuts, not across them, so the viewer’s eye is not pulled two ways
- Reading speed stays under roughly 17 characters per second for a general audience
Machine translation and automatic captioning tools ignore most of these rules. They produce text that is technically present but unpleasant to read, and they routinely mistranslate brand names, technical terms, and dialect. We use automated tools for a first pass on English transcription, then have every line reviewed by a person, and every Arabic translation done by a native speaker familiar with the target dialect.
Gulf Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic, or both?
This question comes up on almost every project. Modern Standard Arabic is understood across the region and is the safe choice for corporate, government, and healthcare content. Gulf dialect feels warmer and more local for consumer brands targeting the UAE and Saudi Arabia. A film for a regional launch may use MSA for subtitles and a Gulf voice for the spoken track.
The wrong choice is not a disaster, but it is noticed. Tell your production company who the audience is, and let the translator recommend the register.
Delivering the right files for each platform
Localization is only finished when each platform receives the file it needs. That usually means a set of deliverables rather than one video.
For social, burned-in captions in each language, exported as separate videos per language and per aspect ratio. For YouTube and web players, one clean video plus SRT or VTT subtitle files for each language. For broadcast and cinema, a clean master plus subtitle files in the format the broadcaster specifies. For events, a version with large, high-contrast open subtitles that read from the back of a hall.
A typical bilingual corporate film ends up as six to ten files. Knowing this at the start avoids a scramble the day before launch.
For a three-minute film, expect professional Arabic-English subtitling with a native review to take two to three working days after picture lock. A second voiceover track adds recording time and a separate mix, typically another three to five days. Both are inexpensive relative to the shoot, and they make the difference between a film that reaches half your audience and one that reaches all of it.
Gizmo Media Production delivers bilingual and multilingual video for clients across the MENA region, from subtitle timing and Arabic typography to full voiceover replacement and platform-ready exports. If your next film needs to speak to more than one audience, get in touch and tell us where it will play.
Comments are closed