Your Saizen Needs YOU!
Yes, you! Here at Saizen, we’re in need of new recruits to bolster our ranks as they have been somewhat ravaged by time. This means, if you have the skills to produce quality fansubs, we want to hear from you. You don’t necessarily need previous fansubbing experience, but it would certainly be beneficial, and you need to know how to use IRC, an FTP program like Filezilla, and Aegisub (although some support can be provided, and we can make allowances for translators). A general interest for the kind of stuff we do would also be useful, if only to stop you getting bored working for us.
Please note: ALL POSITIONS WILL BE TESTED.
Okay, so you want to help out, but what position would suit you best? Here’s how it works here:
TRANSLATORS are the core of the engine. They take all that sonorous Japanese dialog and turn it into English subtitles so those of us less capable of understanding moon can enjoy anime too. We’re blessed with some extremely good translators in Saizen so our standards are high, meaning we’re looking for serious applicants who have a decent amount of experience with both languages (i.e. if you learnt Japanese only from anime, you’ll find it difficult to pass our test. Same if you can’t make yourself understood in English).
TIMERS are an important cog in the machine, taking the English subtitles provided by the translators and matching them up with the dialog in a way that our viewers can read. It’s not the sexiest position going and it doesn’t allow for much creativity, but it is absolutely essential. Timers are the real workhorses of a fansub group. Any timing applicant must know how to scene-time.
EDITORS shape and mold the translations into the final product that the viewers get to see. Because our translators are excellent at English themselves (many have English as their first language), this position in Saizen works more like a book or script editor, where you take a line and try to find the best version of it without straying too far from the translation. Of course, your grammar and punctuation needs to be top notch (that’s a given), but the very best recruits will be able to make subs sound natural, even entertaining in English.
TYPESETTERS are the people responsible for all those signs that look as though they’re part of the original video but are actually in English! If you’re arty, this is the job for you, but don’t think this is a cakewalk. Saizen only produce softsubs (pretty much) so you need to learn how to perfectly blend a translation in with a scene, even when everything’s whizzing around at 100 mph! You also need a basic knowledge of timing to make sure all your sign-work shows up when it’s supposed to.
ENCODERS take the raw video and do stuff with it to make it releasable. This can include working with Blu-rays, DVDs, and TV broadcasts – or on a very rare occasion, VHS and LaserDiscs. Usually we don’t do all that frame-by-frame stuff because we like to use the best source vids available, but we expect you to produce quality encodes that aren’t just warpsharped to hell.
QUALITY CHECKERS work across ALL our projects. The QC job is a very important part of the process, being the last port of call before an episode is released to the masses, and the basics of it are: you watch an episode and point out all those pesky typos, grammar mishaps, naming inconsistencies, timing derps, and so on. Sounds simple, right? It requires a good eye for detail and a no-nonsense approach to make Saizen releases the best they can be.
We value quality in our work in Saizen, and any potential recruit would need to have that same mindset.
If you’re interested, drop into #saizen or #saizen^recruits on the Rizon network on IRC. Or fill in our snazzy new form below. It’ll be emailed to our staff and we will email back… at some point in the near future.
Last updated: 16/02/19
Check it out. We’ve added a snazzy new form for all you budding recruits!
We’ve added a form to reduce our spam mails and to be able to respond and make things done more quicker.
Your form will be forwarded to the emails of people who are responsible for recruitment, and we will email the test back to you shortly.