SHORT ANSWER: "Anything is possible, given the right amount of time, money and people."

LONGER ANSWER: While translation projects can vary widely in scope, the "standard procedure" is this:

This is all eminently do-able. But it is a major amount of work. The people doing the work, as well as the facilities where the work is done, should rightly be compensated for their efforts. And for the last 3 items, working with our studio is the only option. See the SHORT ANSWER.

We have tried this method in the past with classic shows, and the results were not always satisfactory. To ensure quality and accuracy, we prefer to follow the process highlighted above.

Theoretically, for a show with only one narration or character (and we have only three of those), a multi-talented individual might be able to translate our show's script, vouch for its authenticity, record him/herself reading it, and provide us with the edited and timed narration track. We prefer to do the audio mixing ourselves, to ensure the quality of our show's sound and style are maintained. In other words, the client could provide the first two items on the list above; we would like to do the rest.

And then there are the textual elements that need to be created, and their integration into the video. There's more to this than just a language overdub.

All right. First, the work and associated costs outlined above are in addition to any show's license fees and video movie file costs. You will need to purchase those at our standard rates. This gets you the English language script you will need for translating, of course, as well as a show you can present to English-speaking audiences if you wish.

Assuming that funds for all the production work outlined above are available, we will then work out many other details with you to create the newly-translated show. Once it is finished, that should be the end of the process. The commissioning institution — you, the customer — will have your translated show; you will be happy, we will be happy, everyone will have been paid for their work to create the show in your language.

We expected you would ask about that. It has been our experience that after the translated show is created for one theater, the commissioning institution usually wants to to recoup its production costs by selling or distributing the show to others. This brings up other important issues we want you to be aware of.

First, as copyright owners of our shows, we maintain and own the copyrights on derivative works based on our originals — which includes translated scripts and soundtracks. That means any translated versions of our shows will become our property, regardless of who pays for the creation of them. Loch Ness Productions will be free to license the translated show to others. No other party can claim any form of exclusivity or proprietary privileges regarding such licensing and usage of our shows in any language.

Of course, once a show is translated and produced, we will all look forward to having a product that can be licensed for use in other customers' theaters. To acknowledge your commissioning institution's part in creating the translated show, we may choose to offer a royalty payment, based on a percentage of revenues we collect from sales of the newly translated show. We can discuss such an arrangement with you in more detail at the appropriate time.

But to be clear, no other party involved in the creation process — the end user/customer, narrator, translator — will have any claim to ownership of the translated versions of our shows. By copyright convention, that right is ours alone.

In addition, there are other legal steps that must be taken. The translator and narrator(s) will need to provide releases, stating that their work was "for hire" and relinquishing all other rights regarding ownership, usage, and distribution of their work to us. In addition, we must be able to verify the accuracy of the script translations. We have worked with other scientists and translators in the past, and would make use of such professional review of the script in your language before it is recorded. All these concerns need to be addressed at the appropriate times in the production process, usually through letters of agreement exchanged between us and you.

Yes. For example, some of our shows have been translated into Korean. In one instance, we worked directly with a representative of Sky-Skan, who conferred with us over points of the script he translated. Then he actually oversaw the recording of the Korean narration in Korea, edited the tracks there, and brought the final narration master to us to incorporate. We worked in our studios to add the narration into our show's multi-channel original tracks, and remixed the final soundtrack. That was then multiplexed into the fulldome video.

For another project, a translated script was provided to us, and we contacted an astronomer who spoke the language. He reviewed it for accuracy and sent his feedback to us. We then forwarded those comments to the original translator for incorporation into the final script.

With roughly as many dome theaters in the United States as there are in the rest of the world's countries combined, and our company located in the U.S., naturally that is the primary market for the classic shows on which our fulldome shows are based. Significantly changing demographics in the future may affect the strategy we pursue the creation of shows for non-U.S. markets.

Some of our shows are just inherently American from their subject matter; the "way out West" flavor of The Cowboy Astronomer is a good example. Obviously, Season of Light is a Christmas show — Santa Claus, December, snow. Its opening words are "In the north country, this is a time of darkness and quiet and cold." — conditions of lessened relevance below the Tropic of Cancer.

We spend a lot of time in Sky Quest with the Northern Hemisphere night sky, repeating the Big Dipper-based mnemonic "Arc to Arcturus, Spike to Spica, Leap to Leo...", and following Orion's belt stars down to Sirius — the object of our heroine's sky quest. That is the primary focus of the show. And yes, our character's NASA hat and USA flag on her USA-emblazoned cardboard rocket tends to look "American" — after all, the show was commissioned by the National Air and Space Museum's Albert Einstein Planetarium in Washington D.C.

In all our shows, even Larry Cat In Space, our generic starfield is a south-facing 40-degree north autumn sky, primarily because of its lack of obviously bright stars in the viewing area's sweet spot. But you do see the Pleiades in the east and the Summer Triangle in the west. Though generic, it will be upside down to anyone used to seeing the sky from below the equator. Both HUBBLE Vision and Oceans In Space point out Orion and pull out the Nebula from his Sword. He is upside down for the Southern Hemisphere. (The other constellation identifications in HUBBLE Vision are from the equator, so they would work for any latitude.) Oceans In Space points out the locations of extrasolar planets... in primarily northern hemisphere constellations only (Ursa Major, Bootes, Pegasus, Virgo).

Remember — you can always commission us to create custom shows specifically for you!

Only three of our shows have single narrators; the others require more than one narrator or have other special issues when it comes to translation. For example, Larry Cat In Space uses eleven different character voices. Sky Quest requires three adults (two female, one male) and a young girl.

Unlike most of our other fulldome shows, Seasonal STARGAZING was created with English text appearing onscreen throughout the shows, so it's not just a matter of translating the script and substituting a new soundtrack with our existing video. Each label for every constellation, star name, and deep-sky object must be recreated and substituted in your language where the English text appears. We have to do that work using our video compositing program. In addition, the timing of all the onscreen animations (the words appearing and fading out, the circling of stars, etc.) needs to align precisely with the script. For example, one can't spell out the name of a star onscreen at the start of a sentence if the actual name isn't heard until the end of the sentence; they have to be seen and heard simultaneously. It is a virtual certainty that a translated text will not match precisely with the original animations that were timed for the English language soundtrack. Therefore, we will have to re-time, re-program, and re-render every version of every show.

Naturally, if we use your narration instead of ours, the titles and end credits should be re-rendered, to properly credit the talent involved. And yes, we require end credits to be shown (see our standard Performance License Agreement).

Please contact us if you have more questions.