原文標題：Character Development: A story about subtitles, cinema, and the Satos

原文鏈接：https://media.typography.or.jp/typographicst/1194

【資料圖】

日文原文發(fā)表于TYPOGRAPHICS T誌 Sep.2022 303 “映る文字　シネマ文字の歴史”特刊

日文原文鏈接：https://cinema-font.com/interview/typographics

由于本人翻譯水平不足，譯文可能有多處錯誤，故將原文貼在譯文后，以免錯誤的譯文對您產生誤導。

在 2022 年 9 月出版的第 303 期 typographics ti 雜志上，發(fā)表了一個關于 "反映人物"的特別專題。 這篇文章的作者?Dan Vaughan?的愿望是將文章的英文原版在網(wǎng)上發(fā)表在typographics ti 上，以便在世界各地傳播電影字體的歷史。?

2022 年 9 月に発行された typographics t 誌 303 號內では、「映る文字」の特集が掲載しました。このエッセイの作者 Dan Vaughan さんの希望として、シネマフォントの歴史が世界中に広がるため記事の元である英語版が typographics t オンラインで掲載されることでした。

前言：Duncan Brotherton

主編｜typographics t

Foreword: Duncan Brotherton

Editor in chief | typographics t

我參與字體設計已經有兩年了。盡管這兩年都是在我的厄年（日本人認為在某些年齡段會出現(xiàn)3年的壞運氣），但所有這些我在雜志上刊登精彩內容的機會，都讓我覺得有一些當?shù)氐纳裨诳粗摇?/p>

I have been involved in typographics t for two years now. Despite them both being during my yakudoshi years (a 3-year period of bad luck that occurs at certain ages, believed by the Japanese), all of these opportunities I have been presented with to feature great content in the magazine has me feeling like some local god is watching over me.

2021年夏天，Ian Lynam（在第300期的全球字體接力文章中出現(xiàn)過）與我聯(lián)系，希望介紹一位正在研究日本字體的朋友。伊恩的想法是，我--作為JTA（Japan Typography Association，日本字體設計協(xié)會）的董事會成員--應該能夠提供幫助。我沒有想到的是，一個外國人會聯(lián)系我。我的意思是，為什么一個外國人會對一種非常特殊的、基本上不為人知的字體的歷史感興趣？我沒想到會有其他像我這樣的字體書呆子在那里。

In the summer of 2021, Ian Lynam (featured in issue 300’s Global Type Relay article) contacted me wanting to introduce a friend who was researching Japanese fonts. Ian’s line of thought was that I—being a board member of the JTA—would be able to help. What I was NOT expecting, was a foreigner to contact me. I mean, why would a foreigner be interested in the history of a very specific, largely unknown typeface? I didn’t expect there to be other type nerds out there like myself.

和我一樣，Dan Vaughan是一位生活在日本的澳大利亞平面設計師。他在東京工作，當時想研究一種叫做Cinema Font的字體。他第一次是在某部電影的字幕中看到它，并想聯(lián)系日本字體設計協(xié)會，看看他是否能了解更多。

Like myself, Dan Vaughan is an Australian graphic designer living in Japan. He is based in Tokyo and at the time was wanting to research about a typeface called Cinema Font. He had first seen it in the subtitles of a movie somewhere and wanted to contact the Japan Typography Association to see if he could find out more.

這個話題在我們的下一次董事會會議上被提出來，不久之后，一位日本字體協(xié)會的成員，大崎先生，建議我們聯(lián)系Fontworks（協(xié)會的企業(yè)成員之一）。他們的部分字體系列包括New Cinema字體，該字體由佐藤英夫（原Cinema字體的創(chuàng)造者）創(chuàng)造。我們被告知他已經去世了，但他建議我們還是試著聯(lián)系Fontworks。我立即與之聯(lián)系，并很快被介紹給佐藤英夫的兒子佐藤武。Dan和我隨后安排在Zoom上與佐藤武和他的妻子明子見面，我?guī)椭鶧an翻譯了采訪。

The topic was raised at our next board meeting, and shortly after a JTA member, Mr. Osaki, recommended that we contact Fontworks (one of the associations corporate members). Part of their font range includes the typeface New Cinema, which was created by Hideo Sato (the creator of the original Cinema Font). We were informed that he had already passed away, but he recommended we try to contact Fontworks anyway. I got in contact immediately, and was promptly introduced to Takeshi Sato, Hideo Sato’s son. Dan and I then arranged to meet Takeshi and his wife Akiko Sato on Zoom, and I helped interpret the interview for Dan.

采訪提供了大量有趣的信息，之后我問Dan，他打算在哪里發(fā)表他的研究。他說他還沒有決定。在提出建議后，我們同意將日文版的排版和英文原版的研究在這里在線出版。

After the interview, which provided plenty of interesting information, I asked Dan where he was planning to publish his research. He said he hadn’t decided. After an offer, it was agreed that we would publish the Japanese edition in typographics t and the original English research here, online.

我們在這里看到的是一位在東京的澳大利亞設計師主動研究他感興趣的獨特的日本字體，以及一位在京都的澳大利亞設計師幫助解釋采訪內容，翻譯手稿，并為日本字體設計愛好者的小眾讀者出版的結果。換句話說；一個國際團隊一直在用日語發(fā)現(xiàn)、記錄和存檔日本的字體歷史。這當然讓我微笑，并想知道到底發(fā)生了什么。

What we have here is the result of an Australian designer in Tokyo proactively researching unique Japanese typeface he is interested in, and an Australian designer in Kyoto helping to interpret the interview, translate the manuscript, and publish it for a niche audience of Japanese typography lovers. In other words; an international cast has been discovering, documenting and archiving the history of Japanese typography, in Japanese. It certainly makes me smile and wonder what on earth is going on.

JTA非常幸運，能夠將日本排版歷史的一個寶貴部分歸檔于typographics t，我想借此機會感謝Dan的幫助。

The JTA is very fortunate to be able to archive a valuable part of Japanese typography history in typographics t, and I would like to take the oppoutunity to thank Dan for his help.

謝謝你，Dan；好樣的，伙計。

Thanks Dan; good onya mate.

字符塑造，一個關于字幕、電影和佐藤的故事

Character Development, A story about subtitles, cinema, and the Satos

原文為 "放映的文字 電影字體的歷史"，載于 typographics t，303版，2022年9月出版。

文本: Dan Vaughan

Originally published as 「映る文字　シネマフォントの歴史」in typographics t, edition 303, published in September, 2022

Text: Dan Vaughan

我在日本的早期經歷之一是在2015年去吉祥寺的一家當?shù)赜霸嚎戳艘徊侩娪?。影片是以英文原版放映的，有日文字幕。這次經歷特別令人難忘，不是因為電影本身，而是因為盡管我懂日語，但我?guī)缀蹩床欢帜?。作為一個剛到日本的澳大利亞設計師，字幕使用的字體是我以前從未見過的。字符的形狀我不認識，而且我已經習慣了不均勻的字符高度的節(jié)奏，被僵硬的統(tǒng)一性所取代。我后來了解到，對我來說是一種對抗性的體驗，而對大多數(shù)日本人來說則完全相反。

One of my early experiences in Japan was going to see a film at a local theater in Kichijoji in 2015. It was screened in the original English language, with subtitles in Japanese. The experience was particularly memorable, not for the film itself, but because despite understanding Japanese, I could barely read the subtitles. As an Australian designer relatively new to Japan, the typeface used for the subtitles was something I had never seen before. Characters were in shapes that I didn’t recognise, and the rhythm of uneven character-heights that I had become accustomed to had been replaced with a rigid uniformity. What was to me a confronting experience, I later learned, was the complete opposite for most Japanese.

這種特立獨行的副標題字體風格是日本字體流派的一部分，被稱為 "電影字體"（不要與山田真一的 "電影字體 "混淆）。這種風格出現(xiàn)在80多年前，伴隨著外國有聲電影（非無聲電影）在日本的引進，這種風格開始出現(xiàn)，直到2000年代初，都是由專業(yè)的字母設計師完全手工繪制?，F(xiàn)在，字幕是以數(shù)字化形式出現(xiàn)的，但由于其文化和技術意義，這種風格仍然很盛行。

The idiosyncratic subtitle lettering style is part of a genre of Japanese type called cinema moji (not to be confused with Shinkichi Yamada’s kinema moji). The style emerged over eighty years ago, alongside the introduction of foreign talkies (non-silent films) in Japan, and until the early 2000’s was drawn entirely by hand by professional letterers. Now, subtitles are applied digitally, but the style is still prevalent because of its cultural and technical significance.

由于其獨特的特點，電影字體在日本的字體景觀中占據(jù)了一個確定的空間，但其傳統(tǒng)生產的性質和隱蔽性意味著這幾乎不是事實。理解電影字體的不穩(wěn)定性需要了解其文化和技術歷史。重要的是，我們必須承認兩個人的貢獻--佐藤英夫，他用手寫了50多年的字幕，他的兒子佐藤武，用他父親的字創(chuàng)造了第一個電影字幕字體，Cinema Font。

Because of their unique characteristics, cinema moji occupy a definitive space in the Japanese type landscape, but the nature of their traditional production and obscurity meant that this was almost not the case. Understanding the precarity of cinema moji requires a knowledge of their cultural and technological history. Importantly, we must acknowledge the contributions of two individuals in particular – Sato Hideo, who wrote subtitles by hand for more than fifty years, and his son Takeshi, who created the first cinema moji font, Cinema Font, from his father’s lettering.

Cinema Font不僅代表了電影字幕類型的決定性條目，而且也是一種失傳的工藝的工藝品，也是佐藤武試圖保存其父親工作的遺產。這種字幕風格曾經與電影并存，并隨著文化和技術的進步而發(fā)展。但是，雖然它不再有機會以同樣的方式發(fā)展，但它持久的流行和與電影的關系確保了只要我們記住它存在的原因和它的來源，電影字幕就有未來。

Cinema Font represents not only the defining entry in the cinema moji genre, but is also an artifact of a lost craft, and Takeshi’s attempt to preserve the legacy of his father’s work. The subtitle style once lived alongside film, and developed in response to cultural and technological advancements. But while it no longer has the opportunity to evolve in the same way, its enduring popularity and relationship to film ensures that as long as we remember why it existed and where it came from, cinema moji has a future.

日文字幕的開始

The beginning of Japanese subtitles

在20世紀初出現(xiàn)字幕之前，在日本放映的外國電影要么由日本演員配音，要么由被稱為 "弁士 "的表演者實時講述。在大多數(shù)情況下，本地和外國電影都包含 "中間字幕"；在電影中插入手寫或印刷的文字框架，以表達對話或說明。當一部電影有旁白時，弁士會大聲朗讀字幕，但在其他情況下，弁士會讓觀眾閱讀。

Prior to the advent of subtitles in the early 20th century, foreign films screened in Japan were either dubbed over by Japanese actors, or were narrated in real time by performers called ‘benshi’. In most cases, both local and foreign films also contained ‘intertitles’; frames with handwritten or printed text that were inserted into a film to convey dialogue or exposition. When a film was narrated, benshi would read the intertitles aloud, but were otherwise intended to be read by the audience.

字幕卡可以被認為是字幕的一種先導，但它們的作用和外觀有根本的不同。雖然它們都是用來傳達對話的，但內部字幕也是一種敘事手段，并經常成為電影場景的一部分。字幕卡寫得很有表現(xiàn)力和裝飾性，與傳統(tǒng)字幕不同的是，它們的字體風格是根據(jù)它們出現(xiàn)的影片來選擇的。向字幕的轉變?yōu)槿毡倦娪爸械奈淖质褂靡肓艘环N新的方法；字幕卡的設計是為了讓人注意到，而字幕的目的是更接近于隱蔽性。

Intertitles can be considered a kind of precursor to subtitles, but their role and appearance were fundamentally different. While they were both used to convey dialogue, intertitles were also a narrative device, and often became part of the film’s mise-en-scene. Intertitles were written expressively and decoratively, and unlike conventional subtitles, the style of their lettering was chosen to match the film they appeared in. The shift to subtitles introduced a new approach to the use of text in Japanese film; where intertitles were designed to be noticed, subtitles aimed for something closer to invisibility.

1931年，美國派拉蒙公司請電影雜志《Kinema Junpo》的編輯田村幸彥翻譯他們的新片《摩洛哥》并監(jiān)督其字幕的制作，這就是這種轉變的開始。盡管外國電影在日本很受歡迎，但派拉蒙和其他好萊塢電影公司一直在努力用一種可靠的本地化方法來吸引日本觀眾。配音是不受歡迎的，因為銀幕上的西方人物與日本人的聲音之間存在著經驗上的脫節(jié)，同時也因為早期的電影配音使用了帶有強烈廣島方言的表演者，觀眾很難融入其中。字幕在歐洲已經很流行，而且比安排弁士在每場放映中解說更便宜、更容易制作，因此派拉蒙將摩洛哥視為向日本觀眾測試這種新方法的一個機會。

The beginning of this shift occurred when the US studio Paramount asked Tamura Yukihiko, the editor for film journal Kinema Junpo, to translate their new film Morocco and oversee the production of its subtitles in 1931. Despite the popularity of foreign films in Japan, Paramount and other Hollywood studios had struggled to captivate Japanese audiences with a reliable localisation method. Dubbing was unpopular because of the experienced disconnect between the Western characters on screen coupled with Japanese voices, and also because early film dubs had used performers with a strong Hiroshima dialect that audiences had trouble getting into. Subtitles had already been popular in Europe, and were cheaper and easier to produce than arranging for benshi to narrate every screening, so Paramount saw Morocco as an opportunity to test this new method with Japanese audiences.

字幕所需的技術在當時很新穎，在日本還沒有，所以田村去了紐約。田村既不是藝術家，也不是技術人員，所以他尋找日本人在當?shù)貙懽帜?，但由于離日本太遠，很難找到合適的人才。然而，在最后一分鐘，他找到了兩個有能力的申請人。早川和山本（遺憾的是他們的全名不詳）。

The technology required for subtitling was novel at the time and not yet available in Japan, so Tamura traveled to New York. Tamura was neither an artist nor technician, so looked for Japanese letterers to write the subtitles locally, but being so far from Japan struggled to find suitable talent. At the last minute however, he found two capable applicants: Hayakawa, and Yamamoto (their full names are regrettably unknown).

田村對早川和山本的唯一已知指示是創(chuàng)造對他來說具有藝術美感的字體。然而，我們可以將早川和山本的字體與同一時期美國和歐洲電影中的字幕風格進行比較。這些字幕大多比日本字幕中使用的字體相對簡單，而且是用圓頭的" speedball "筆書寫的，比傳統(tǒng)的日本毛筆更柔和。

Tamura’s only known instruction to Hayakawa and Yamamoto was simply to create lettering that, to him, was artistically beautiful. We can draw comparisons however between Hayakawa and Yamamoto’s lettering and the styles of text used in intertitles in American and European films in the same period. Most of these intertitles were relatively simpler than the lettering used in Japanese intertitles, and were written with round-nibbed ‘speedball’ pens that gave a softer impression than traditional Japanese brushes.

也許更重要的是，田村主要關注字幕的整體觀眾體驗。在進行翻譯后，他發(fā)現(xiàn)許多字幕的長度必須被編輯下來，以防止它們滾動到下面的場景。他還認為橫向閱讀日語字幕很困難，所以他把字幕設置成縱向的，但后來不得不格外小心地定位，以避免覆蓋電影的重要元素。字母的簡化是使觀眾更容易和更快地消費字幕的嘗試的一部分。

Perhaps more importantly, Tamura was primarily concerned with the overall audience experience of the subtitles. After performing his translation, he found that the length of many of his subtitles had to be edited down to prevent them from rolling over into following scenes. He also thought that reading subtitles in Japanese horizontally was difficult, so he set them vertically, but then had to position them with extra care to avoid covering important elements of the film. The simplification of the lettering was part of an attempt to make the consumption of subtitles easier and faster for viewers.

盡管三人做出了努力，但最終的字幕還是有一些問題。翻譯的長度和字符的大小阻礙了電影的動作，而且往往在觀眾能夠完全閱讀之前就消失了。重要的是，評論家們注意到刻字是多么粗糙，并希望文字能更漂亮。具有更復雜組成部分的角色在投影時失去了逼真度，而較小的筆畫經常消失或融合成不受歡迎的斑點，給人一種業(yè)余的感覺。

Despite the trio’s efforts, there were a number of issues with the final subtitles. The length of the translation and size of the characters obstructed the film’s action, and often they disappeared before viewers could read them fully. Importantly, critics noted how unrefined the lettering was, and wished that the writing had been more beautiful. Characters with more complex components lost their fidelity when projected, and smaller strokes often disappeared or melded into undesirable blobs, giving the production an amateurish feel.

然而，普通觀眾卻被摩洛哥的字幕所吸引。派拉蒙認為這個項目是成功的，并決定為其隨后在日本發(fā)行的所有影片添加字幕。田村被要求繼續(xù)在紐約做字幕，但不能長期離開日本。取而代之的是他的門徒清水俊二，他將字幕工作確立為一個真正的職業(yè)，并成為日本第一個官方字幕員。早川和山本是否在摩洛哥以外的其他影片繼續(xù)刻制字幕，不得而知。

General audiences, however, were captivated by Morocco’s subtitles. Paramount saw the project as a success, and decided to subtitle all of its following releases in Japan. Tamura was asked to continue subtitling in New York but could not leave Japan permanently. Instead, his protege Shimizu Shunji took over, who established subtitling as a true profession, and became Japan’s first official subtitler. Whether or not Hayakawa and Yamamoto continued lettering subtitles beyond Morocco is unknown.

在接下來的幾年里，派拉蒙將其字幕制作業(yè)務移至京都。在那里，清水為字幕的書寫制定了更具體的規(guī)范，并倡導字幕應該是 "中性"的概念，這一想法源于田村最初在摩洛哥為簡化字幕所做的嘗試。負責實際呈現(xiàn)字幕的書寫者，現(xiàn)在被稱為 "字幕作者"，他們放棄了字幕中的裝飾性和表現(xiàn)性書法，以早川和山本的原始字幕為基礎，轉而采用更謹慎的書寫風格。

In the following years, Paramount moved its subtitling operations to Kyoto. There, Shimizu developed more concrete conventions for how subtitles should be written, and advocated the concept that subtitles should be ‘neutral’, an idea with its roots in Tamura’s initial attempts to simplify them in Morocco. The letterers responsible for physically rendering the subtitles, now referred to as ‘title writers’, abandoned the decorative and expressive calligraphy seen in intertitles for a more discreet style of writing that built upon the original titles by Hayakawa and Yamamoto.

早期電影字幕的發(fā)展一直持續(xù)到1941年，在第二次世界大戰(zhàn)開始時，電影進口被停止了。清水，現(xiàn)在沒有字幕工作，轉而從事出版工作。10年后，當進口電影重新開始時，他又回到了字幕組。大約在同一時間，一位曾在盟軍占領時期從事電影本地化工作的年輕譯員，以及清水的朋友高瀨靜夫，成立了位于東京的中央制作庫（CPP）。在CPP，標題寫作的做法繼續(xù)發(fā)展，在高瀨的侄子佐藤英夫的領導下，它被發(fā)展成今天仍在使用的當代電影字幕風格。

The development of early cinema moji continued until 1941, when film imports were halted at the beginning of World War 2. Shimizu, now without subtitling work, moved into publishing. He returned to subtitling ten years later, when imports resumed. Around the same time, a young interpreter who had worked in film localisation under the Allied Occupation, and a friend of Shimizu’s, Takase Shizuo, founded the Tokyo-based Central Production Pool (CPP). At CPP the practice of title writing continued to evolve, and under Takase’s nephew, Sato Hideo, it was developed into the contemporary cinema moji style still in use today.

標題作家佐藤英夫

The title writer, Sato Hideo

佐藤英夫一生中大部分時間都處于相對默默無聞的狀態(tài)，但在日本電影文化中，他作為字幕作者是一個獨特的重要人物。今天出現(xiàn)的電影字幕風格在很大程度上是基于他手寫的字幕，而最初的電影字幕字體Cinema Font是由他的兒子佐藤武根據(jù)他的字體樣本開發(fā)的。

Sato Hideo spent most of his life in relative obscurity, but was a uniquely important figure in Japanese film culture for his role as a title writer. The cinema moji style as it appears today is largely based on the subtitles he wrote by hand, and the original cinema moji typeface, Cinema Font, was developed from samples of his lettering by his son Takeshi.

佐藤英夫于1938年出生于東京港區(qū)，在CPP處于早期階段時，他十幾歲時與叔叔高瀨靜夫住在一起。由于經常看到他叔叔的工作，佐藤也對電影工作產生了興趣。他最初與高瀨接觸，希望成為翻譯學徒，但CPP的那個部門已經滿員。然而，高瀨知道佐藤在銷售點的字體和書法方面有一些經驗，于是給他提供了一個標題寫作辦公室的學徒職位。

Sato was born in 1938 in Minato-ku, Tokyo, and lived with his uncle Takase Shizuo as a teenager while CPP was in its early years. Having a regular window to his uncle’s work, Sato too developed an interest in working in film. He initially approached Takase to apprentice as a translator, but that department at CPP was already full. Knowing that Sato had some experience with point-of-sale lettering and calligraphy however, Takase offered him an apprentice position in the title writing office instead.

佐藤在大井誠和高瀨英夫的指導下發(fā)展了他的寫作技巧。他很快就掌握了他的手藝；以至于當誠在50年代末生病時，佐藤能夠全面接管他的工作。戰(zhàn)后的經濟繁榮和外國電影禁令的取消意味著佐藤作為標題作家的需求一直持續(xù)到70年代，因為觀眾需要更多來自海外的電影。盡管他職業(yè)生涯的高峰期出現(xiàn)在80年代，但隨著激光照排技術的使用變得更加方便和實惠，手繪字幕的使用開始下降，逐漸削弱了對字幕編寫員的需求。

Sato developed his writing skills under Ooi Makoto and Takagu Hideo. He picked up his craft quickly; enough so that when Makoto became ill in the late 50s, Sato was able to take over for him in full capacity. The postwar economic boom and the rescinding of foreign film bans meant that Sato was in-demand as a title writer through to the 70’s, as audiences demanded more films from overseas. Although the peak of his career occurred in the 80’s, the use of hand-drawn subtitles began to decline as the use of laser phototype technology became more convenient and affordable, gradually undermining the need for title writers.

佐藤英夫的兒子佐藤武，此時是日立公司的一名軟件工程師，注意到他父親的工作機會在減少，并認為如果他能將他的字體制作成數(shù)字字體，在面對不可逆轉的技術轉變時，會給他父親帶來新的優(yōu)勢。佐藤武在90年代中期開始了開發(fā)"Cinema Font "字體的工作。在開發(fā)Cinema Font的過程中，佐藤英夫至少在一定程度上繼續(xù)手寫字幕。他最后一部完全用手寫的電影是1997年的《泰坦尼克號》，也許很恰當。Cinema Font從未完全取代佐藤的手寫工作，他在2002-2011年為《哈利波特》電影繪制的不尋常的字幕引起了人們的注意。這些字幕引起了Fontworks的注意，他們與佐藤和他的兒子合作發(fā)布了New Cinema--一種雙字體的字型，在許多方面都成為Cinema Font的繼承者。New Cinema在2000年代中期出版，并在佐藤于2013年去世前為他的作品的晚期知名度做出了貢獻。

Sato’s son Takeshi, at this point a software engineer at Hitachi, noticed his father’s work opportunities decreasing, and thought that if he were to make a digital font of his lettering, it would give his father a new advantage in the face of an irreversible technological shift. Takeshi began work on the typeface ‘Cinema Font’ in the mid 90s. As Cinema Font was being developed, Sato continued to write subtitles by hand in at least some capacity. The last film he wrote entirely by hand was, fittingly perhaps, Titanic in 1997. Cinema Font never entirely replaced the need for Sato’s handwritten work, and he garnered attention for the unusual subtitles he drew for the Harry Potter films from 2002–2011. These subtitles drew the attention of Fontworks, who partnered with Sato and his son to release New Cinema – a two-font typeface that in many ways would become a successor to Cinema Font. New Cinema was published in the mid-2000s and contributed to the late awareness of Sato’s work before his passing in 2013.

我們對佐藤的生活和工作有如此多的了解是非常幸運的。由于Cinema Font是當時的第一種字體，它的制作使佐藤成為焦點，但在他工作的四十年里，他的工作圈子以外的人甚至很少知道他的名字，更不用說他的職業(yè)了。標題作家，就像參與字幕開發(fā)過程的其他技術人員一樣，從未在電影的片頭中得到承認--這一慣例始于早川和山本，以及在清水俊二手下工作的標題作家，直到標題作家被數(shù)字排版取代，這一慣例依然存在。

That we know so much about the life and work of Sato is uncommonly fortunate. As Cinema Font was the first font of its kind at the time, its production put Sato in the spotlight, but in the forty years he had been working until then, very few people outside of his circle of work would have even known his name, let alone that his profession existed. Title writers, much like other technicians involved in the subtitle development process, were never acknowledged in a film’s credits — a convention that started with Hayakawa and Yamamoto, and the title writers who worked under Shimizu Shunji, and remained a convention until title writers were replaced by digital typesetting.

Cinema Font和New Cinema在某種程度上是他生活和工作的遺產，但在更廣泛的意義上，它們是日本電影和字體設計的文物。在手寫字幕的時代，字體的原始副本在被印在膠片上后從未被保留下來，當一部電影后來被重新出版時（如DVD），字幕會被重新繪制成不相關的風格，或者用激光或照排技術排版。這意味著原始字幕只能在電影膠片上放映時看到，因此在影院放映后往往再也看不到了。此外，許多這些電影膠片已不復存在--它們在1984年國家電影中心的大火中被毀。佐藤剩余的作品樣本得以保存下來，要歸功于佐藤武和他的妻子Akiko。佐藤去世后，他們走訪了他們父親過去工作過的所有工作室，并收集了所有剛好沒有被丟棄的卡片和板子。

Cinema Font and New Cinema are in part a legacy of his life and work, but in a broader way they serve as artifacts of both Japanese cinema and type design. In the time of handwritten subtitles, original copies of the lettering were never kept after they had been printed on film, and when a film was later republished (i.e on DVD), the subtitles would be redrawn in an unrelated style, or typeset with laser or phototype technology. This meant that the original subtitle lettering could only be seen when a film was projected from its filmstrip, and was therefore often never seen again after theatrical screenings. Further, many of these filmstrips no longer exist — they were destroyed in the National Film Center fire of 1984. The remaining samples of Sato’s work have survived thanks to Takeshi and his wife Akiko. After Sato died, they visited all of the past studios that their father worked for, and gathered any of the cards and plates that just happened to have not been discarded.

佐藤的作品看似不起眼，但在定義一種字體類型和確保日本字體設計歷史的重要部分方面卻是不可或缺的。雖然在他的時代有幾位標題作家在工作，但當代的電影字幕字體風格主要來自于他的字體和最初的電影字幕字體。他在個人字體方面所做的決定定義了一種曾經被技術和時代所塑造的風格，但現(xiàn)在卻被凍結在原地，而電影字幕字體所代表的昭和時代的懷舊和電影的魅力與佐藤本人有著密不可分的聯(lián)系。

Sato’s work was seemingly unremarkable, but was integral in defining a typographic genre and securing an important part of Japanese type design history. Although there were several title writers working during his time, the contemporary cinema moji style is derived mostly from his lettering and the original Cinema Font. The decisions he made regarding his personal lettering have defined a style that was once shaped by technology and the times, but is now frozen in place, and the Shōwa-era nostalgia and cinematic charm that cinema moji represent are inextricably linked to Sato himself.

電影字體的風格

The Cinema Moji Style

佐藤的字體風格，是電影字幕字體的基礎，是他試圖改進前輩作品的結果，同時在一個容易發(fā)生技術變化的行業(yè)中游刃有余。佐藤不是傳統(tǒng)意義上的設計師，但他以一定程度的考慮對待他的手藝，揭示了他對消費它的人的同情心。佐藤在他的字體中所追求的最重要的品質是，矛盾的是，可讀性和隱蔽性；他希望觀眾能夠輕松地閱讀他的字體，而不會意識到他們正在這樣做。制作字幕的技術的不穩(wěn)定性意味著佐藤要不斷調整他的風格以適應新的條件，但最終這些技術限制帶來了創(chuàng)新，今天，這些創(chuàng)新是電影字幕風格的組成部分。

Sato’s style of lettering, the basis for cinema moji, is the result of an attempt to improve upon the work of his predecessors, while navigating an industry prone to technological change. Sato was not in the traditional sense a designer, but he approached his craft with a degree of consideration that revealed the compassion he held for the people who consumed it. The most important qualities that Sato strove for in his lettering were, conflictingly, legibility and invisibility; he wanted audiences to read his lettering with ease, without realizing they were doing so. The volatility of the technology used in creating subtitles meant that Sato was constantly adapting his style to new conditions, but ultimately these technical constraints bore innovations that are, today, integral to the cinema moji style.

在日本的字體設計典籍中，"電影字幕"占據(jù)了一個奇怪的位置。它們不能整齊地歸入傳統(tǒng)的黑體或明朝體（宋體）分類，但有一套明確的要求，使它們不能被洗刷到一個萬能的 "裝飾 "類別。電影字幕字體的可識別性可以分解為以下要素：統(tǒng)一的筆畫寬度、夸張的負空間和tomé（筆畫結尾）、使用ryakuji（縮寫的字符）、使用 "氣孔 "和非傳統(tǒng)的字符排列方式。這些特點中的許多都摒棄了日本的字體慣例，而另一些則只是對其進行了重新解釋。然而，所有這些都是努力編寫有效的字幕，同時減輕技術限制的壓力的產物。

Cinema moji occupy an odd position in the Japanese type design canon. They do not fit neatly into traditional gothic or mincho classifications, but have a clear set of requirements that prevent them from being shuffled into a catch-all ‘decorative’ category. The identifiable qualities of cinema moji can be broken down into the following elements: uniform stroke widths, exaggerated counterspaces and tomé (stroke endings), the use of ryakuji (abbreviated characters), the use of ‘airholes’, and non-traditional character alignments. Many of these characteristics eschew Japanese type conventions, while others simply reinterpret them. All of them, however, are the product of efforts to write effective subtitles while mitigating the pressure of technological restraints.

在1938年之前，字幕的制作方式與字幕卡相同；它們用畫筆畫在卡片上并拍照，然后將底片沖洗到電影的膠片上。不同的是它們的目的；字幕卡是為了表達，而字幕則是為了 "中立"。受1920年代末和1930年代初的美國電影字幕的影響，實現(xiàn)不那么具有表現(xiàn)力的字體的最早方法之一是簡化筆畫。

Prior to 1938, subtitles were made in the same fashion as intertitles; they were drawn on card with a brush and photographed, and the negative was developed into the movie’s filmstrip. What differed was their purpose; intertitles were meant to be expressive, while subtitles were meant to be ‘neutral’. One of the first methods to achieve less expressive lettering was to simplify their brushstrokes, influenced by the lettering of intertitles in American films from the late 1920’s and early 1930’s.

為了使字幕的筆畫寬度更加統(tǒng)一，字幕作者會修剪筆尖，然后把它們焊接在一起，做成一個扁平的 "筆尖"。這個過程有一些注意事項；筆尖會隨著時間的推移而磨損，這意味著隨著畫的卡片越來越多，字跡會退化。沒有兩支筆的寬度是完全一樣的，所以一支筆在工作中不容易被替換。作家們的目標是按照字幕在屏幕上出現(xiàn)的順序來寫，所以逐漸退化的情況不會被觀眾注意到。如果按照任何其他順序繪制卡片，字體的質量將在整個影片中經常發(fā)生變化。對佐藤來說，這有可能是災難性的。如果觀眾意識到他們在閱讀字幕，而不是一種下意識的活動，佐藤認為字幕是失敗的，在他中途更換其他編劇的情況下，總是調整自己的字體以配合前一個編劇的風格。

To achieve a more uniform stroke width for subtitles, title writers would trim the tips of the brush, then solder them together to make a flat ‘nib’. This process came with caveats; the tip would fray over time, meaning that the lettering would degrade as more cards were drawn. No two brushes would ever have the exact same width, so a brush could not be easily replaced mid-job. Writers aimed to write their subtitles in the order they appeared on screen, so the gradual degradation would not be noticeable to audiences. If cards were drawn in any other order, the quality of the lettering would frequently change throughout the film. To Sato, this was potentially disastrous. If audiences became aware of the fact they were reading subtitles, rather than it being a subconscious activity, Sato considered the titles a failure, and on occasions where he replaced other writers mid-job always adjusted his own lettering to match the style of the previous writer.

簡化字符也是為了使字幕更容易辨認。自摩洛哥以來，電影公司一直面臨著壓力，以確保他們的標題在投射到屏幕上時不會退化成白色塊狀。隨著時間的推移，技術的進步允許更多的定義，字幕作者利用這一點，使他們的字符設計更有特色，目的是使他們在小尺寸下更容易辨認。佐藤的字體建立在這些演變的基礎上，并建立了一個整體的 "外觀"，今天定義了這個類型。對于平假名和片假名，佐藤將字符推到了極致，打開了負空間并擴大了它們的骨架和輪廓，同時復制了傳統(tǒng)的筆觸（如tome、hane和tatekaku），以保證完整性。一個重要的例子是 "た "的設計，它通過連接垂直和水平的筆畫來借鑒歷史風格，而這些筆畫在當代風格中通常是不相連的。這樣做的部分原因是為了將其與に區(qū)分開來，に是一個結構相似的字，在屏幕上投影時可能會被誤認為是た。同樣的想法也適用于其他的配對，如る和ろ，以及あ和お。

The simplification of characters was also an attempt to make subtitles more legible. Since Morocco, studios had been under pressure to ensure their titles didn’t degenerate into white blobs when projected on screen. Over time technological advances allowed for more definition, and title writers took advantage of this by making their character design more distinctive, with the aim of making them more distinguishable at small sizes. Sato’s lettering built upon these evolutions and established an overall ‘look’ that defines the genre today. For hiragana and katakana, Sato pushed characters to their extreme, opening up counterspaces and exaggerating their skeleton and silhouette, while replicating traditional brushstrokes (such as tome, hane, and tatekaku) for integrity. A key example is the design for た, which draws on historical styles by connecting the vertical and horizontal strokes, which are usually disconnected in contemporary styles. This was done partly to distinguish it from に, a structurally similar character that could be mistaken for た when projected on screens. The same thinking was applied to other pairings like る and ろ, and あ and お.

然而，對于漢字來說，幾乎沒有什么事情能夠不付出代價地來提高屏幕上的可讀性。盡管隨著時間的推移，漢字的清晰度和屏幕尺寸有所增加，但由于漢字的復雜性，許多漢字仍然難以閱讀。較小的筆畫消失了，繁忙的偏旁部首相互交融。處理這個問題的主要策略是使用ryakuji--縮略字?？s略字在手寫體中很常見，但在出版資料中卻不被普遍接受。通常情況下，縮略字是用來節(jié)省書寫高筆畫數(shù)的漢字的時間，但在字幕的背景下，目的是在不犧牲視覺完整性的情況下降低密度。

For kanji however, there was little that could be done voluntarily to increase legibility on screen. Despite increases in definition and screen sizes over time, many kanji were still difficult to read because of their complexity. Smaller strokes disappeared and busy radicals melded into one another. The main strategy for dealing with this was to use ryakuji – abbreviated characters. The use of ryakuji is common in handwriting, but is not generally accepted in published material. Ordinarily, ryakuji are used to save time writing kanji with high stroke counts, but in the context of subtitles the aim was to reduce density without sacrificing visual integrity.

詞條的使用完全由標題作者決定，正如佐藤的一貫作風，他注意縮略字不會引起對字符本身的過分注意。有些詞條，如“間”和“品”的速記版本，在用于字幕之前就已經存在，被認為是傳統(tǒng)的。然而，更多的是字幕所特有的，包含了更微妙和不常見的變化。這些字符是有爭議的，電影公司有時會收到觀眾抱怨他們的來信。這些字，就像“義”和“勝”的縮寫形式一樣，是對另一個技術挑戰(zhàn)的不可避免的回應：正片帶子。

The use of ryakuji was entirely up to the title writer, and as was usual with Sato, he took care to make abbreviations that would not draw undue attention to the characters themselves. Some ryakuji, such as the shorthand versions of 間 and 品, had already existed before their use in subtitles and were considered conventional. Many more however were unique to subtitles, and contained changes that were more subtle and uncommon. These characters are controversial, and film studios have on occasion received letters from audiences complaining about them. These kinds of ryakuji, like the abbreviated forms of 義 and 勝, were an unavoidable response to yet another technical challenge: positive filmstrips.

當外國電影膠片被送到佐藤進行字幕制作時，它們要么是完全顯影的正片，要么是尚待顯影的底片。尤其是戰(zhàn)后收到的美國電影，大多是以批量交付的正片形式送達，但在80年代更多的是以底片形式送達。膠片條是否被沖洗，影響了字幕的制作方式。底片的字幕被稱為 "刻錄 "字樣，寫在拍照的卡片上，然后一起沖洗成膠片條。然而，對于正片，字幕需要從電影膠片的乳劑中 "打 "出來。這些被稱為 "pachi-pachi "的字符，是根據(jù)用佐藤手寫的金屬板取出膠片條時發(fā)出的皺褶聲命名的。

When foreign filmstrips were delivered to Sato for subtitling, they arrived as either fully-developed positives, or yet-to-be developed negatives. American films received in the post-war period in particular arrived mostly as batch-delivered positives, but shifted more towards negatives in the 80s. Whether a filmstrip was developed or not affected how subtitles were produced. Subtitles for negative films, called ‘burned-in’ characters, were written on cards that were photographed and simply developed into filmstrip together. With positive films however, subtitles needed to be physically ‘punched’ out of the filmstrip’s emulsion. These were called ‘pachi-pachi’ characters, named after the crinkling sound of the film strip when removed with metal plates made from Sato’s handwriting.

Pachi-pachi字符包含 "氣孔"，這是字幕特有的視覺特征，其中漢字的筆畫被故意斷開，似乎是為了讓空氣在整個字符中自由流動。畫完后，字幕被拍照。然后，照片底片被用來制作金屬板，打入電影膠片中。僅僅這樣做還不足以將字幕印在膠片上，所以用酸液將它們從乳劑中完全去除，而保留膠片的其他部分。氣孔使酸液能夠自由地流過字符，并去除通常被封閉的空間。如果沒有氣孔，負空間往往不能從膠片上完全去除，漢字就會以實心輪廓出現(xiàn)。但值得注意的是，平假名和片假名沒有氣孔。這是因為它們沒有那么復雜，酸在去除它們相對較大的負空間方面遇到的困難較少。

Pachi-pachi characters contain ‘airholes’, a visual trait unique to subtitles wherein strokes for kanji characters were deliberately disconnected, as if to allow air to flow freely throughout the character. After being drawn, the subtitles were photographed. The photograph negative was then used to create a metal plate to be punched into the filmstrip. This alone was not enough to imprint the characters into the filmstrip, so an acid solution was applied to remove them entirely from the emulsion, while leaving the rest of the film intact. Airholes allowed the acid to freely flow through a character and remove spaces that are usually enclosed. Without the airholes, counterspaces would often not be removed from the filmstrip fully, and kanji would instead appear as solid silhouettes. Notably however, hiragana and katakana do not have airholes. This is because they are less complex, and the acid had less difficulty removing their relatively larger counterspaces.

當結合使用縮略字時，氣孔對電影字體的獨特外觀有很大貢獻。盡管這些元素是有爭議的，但它們使電影字體成為 "那個電影字體"。佐藤的電影字幕還有一個主要是獨特的組成部分，那就是他對單個字符排列的處理，使每個字幕作為一個整體感覺更加統(tǒng)一。與拉丁文字不同，日文字通常不共享對齊的筆畫，像拉丁文的 "t "和 "f"，或 "P "和 "R "中的水平線。它們也不遵守X高或嚴格的上限高度。日語字符被設置成方形，而許多字符（主要是平假名）沒有達到方形的垂直上限。

When combined with the use of ryakuji, airholes contributed significantly to the unique appearance of cinema moji. Though these elements are controversial, they are what makes cinema moji ‘cinema moji’. One more component that was largely unique to Sato’s cinema moji was his manipulation of individual character alignments to make each subtitle feel more unified as a whole. Unlike latin characters, Japanese characters generally do not share aligned strokes, like the horizontals in the latin ‘t’ and ‘f’, or ‘P and R’. They also don’t adhere to an x-height or strict cap height. Japanese characters are set in squares, and many (mostly hiragana) do not reach the vertical cap of the square.

佐藤的字體顛覆了這些慣例，為了視覺和諧而犧牲了對比度。他的觀點是，有了統(tǒng)一的高度和筆畫排列，字幕更有可能被當作一個單元來體驗，而不是一組不尋常的字符。這是一種策略，可以分散觀眾對使用律動和氣孔所造成的不規(guī)則現(xiàn)象的注意力。受此影響的字符主要是平假名和片假名，但也包括可能的漢字。我們可以看到在たけ和ち、せそ和ほ、以及像 "あなたが大好きです "這樣的復數(shù)中，都有水平筆畫排列的例子。在受共享垂直高度影響的字符中，有つ、へ和こ。

Sato’s lettering subverts these conventions, sacrificing contrast for visual harmony. His view was that with unified heights and stroke alignments, subtitles were more likely to be experienced as a unit, rather than a group of unusual characters. This was a strategy to distract audiences from the irregularities created by the use of ryakuji and airholes. Characters affected by this were mostly hiragana and katakana, but also included kanji where possible. We can see examples of aligned horizontal strokes in た け and ち, せ そ and ほ, and in compounds like ‘あなたが大好きです’. Among the characters affected by the shared vertical height are つ, へ, and こ.

在當代電影字體中，筆畫對齊和垂直高度是有時被忽視的元素，無論是設計還是錯誤。其他可以被認為是該類型的關鍵特征也經常被忽略。這部分是由于設計意圖和商業(yè)策略的原因，但也是由于缺乏關于字幕字樣為何如此的文獻資料的結果。除了佐藤發(fā)表的內容之外，關于字幕字樣的視覺特征的信息也很匱乏。再加上許多關于字幕刻字的實物記錄已經不復存在，而且這門手藝也不再被實踐。當代電影字幕字體主要是基于2010年以前在影院可以看到的手寫字幕，更主要的是佐藤的原始Cinema Font。雖然Cinema Font是全面的，但一些在歷史上對這門手藝很重要的人物卻沒有被包括在內，在目前的電影字幕景觀中也沒有體現(xiàn)。

In contemporary cinema moji, aligned strokes and vertical heights are elements that are sometimes overlooked, whether by design or mistake. Other characteristics that could be considered crucial to the genre are also often missing. This is partly due to design intent and commercial strategy, but is also the result of a lack of documentation on why subtitle lettering looked the way it did. Besides what was published by Sato, information on the visual characteristics of subtitle lettering is scant. This is compounded by the fact that many of the physical records of subtitle lettering no longer exist, and the craft is no longer practiced. Contemporary cinema moji fonts are largely based on handwritten subtitles that could be seen in theaters up until 2010, and more predominantly, Sato’s original Cinema Font. While Cinema Font was comprehensive, some characters that were historically important to the craft were not included, and are not represented in the current cinema moji landscape.

翻譯：堅果

校對：你