Past Week

On 28th October, I finished a 3-week interpretation job the content with which by now I am familiar. Around a week before, I had an inquiry from someone I knew for another interpretation job for a media event, where an actor would appear, scheduled on 11th November. I answered I would be available. After exchanging a few messages with the film distribution company which was organizing the event and needed an interpreter, it was set that I would visit its office on Tuesday. During the meeting, they started to play a DVD of a movie I had never watched and the story of which I only had vague idea only through Wikipedia. I was asked to translate parts of it on the spot. A trial, sort of. Actors when they are acting do not talk as they would when they are who they are. Often they are overly histrionic, which is their job after all, making the whole thing unsuitable for interpretation. I said, “I have to say this is not how interpreters work.” They blushed. But I should have said “how I work” instead of “how interpreters work” as I have no idea as to how other interpreters work or how their minds are activated when they work. For my preparation, they lent me three movie DVDs in which this particular actor appeared previously. Over these years, I have learned that it is crucially important for me to put myself on the speaker’s shoes. In a sense, I must act his character. Looking at a screen and not knowing much about the speaker, in this case an actor, I was very much detached from his character. I was not him. Whatever they thought about me, I secured this assignment. Also on Tuesday, I received another inquiry from my former employer though the person who called me should have no idea that I was working some years ago at the very office where she was working now. The inquiry was about whether I could attend a meeting as interpreter to be held on Friday. I asked her to pass my contact number and e-mail address to the inquirer who needed an interpreter for the meeting. I submitted a quote to him and the job was secured. The meeting went smoothly as I believe, and my job was done. This afternoon, feeling pressed with time before the media event this coming Friday, I watched two of the three movies. They are the sequels of a series. I thought Part 2 went too far, diluting the impact of Part 1. Or I feel this way because I got just tired by the time when Part 2 was over. I have another DVD I am supposed to watch before an internal premier (pre-premier) of the latest film which is the sequel of this third DVD and I would attend.