First, we need to choose a topic because AI couldn’t choose for us without our input. Topics crossing our mind ranging from commercials for Monterey Language Service, trends for the translation and language industry, learning to ride bicycle, birds nesting, etc. The videos generated from these topics were unadorned, so we finally decided to make it easy for AI. We chose a topic that has a lot of materials for AI to go on — what is Genesis: A Creation of the Earth Story.

As predicted, the outcome is enjoyable. This video, showcasing the wonder of creation in seven days, the birth of the universe and the origin of life, is a testament to the union of art, technology, and imagination.

Please see the video here: https://youtu.be/u7zpyToo_Ls

We also are in the process of translating the English transcript to create traditional and simplified Chinese versions of the video.

The Process of Making the Script

The next step is to create a script. We wanted it to be detailed, blending poetic imagery with vivid descriptions, so we wrote a script based off Psalm 104 in the bible. The script emphasized a resonant style of classic religious art and modern fantasy aesthetics.

The voice talent came from the AI’s databases. The narration was not exactly what we fed the AI to, instead the AI used our prompt as a reference and generated the transcript read by the AI.

Creating the script using AI was a process of trial and error. Not specifying exactly what should happen in each scene would leave everything up to AI. At the same time, depending on the program there’s a limit to how much information we can feed the AI, so we can’t be overly detailed either. It’s best to think about the AI as someone you’re trying to explain your vision to.

We made all the explanations specifically so that the AI video generator understood and was able to make the video. All the necessity was to give information through human prompts to AI and let it generate everything from its databases.

Getting a result was quick, but the first version that came out needed some work, so it was tweaked by giving the AI notes on the general style of the video. We can specify a western animation style, eastern animation style, or black and white, etc.

After this, the prompt was further edited by dictating each scene. For most video generative AI, this is how you can make sure that the progression of the video happens the way you imagined it. See our dictation of scenes at the end of the blog.

The Potential of Creating an AI Movie

We think AI has chosen a wonderfully vibrant voice who delivers the excitement of first creation and keeps the audience captive. This voice brings out the soul of the video and it’s touching and not mechanic as we thought what AI creation would be like. AI makes videos that are human like. The AI potential is certainly there.

However, as with everything AI, there’s a lot to consider. Right now, AI can handle short, prompt-based videos with simple concepts, but it’s hard to tell what full-length movies made by AI would turn out to be like. There’s a lot that goes into making full movies, so it’s hard to imagine that AI can replace humans or save a lot of human time during the process.

However, this short video we made certainly shows proof of the concept that AI has the potential in making full movies that we are used to watching.

AI as a Creative Partner

After we put the script into the chat box, AI analyzed the script, prepared the video materials and began generating. The whole process took no longer than ten minutes.

The video of Genesis: A Creation of the Earth Story contains both narration and visuals. It’s amazing to see AI can generate a deep, resonant male voice paraphrasing the script, guiding viewers through the journey. The video is rife with video footage with some illustrations that align closely with the scenes described in the script. From the light breaking the darkness to sun and stars, and to the peaceful creation of humankind, each moment is visually represented.

This video is a celebration of creative collaboration between humans and AI. This project highlights how AI can be an invaluable partner in creating artistic projects. From generating visuals to refining language, AI helped us bring our ideas to life.

Despite the wonderful AI work, we noticed some flaws in the video: lack of a cover page and one unrelated B roll. We tried at first to further edit the prompt, telling AI to add a cover page and a title, however, the feedback was “Please clarify ‘subtitle’”.

Making AI delete the unrelated part was not smooth too, so we had to import the video into our usual video editor Adobe Premier Pro to manually delete it.

The conclusion is: Smooth and understandable conversation between humans and AI still has a long way to go. Yet, AI’s strength will grow with user input and will become better and better as long as it is continued to be used.

“Genesis – A Creation Story

Style: Epic, painterly, awe-inspiring, vibrant, and emotionally resonant. Think classic religious paintings combined with modern fantasy art.

Subject: The creation of the universe and life, in seven distinct scenes, each representing a “day” of creation.

Scene 1: Let There Be Light: Focus on the transition from absolute darkness to the first light. A gentle, almost imperceptible breath of color emerges, pushing back the void. Hues of amethyst and rose paint the darkness. Emphasize the quiet power of this moment.

Scene 2: The Firmament: God’s hand sweeps across the canvas, creating the heavens. Waters are separated, forming a shimmering dome. Celestial mist swirls and coalesces. Angels, depicted as beings of pure light, watch in silent awe.

Scene 3: Earth and Seas: The waters below are gathered, and dry land rises. Focus on the emerging continents, still wet and glistening. The land is bare but expectant.

Scene 4: Vegetation: An explosion of life! Plants, grasses, trees of all kinds burst forth. Focus on vibrant greens, from tender shoots to majestic trees laden with fruit. Each seed holds the promise of more life.

Scene 5: Celestial Lights: The sun, moon, and stars are placed in the firmament. The sun blazes with warmth, the moon glows softly, and the stars twinkle like diamonds on black velvet.

Scene 6: Creatures of Sea and Sky: The waters teem with life, from leviathans to tiny fish. Birds of all shapes and sizes fill the air, their wings carrying them across the sky.

Scene 7: Land Animals and Humankind: Animals roam the land, each unique and wondrous. Finally, God creates humankind, breathing life into them and imbuing them with His image. They are placed in a beautiful garden, a paradise of harmony.

Mood: Reverent, majestic, wondrous, peaceful, and ultimately joyful.

Keywords: Creation, God, light, darkness, heavens, earth, seas, plants, animals, humankind, garden, paradise, breath, whisper, symphony, cosmos.

Additional Notes: Pay attention to the details. The textures, light, and colors should evoke a sense of the divine. The overall impression should be one of awe and wonder at the majesty of creation. Consider using a color palette that evolves throughout the scenes, starting with muted tones and gradually becoming more vibrant as life appears.”

In today’s blog, we’ll be highlighting a few tips about how to track trends by collecting/analyzing data and using it to the LSP’s advantage.

Try out surveys.

Surveys are a very easy way to get qualitative data, which can help LSPs understand the quality of the service provided. Usually, surveys are sent out to clients after they’ve received their service. Clients can rate their satisfaction with the service they received on a scale such as from 1-10 or Poor to Excellent, and can leave more detailed information about what they liked and did not like about their service.

Challenges may occur if a client forgets to fill out some of the questions, misunderstands a question, or doesn’t fill out the survey at all. This is why translating the survey and providing the client’s preferred language is very important, so they can understand everything and can answer all the questions properly!

For example, Monterey Language Services has often been requested to provide translation for surveys, whether to support research projects or international companies whose employees span all over the world. Most recently, we translated a survey into 11 languages: Arabic, Armenian, Cambodian, Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Mien, Spanish, and Tagalog. We also have done survey interviews to make sure employees understand their company’s core value.

Use transactional data.

You can collect data from your own company’s transactional data to collect quantitative data, which can help LSPs identify how many times they provided service for different languages and for which clients. Transactional data refers to your sales, receipts, POs, invoices, etc. that tell you when, where, how, and for what language you’re providing services for.

By looking at your transactional data, you can identify trends. For example, if there are more requests from a nearby hospital, you can deduce if you need to hire more medical interpreters. Similarly, you can look at trends in language requests, such as if there’s a sudden surge in Korean requests; perhaps there has been an influx of people moving to the area, or there’s some sort of event going on that you should investigate.

Keep up-to-date and do research.

Other important topics to keep an eye on in the language services industry are things like technology and common issues. Technology is essential in today’s world, especially for large translation projects or simultaneous interpretation assignments.

Technology and common issues or topics of conversation constantly change and evolve. Make sure to keep up-to-date, and research through news articles and even social media such as LinkedIn to see what people are talking about. Joining professional organizations is also helpful so be on the lookout for those as well.

This graphic novel project is part a type of new media, a pioneering effort by a handful of creators in search of a new medium for presenting art, story, voice, and music. A pool of talents was gathered for an old-fashioned romantic adventure with elements of Arabian Nights, Cinderella, and the Shangri-la myth. The story depicts a romantic adventure that spans modern-day New York City and the ancient, fictional country of Gao in China. In the midst of modern and old, fiction and non-fiction, West and East, English and Mandarin, romance and mystery, the graphic novel indeed is exotic to watch.

The work has been produced into ten video chapters. To give you a glimpse of our translation work, among what has been published: Chapter 3 has the most translation voices so far. The significant amount of Mandarin presented among English voices indeed makes the graphic novel stand out as a unique and interesting entertainment piece!

Monterey Language Services took extra time to polish the translations into Simplified Chinese to ensure not only accuracy, but an enjoyable and colloquial read for native speakers. Some of the challenges for this project were derived from cultural differences in how to translate certain phrases created specifically for the graphic novel.

For example, we have the “golden doom,” which refers to a specific event in the story. Because the event transports people similarly to the Christian idea of the rapture, our translation was “极乐升天,” which means “bliss ascension” in Chinese language.

One more example of the cultural challenge is rooted in English homonyms. The sentence: “They follow the standard of Lord Kang and swear on his eyes.” In this sentence, what does “standard” mean? If we suggested “average or normal requirement,” it actually would be incorrect! “Standard” in this instance means a battle flag—something ancient soldiers would follow on the battlefield.

Another difficulty was dealing with the ambiguity of written words. In spoken English, a person’s tone can very easily denote sincerity or sarcasm — consider the phrase “good job” being spoken sincerely and being spoken sarcastically, and their meanings become very different. While the context and illustrations in graphic novels can alleviate this confusion in text, sometimes the tone could be just missed. One such problem occurred in our initial translation of “What a stunt,” a line which our translator took be said in admiration, when in actuality, it was an insult. Through our editing/reviewing process we discovered the issue, and the translation was changed from “真是好身手” (really good) to “真有一套,” which has a similar meaning in a more sarcastic tone.

We are incredibly proud of the work we were able to provide for this project, and would like to add more viewing pleasure and excitement by sharing the above behind-the-scenes glimpses to our translation work. We wish all the success to the audience and contributors to the graphic novel. The chapters will be published in video format weekly on YouTube until the tenth and final one is uploaded.

You have found us – we provide quick & easy solutions for all your translation needs. Tell us about the subject of the text to be translated, its size and the languages you want, and we will provide a quote. Send us the files, and within short order, we will deliver a clear, accurate, complete translation.

That’s it! That’s all you have to do. Simply send us the text you want translated, then leave all the rest to us.

Of course, quite a bit more goes on behind the scenes, starting with doing the translation right the first time. We use a multi-step process to ensure the quality of our translations, starting with the translation itself, then editing, followed by proofreading and QA. Every translation is confirmed by at least one other linguist to assure that the meaning of the original is conveyed clearly and accurately. 

We also check for completeness and formatting and can perform DTP image editing as necessary. We work with any format, from Word documents, to PowerPoint presentations, to Excel spreadsheets, to software applications, to website localization. Whether you’re looking to translate a code of conduct, an employee handbook, company policies, a slideshow, a survey or a script, we can make it happen.

We can also handle any subject matter. Whether legal documents, technical manuals, or medical reports, our highly-trained translators will rise to the challenge. Our specialization is in highly-technical subjects.

Furthermore, we provide over 175 languages (including Arabic, Japanese, Hebrew, Malay, German, French, Indonesian, Danish, Finnish, Hungarian, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Italian, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Hindi, Norwegian, Polish, Russian and more).

We treat every project with special care, and our goal is to always try our best to make sure the readers understand the original text in their own language, as clearly and as easily as possible. 

Monterey Language Services strives to provide the highest quality of translation and interpretation services. Please feel free to contact us for a quote.

French: “Top des Mornin à Ya!”
German: “Spitze der Mornin zu Ya!”
Simplified Chinese: “顶部以遐的早晨！

When most people think of translation, they may think of someone flipping through a dictionary and finding a direct substitute. However, a translator who literally translates a document word for word does not necessarily create a readable document.

Translation is more than using a dictionary; it’s also a form of writing. In order to write a clearly understandable document, you must fully understand the nuances of the meaning and the culture into which you’re translating. Then, instead of just looking at one word at a time, you must find a way to convey that same meaning into the second language. This may mean adapting idiomatic expressions, as we saw in “Top of the mornin to ya!”

A different way of seeing the problem is with machine translation programs. A friend of mine used a machine translator and the result often came out laughable. A prime example is her nickname, “Moonshine”. The machine translator communicated it as “Alcool de contrebande”. Yes, this does mean Moonshine in French, but it means the illegal hooch created during Prohibition. We found it much funnier than her usual nickname, which refers to the moonlight.

Another important point is to think of your audience. You may be translating for high-level technical people, in which case a more direct approach might work. However, you may be translating for people who don’t have a great understanding of the subject. In this case, you may need to find a clearer way of stating the subject.

Monterey Language Service specializes in clear and meaningful translation/interpretation.   We can assist you in all your translation and interpretation needs in every language.

By Heidi Ripplinger