If your film is going to be exhibited at foreign film festivals or distributed overseas, a CCSL can be used for translation, dubbing and other post-production purposes.
A sample of the information contained within a CCSL. CCSL creation provides a detailed picture of your film, as required by distributors and festivals around the world.
FAQ
Answer all of your questions about CCSL creation and learn more about dialogue spotting lists and what is required for distribution and film festival submissions.
CCSL Creation – Combined Continuity Spotting List
The letters CCSL are an acronym that stands for “Combined Continuity Spotting List”. Here’s what that means, and a description of the varying types of CCSL documents:
CCSL Creation
This is a written record of scene-by-scene detailed descriptions for all camera shots, camera movement and actors within the shot, and all of the verbatim dialogue spoken within the film. A Combined Continuity Spotting List acts as a legal description of the film/television project for copyright purposes.
Spotting List
A spotting list is a document that contains the timed subtitles for a film. This includes the in and out times, calculated duration of each subtitle and the subtitle identifier. The document acts as a ‘blueprint’ for any translation and localization service to create language masters from.
What is included in CCSL creation:
- Table Format
- Cut-by-cut of general scene descriptions
- Time Codes to the Frame
- Scene Numbering
- Scene Headings/Slug Lines
- Subtitle
- Character Names – Who’s speaking to who
- In and Out Times
- Calculated Duration
- Title Numbering
- Main/Narrative Titles
- In and Out Times
- Calculated Duration
- Sound Effects
- Complete List of Credits
- (Annotations are an optional additional service)
What is included in a Spotting List:
- Table Format
- Character Name and Dialogue/ Subtitle
- Who’s speaking to who
- In and Out Times
- Calculated Duration
- Main/Narrative Titles
- In and Out Times
- Calculated Duration
- Title Numbering
- Complete List of Credits
- (Annotations are an optional additional service)
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Film Localization Services & The Importance of CCSL Creation
It all starts with CCSL creation services.
To prepare the continuity list for a movie, our writers go through the video to capture the time code for each individual camera shot. After which they carefully evaluate each shot (which can average 1200-1600 per for a one hour movie, to determine the type of shot, the characters in the shot as well as any pertinent objects or scenery, and any action that happens during the shot.
Continuity Script: The left part of the CCSL is the continuity list, often called action continuity, which is the visual part of the video or film.
Spotting List: And to the right side is the ‘spotting list’ which is the audio part of the video or film.
For creating the spotting list, we follow our normal closed captioning procedures. Once the text of the video is transcribed and timed, an editor proofreads the dialogue, as well as adding speaker and subject IDs. The spotting list includes all dialogue, music, and sound effects, structured as they would appear as captions, with speaker and who is being spoken to identification.
The document is formatted so that the two documents run concurrently, meaning that all captions are displayed adjacent to the shot during in which they occur, in chronological order.
CCSL creation can be used as a road map for translation and localization services. If your film is going to be distributed abroad for foreign language speaking audiences, it’s critical to have a CCSL created as part of the process for archival, legal and practical purposes.
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