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Subtitling
Subtitles work under tight constraints. A line of English subtitle is usually limited to around forty characters, and two lines must be readable in the few seconds they stay on screen, so subtitlers cut, compress and paraphrase far more than other translators. Chinese is denser than English, which makes the squeeze worse. Idioms, dialect and humor are the hardest. Many subtitlers translate 成语 by meaning rather than image, render dialect in standard English with a note at the start, and keep the tone of speech — mild, rough, formal — rather than its words. Swearing is a particular judgment: too strong or too weak, and a character changes. Silence needs no subtitle at all. 苏小雨's rule — sometimes fewer is better than more — is one many documentary subtitlers would recognize.