So how does this work?

This post will give you, the reader, a better idea of how exactly I make my videos.  This is copied directly from one of my posts in the official "Ganbare Goemon in English" topic at GI.  I'm going to take this opportunity to put in a plug for that site.  If you love Goemon and you're not already a member, you should join.  And post!  I'm tired of going there and seeing a ghost town.

Anyway, I digress.  Here it is, the entire process, from start to finish:

1. Writing out the script by hand. I copy every symbol in the subtitles, no matter how insignificant it is in the grand scheme of things, or how obvious the meaning is. You can see a page of the "Ganbare Goemon 4" handwritten script here.

In case it's confusing, most lines get written at least two (sometimes three) times: First in Japanese, then in Romaji (Japanese words spelled with English letters), then in English, if I can figure out what it's saying on my own. I know my handwriting looks like it came from a shivering kindergardener, but bear with it. That's not what I want to emphasize. GG4 is the only script I have with me, and this is actually a copy of the original (my grandma took all my originals to Japan). I tried to choose a page that has what I mentioned above, as well as some Kanji. Kanji characters are always the hardest to write and interpret (naturally). They tend to take a lot longer to write, more because I try to get every little detail and make it as close to how it appears on the screen as possible (so there's no confusion about which symbol it actually is) than anything else. "Wakusei" was one of the few that I was ever able to translate on my own because I had a pretty strong feeling it meant "Planet" based on where it appeared in the dialog. Sorry, but I didn't realize there was some Kanji that didn't have Romaji to go with them until after I scanned this in.

2. The script gets translated. My favorite step. I take the script to my grandparents' house, with a video on my computer of the scene I'm translating (usually from YouTube, though the GG3 one came straight from the game). According to my grandmother, this is keeping her from forgetting the Japanese language, so we both benefit from it. Anyway, she goes through it line-by-line, telling me what each sentence means, while I provide information on the context whenever necessary. I take detailed notes to at least get a rough idea of what's being said. The GG3 translation was rushed, so that took about half an hour, while the GG2 and GG4 ones took much longer (GG4 just because it's the longest scene, GG2 because some parts of it didn't make sense to me until I sat down and really thought about it).

3. Revising the script. I take the notes I made during the translation phase and adjust my script to better fit the characters and the story, and to hopefully make it entertaining (though I feel like I'm failing at that). After I've gone through it, Sarahsuke looks it over and gives me her two cents about how to improve the translation. I use her advice to revise the script one last time.

4. Making the video. The video footage comes from a ROM of the game (no surprises there, right?). I use I-Movie to edit my videos. The only difficulty here is figuring out how long I want the subtitles to stay on screen and cutting the clips as finely as possible to match that time and hopefully reduce the amount of time when there are no (English) subtitles on the screen. Really, though, it's not a difficult process. It may be slow and a little repetitive, but I think it's also kind of fun.

5. Uploading the video to YouTube. I don't think I need to go into a detailed explanation here. But this is where the video finally goes public, and you guys show me some love. To be honest, I'm really surprised that I'm the first person (as far as I know) to put this on YouTube. There's gotta be at least one person in the world who's fluent in both English and Japanese and who knows how to make a simple video and post it on the Internet.