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How Do I Obtain a Dark Area To Make Subtitles Better Readable?

We all know that the best color for subtitles, to get better contrast is to use white letters. Sometimes, if there are very light or white areas on a clip, it’s possible to loose some of the text, because of bad contrast. The other day I saw a short movie, where the author “inserted” a dark but translucent panel at the bottom, which made subtitles much better readable. Could somebody please tell me how to accomplish this?
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Rafael Ucros

Comments: 5 Responses to “How Do I Obtain a Dark Area To Make Subtitles Better Readable?”

    11 years ago

    There are two ways to do it. One is to put a shadow under the text. This makes it pop out, even if it is white text on a white video scene. The black shadow will separate the letters from the background.
    The "Lower Third" title in iMovie 11 will do this. And if you use the iMovie Font Panel to switch the color of the text to black, it will smartly change the shadow outline to white.
    The other way is to put a semi-transparent background behind the entire lower third. There are two titles for this in iMovie 11 too. One is Soft Bar White, and the other Soft Bar Black. There are some other lower third titles you may want to try too.

    Joe Allen
    11 years ago

    It is also possible to use a BLACK background (etc) and WHITE text (etc) in Apple Mail and/or Pages and/or Keynote.

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