Bringing One of Germany's Longest-running Crime Dramas to English-peaking Audiences

Services: Translation, Subtitling

About the client:

Tatort (“crime scene” in English) is one of Germany’s longest-running crime series. It’s been on air since the 1970s and has over 1,000 episodes (and counting!), each about 90 minutes long. Its English-language broadcast rights are held by MHz Choice.

The challenge:

To introduce Tatort to English-speaking audiences, we were tasked to translate several seasons of the show from German to English, keeping the show’s tone, humor, and cultural references, while making it relatable to global audiences.

Our solutions:

We worked with A/V translators who were familiar with the series and similar American shows to adapt the series in a relatable and meaningful way.

We also developed KNP (key names and phrases) to ensure consistency throughout the hundreds of episodes.

Because our client only owned the English-language broadcast rights, the subtitles also had to be burned to the videos. This required custom timeline preparation in DaVinci Resolve.