Don’t subtitle the joke. Remake it.

You can work in English and Spanish. That is not a superpower slide. It is a product. Treat language like a cut in the edit — or you are just translating, and translators are cheaper than you.

Bilingual is not a toggle on the brief. Some lines only work in Spanish. Some names only land in English. The craft is knowing which, for whom, in this house.

Subtitles are not the work

A joke that dies in English does not get saved by captions. Remake it.

A mom joke that only hits in Spanish — *ni me mires con esa cara* — will not land as “don’t look at me like that.” The room already knows. If you flatten it, they swipe. If you keep it and the brand wanted “accessible English,” you made a different piece. Call it that. Price it that.

Product names, claims, legal: those often stay in English because that is how the box is printed. Do not invent a Spanish slogan the brand did not approve. Do not leave a Spanish punchline on the floor because a deck said “keep it bilingual.”

Bilingual means one asset that a Spanish-dominant parent and an English-first kid can both stay for. Not two stiff reads glued together. Not a green-screen VO over the same A-roll.

How we actually talk

Listen to your comments. That is the mix you are allowed to use on camera.

• If they write in Spanish with English nouns (*el makeup*, *la app*, *el credit*), that is the cut. Use it. Do not “clean it up” for a brand that asked for authentic and meant beige.
• If they write in English and only switch for food, family, or the thing you cannot say in English without becoming a sitcom — switch there. Once. On purpose.
• If your house is English-first and you add Spanish for the algorithm, they can hear it. Stop.

Forced Spanglish as a gimmick is how you lose the room you actually talk to. The test: would you say this sentence to your cousin on the phone, or only to a brand that put “code-switch” in the brief?

Rules you can shoot tomorrow

1. Don’t subtitle the joke. Remake it. Two scripts if you need two. Same kitchen, different mouth.
2. On-screen text: pick a language. Dual captions that fight each other die. One on screen, the other in captions, or two cuts.
3. Legal and claims stay in the language the brand signed. If they cannot approve the Spanish, you do not ad-lib a health claim.
4. Never fake a mix you don’t use at home. Accents for hire get caught in the comments. We will not send that to a client.
5. English-only is a job. Bilingual is a different job. Do not throw the second one in as a thank-you.

One asset, two generations

This is why the rate goes up.

A first-gen parent and a second-gen kid often share a phone and do not share a first language. One piece that holds both — Spanish for the pot, English for the price, a look that does not pick a side — replaces two campaigns and a bad translation.

That extra hour in the script is the product. You are not “happening to know Spanish.” You are making one thing the media buy cannot.

If the brief is English-only, take it at the English-only rate. If they want the house, they pay for the house.

How to write it on the kit

Not: “Bilingual creator.”

Yes: “I shoot in Spanish, English, or a mix that matches the comments. One asset for Spanish-dominant parents and English-first kids is a line item, not a free extra.”

Then a sample: two cuts of the same recipe, or one cut that switches on purpose. Show the work. Do not claim the mix you cannot point to.

What we match

When a brand says “Hispanic, bilingual,” we still ask: which house. Miami Cuban English-first is not a Houston kitchen that thinks in Spanish. Your kit should say which languages you actually shoot in, not which ones you passed in school.

If you apply here, write that in the form. Languages you shoot in. Not languages you understand. We will brief you on the ones you put on the page.