Captioning Girl

Hi Everyone,

I'm new here, but I'm hoping to stick around if you'll let me!

I'm a closed captioning editor (offline only) and I have worked for years at a post production facility and have decided to go off on my own. I have started my own Captioning Company which I haven't even officially launched yet. My website is being constructed, but I really wanted to open communication up with a community that I could get honest feedback and opinions from.

The one thing that I have always wanted to do was to have some imput from my audience... you! What I hope to get is your ideas, your thoughts, your wishes for captioning and to work more specifically for YOU.

What do you think? Would anyone be interested in working together to create better captions?

Sincerely, Captioning Girl

Deafness

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sata_rupa_tara

I Think you came to the right place
Im new here too but have already been asking questions about captioning for my deaf son. I see there are definately frustrations in the deaf / HoH community with captioning. Good luck on your new business.. what kind of help do you need? WIll you be posting questions here or do you want people to email you,, or?
Tara

diehardbiker

Aha! how about forget the licensing requirements? I know you need money to earn living, but often when it comes to licensing agreement the future broadcaster decided to save money by skip that and not showing captions. I have noticed that often captions made by NCI tend to have licensing and if not paid, broadcaster are not allowed to run captions. Thats surely absurd!
Or how about licensing requires that it is to stick on permenantly it in future broadcasting, so that it won't be dropped off?

Captioning Girl

Hi Again,

I know I can't change the whole globe of captioning, I also realize there are many issues with captioning, licensing, etc. All I'm trying to do is to make MY captioning suit your needs more. I do know that by the year 2006 all shows (new) must be captioned, and all older shows must be 75% captioned, and by the year 2008 everything that airs on tv must be captioned. I have been working with quite a few broadcasters that are trying very hard to get archived movies, shows captioned as best they can.

What I'd like are opinions... I was thinking of creating a questionairre but maybe just posting general questions that I have would be a good way for me to start.

For example: When a narrator is talking, his/her captions appear in italics. Is this clear enough to let you know they narrator is talking, or would you prefer if (Narrator) appears before the dialogue? Does anyone have ideas on how to make it more clear? Would you like to see dialogue seperated by color/upper-lower case?

Speaking of upper-lower case, which do you prefer??

I'll start with those questions, these are the types of things I'm looking for. Feel free to email me directly with any comments or suggestions and I'll keep checking here as well.

Again, I realize I'm not going to change much, but I think it's a start. I always strive to make each show as clear as possible, I try very hard to make sure everything is easy to follow but I often wonder if there are things that my target audience would rather be seeing. Maybe together we can set a new standard!

gnarlydorkette

Oh, that's good news! Now my future children may enjoy the freedom that many of us never did (I got my first CC box at age 6 and I was mesmerized by it! I wasn't accustomed to it until age 8 when I finally understood everything that was spoken... I think a lot of my English came from learning from the CC because I was constantly reading and picked up things about English... so in a way CC was a revolution for the Deaf community like the TV was for the hearing community.)

Oooo, italics or normal? Hm.. I think I don't mind italics, as long it said "[NARRATOR:] Blah blah blah"... Because italics may also mean a person is speaking out one's thoughts but no mouth motions is shown. So yes, it is important for me to see who is talking before the dialogue by identifying the person. But unless it is a movie then it may be an entire different issue. It would be annoying to have identified who is speaking etc etc if the person is obviously talking... I think whoever that is NOT in the picture (out of the view) that is talking should be identified in CC for the deaf viewer to understand. A hearing person will identify the actor's voice but we cannot identify a person based on dialogue only thus the need to have the voice being identified.

and upper-case is DEFINITELY my preference, unfortunately, out of habits. I hate it when the CC gets lower-case because it gave me a wrong impression of people whispering. I know it is possible for the person putting "(whispering" etc but... I think I prefer it because of many years of seeing upper-case words ... Old habits dies hard.

It is great to have people like you that are in CC industry at Alldeaf!

WELCOME!

sunny

I'd rather see it as "Narrator:whatever". I can't stand it when I can't tell who is speaking. It is much easier to follow the diaglogue that way

Upper-case! Definitely. Good luck with this!

javapride

take Days of Our lives, I watch that and used to regliously i have been way too busy to see the tv nowdays, but seriously when they say
Bo: I love you Fancy Face

Hope you got it Brady

John Marlenas pregant !!!
Bo Who's the father?

those are examples im seeing. where here we see the itlaics seeing who's talking * Character wise whilist the Narrator's like the bold or the Italics depending. take KNHL's tv news Seriously im lik eh?? cut offs are driving me crazy!!!

but KITV news OMG i love thier news because they do Upper case for emphasis and Lower to just give the general broad views.

Id like to see the itlics for the news casters and the main poeple takling and Upper case for emphasis and the CAP itself for standard shows and lower case for the news so that way we can catch everything and if its alarmoing or important the news can be more right there whilist the Standard captioning can be more broader...

last but not the least Music channels it cld go without the realtime scroll ups i hate that just preset it and for only live shows they shld do the scroll ups and stay within 5 sec lag time! theres nothing more irriating then awards shows like the Oscars they just managed to scroll and screw up the spellings have the list of names ready so that poeple will be aware of who is who without screwing the spelling thats IMO...

sunny

Right now I'm watching Judge Judy.

They're doing a good job. Its like: (all caps tho)

>>Judge Judy: Where is he?

>>He is in the other state.

I like it better when they say *who* is replying. On this show it's ok because there is only one person replying, but in shows where there are multiple people talking I can't tell who is speaking. I know it's probably harder and takes longer to caption but it really does help.

Also, it gets confusing when there are random things thrown in. Earlier today I was watching Dr. Phil and in the middle of a sentence the words "tropical storm" were thrown in. Now I *know* they didn't say that - they were talking about nannies who abuse little kids.

cady75

I like it when they use italics for a voice over, when someone unseen is talking. i don't mean someone off screen, but a voice over.

Such as the opening scenes of "Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring", they open up with italicized captions. "ONE RING TO RULE THEM ALL" for instance

You should always indicate who is talking with "HOPE: I AM HERE!" for instance.

I like upper case. it works for me just fine.

oh and one important thing most people forget to caption is environmental noise!

such as -

*phone ringing*

*dog barking*

*crash*


or whatever.

Hope this helps!

Captioning Girl

Oh this is so great! I have been doing this job for way too long before reaching out! Thanks so much to all for your comments; I am taking everything very seriously.

I do offline captioning only, so the news and sports events I don't go near! Talk about a stressful job! Offline is where I get the show a few days before it will air and I do a 4 pass of each show. That means I get to watch everything 4 times before I send it to a broadcaster! Pass 1 - transcribe all dialogue & research, Pass 2 - positioning all text, Pass 3 - assign each line a timecode and finally Pass 4 is where I watch my timing and make sure everything is as clear as possible. I have NO excuse for spelling errors!

I try very hard to keep background noise involved in the shows where it applies. Sometimes with timing it’s pretty hard. I will make sure to be even more aware of it, thanks cady for your input!

I have always used names when a speaker changes and it's not obvious. One more question on this topic... I have always used first and last names when someone new is introduced, then just first name after that... would it help to have both first and last names throughout, or is that being too redundant and taking up too much space?

I think there are some problems still with Decoders when you see random things in a show... I know myself I have seen a floating "y" in something I did and ran to make sure I hadn't missed it and it's not in my captioning file I had sent. It's amazing that all the bugs aren't worked out! I also see that if there is a clip used from another program that has been previously captioned the two will overlap. Production companies are becoming more aware not to use previously captioned shows for clips since the captioning is actually burned onto the tape and can't be overwritten.

Would it be easier for me to start new threads with specific questions?? I don't want to overload anyone, but I'm finding myself asking questions just randomly. Let me know what you would prefer!

Thanks again to everyone, I really am eating this up and taking notes on your thoughts and ideas.

Sincerely.

gnarlydorkette

OH no, PLEASE don't use it throughout. It's too much... Once at the first introduction is good enough then use the name that the character is using (some cahracters would prefer to be called by last name so naturally you will type in the last name...)

Shoot away the questions! Don't split and separate your questions-- I think it helps your thread to be interested for people to read all at once. :-)

Stuvera9405

Captioning Girl,
Just wondering, do you need to be certified to become a captioner? My court reporting school closed and I'm looking for a job, but I'm not certified. I've done CART work before.
Thanks.

doh

If you can make live subtitles not suck it would be a miracle. I just turn the TV up at that point!!

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