I obviously think that the answer is yes, since I'm the founder of www.captionsfortheweb.com, a company whose goal is to convince nonprofits to begin providing meaningful captions for their online videos. The major nonprofits think otherwise, however, since the vast majority of them offer no captions for their online videos -- or else provide them with error-riddled auto-generated captions -- which they don't even bother to scan for dirty words, which they do contain. (I recently warned the ASPCA that their auto-generated captions for a family video about pitbulls contained the "F" word.)
And when I call these entities to discuss these nonsensical captions, they're always "away from their desk." They simply don't want to think about paying for captioning. Ironic, since many of these same companies pester my mother every single day of her life with expensive, slick, high-end advertising encouraging her to part with her own money in the name of philanthropy. Turn about is clearly not fair play as far as these nonprofit giants are concerned.
To paraphrase Robert Frost: "something there is that doesn't like closed captioning."
Think about it: the video productions of these nonprofits are so slick: high production values for soundtrack, no stinting on voice-overs, creative "lower thirds" -- and yet captioning is the ugly duckling of the video production process, treated with wishful thinking: "maybe if we don't do anything about the captioning, nobody will say anything!" Imagine if these same video producers were to take the same attitude about the soundtrack or the voice-over. "Oh, let's get my aunt to do the voice-over, save a little money! Who needs Denzel Washington? My auntie knows how to read, for goodness' sake!"
Nor can some of these nonprofits even be bothered to change obvious errors in their auto-generated captions after I have specifically brought them to their attention. The following, for instance, is one of the many nonsensical auto-generated captions that I discovered a week ago on the website for the Art Institute of Chicago:
CAPTION: the Pitman in Midtown happy sun background is derived from clutching your name
AUDIO: The pigment in "Madame Leon Clapisson" is derived from cochineal lake
I called the Institute to notify them of this huge auto-captioning blunder and several others like it, and within 20 minutes, the Institute's marketing director e-mailed me back, tersely informing me that they had no need of my captioning services "at this time," thank me very much.
And I was like, "What?"
That was a week ago -- the Institute's closed captions are as nonsensical as ever, and no corrections have been made based on my input -- and yet the Institute has no need of my captioning assistance "at this time." Apparently they can do it themselves -- but only when they're dashed-well ready to begin! (Makes you wonder how bad the captions have to get before they'll call in an actual captioner to deal with them.)
This is where you come in.
The only way that this anti-captioning mindset is going to change, I now believe, is for the deaf and hard-of-hearing to begin routinely posting negative comments on all major nonprofit YouTube videos that feature nonsensical auto-generated captions.
If you agree with me, please check out my website called Otto Cap Shuns at www.ottocapshuns.com, where I'm archiving some of the most egregious examples of captioning errors on nonprofit websites -- in an effort to shame those nonprofits into providing true video accessibility to the deaf audience through quality captioning. You'll be sure to see captions there that are absurdly wrong -- in which case, I urge you to e-mail the sites that are showing them and urge them to provide real captions instead! You might even want to tell them that you know a guy in Virginia with 25 years of captioning experience (er, that would be me) who is willing to do the job virtually at cost!
They won't listen to me, after all.
To give you an idea of the size of the problem, here are just a few of the major nonprofits that are still "making do" with error-riddled, auto-generated captions for their online videos:
4-H
Art Institute of Chicago
ASPCA
Disabled American Veterans
Boys & Girls Clubs
Goodwill
Greenpeace
Habitat for Humanity
Kennedy Center
L.A. Philharmonic
National Resources Defense Council
Nature Conservancy
Red Cross
United Way
I've brought this auto-generated captioning problem to the attention of all of these organizations and as many more, told them that I'm ready to do the job for them virtually at cost. But almost all of them seem terrified by the very word "captioning", since only a few have even returned my calls or e-mails (notwithstanding the upbeat recordings and text blurbs that promise that someone will get back to me "as soon as possible").
Yet the auto-generated nonsense continues.
Even the opening video on the Habitat for Humanity website is captioned with pure gibberish. Doing that short celebratory film, when Jimmy Carter says "I'm Jimmy!" -- it's captioned as "I'm jammin'" -- and that is literally the most comprehensible caption of the whole production. The rest of the auto-generated captioning seems to be random words spit out by a madman, completely unrelated to the action on screen.
In sum, and to answer my own question, yes, nonprofits SHOULD caption their online videos -- but they're not doing so so far, at least not intelligibly -- and they won't -- until the deaf community and its friends (er, that would be you) begin consistently posting negative YouTube comments beneath the many nonprofit videos that are currently provided with this auto-generated gibberish of which I speak.
Fair enough?
So, please, help me make my case for the quality closed captioning of the online videos of nonprofit organizations. Visit www.ottocapshuns.com today.
And when I call these entities to discuss these nonsensical captions, they're always "away from their desk." They simply don't want to think about paying for captioning. Ironic, since many of these same companies pester my mother every single day of her life with expensive, slick, high-end advertising encouraging her to part with her own money in the name of philanthropy. Turn about is clearly not fair play as far as these nonprofit giants are concerned.
To paraphrase Robert Frost: "something there is that doesn't like closed captioning."
Think about it: the video productions of these nonprofits are so slick: high production values for soundtrack, no stinting on voice-overs, creative "lower thirds" -- and yet captioning is the ugly duckling of the video production process, treated with wishful thinking: "maybe if we don't do anything about the captioning, nobody will say anything!" Imagine if these same video producers were to take the same attitude about the soundtrack or the voice-over. "Oh, let's get my aunt to do the voice-over, save a little money! Who needs Denzel Washington? My auntie knows how to read, for goodness' sake!"
Nor can some of these nonprofits even be bothered to change obvious errors in their auto-generated captions after I have specifically brought them to their attention. The following, for instance, is one of the many nonsensical auto-generated captions that I discovered a week ago on the website for the Art Institute of Chicago:
CAPTION: the Pitman in Midtown happy sun background is derived from clutching your name
AUDIO: The pigment in "Madame Leon Clapisson" is derived from cochineal lake
I called the Institute to notify them of this huge auto-captioning blunder and several others like it, and within 20 minutes, the Institute's marketing director e-mailed me back, tersely informing me that they had no need of my captioning services "at this time," thank me very much.
And I was like, "What?"
That was a week ago -- the Institute's closed captions are as nonsensical as ever, and no corrections have been made based on my input -- and yet the Institute has no need of my captioning assistance "at this time." Apparently they can do it themselves -- but only when they're dashed-well ready to begin! (Makes you wonder how bad the captions have to get before they'll call in an actual captioner to deal with them.)
This is where you come in.
The only way that this anti-captioning mindset is going to change, I now believe, is for the deaf and hard-of-hearing to begin routinely posting negative comments on all major nonprofit YouTube videos that feature nonsensical auto-generated captions.
If you agree with me, please check out my website called Otto Cap Shuns at www.ottocapshuns.com, where I'm archiving some of the most egregious examples of captioning errors on nonprofit websites -- in an effort to shame those nonprofits into providing true video accessibility to the deaf audience through quality captioning. You'll be sure to see captions there that are absurdly wrong -- in which case, I urge you to e-mail the sites that are showing them and urge them to provide real captions instead! You might even want to tell them that you know a guy in Virginia with 25 years of captioning experience (er, that would be me) who is willing to do the job virtually at cost!
They won't listen to me, after all.
To give you an idea of the size of the problem, here are just a few of the major nonprofits that are still "making do" with error-riddled, auto-generated captions for their online videos:
4-H
Art Institute of Chicago
ASPCA
Disabled American Veterans
Boys & Girls Clubs
Goodwill
Greenpeace
Habitat for Humanity
Kennedy Center
L.A. Philharmonic
National Resources Defense Council
Nature Conservancy
Red Cross
United Way
I've brought this auto-generated captioning problem to the attention of all of these organizations and as many more, told them that I'm ready to do the job for them virtually at cost. But almost all of them seem terrified by the very word "captioning", since only a few have even returned my calls or e-mails (notwithstanding the upbeat recordings and text blurbs that promise that someone will get back to me "as soon as possible").
Yet the auto-generated nonsense continues.
Even the opening video on the Habitat for Humanity website is captioned with pure gibberish. Doing that short celebratory film, when Jimmy Carter says "I'm Jimmy!" -- it's captioned as "I'm jammin'" -- and that is literally the most comprehensible caption of the whole production. The rest of the auto-generated captioning seems to be random words spit out by a madman, completely unrelated to the action on screen.
In sum, and to answer my own question, yes, nonprofits SHOULD caption their online videos -- but they're not doing so so far, at least not intelligibly -- and they won't -- until the deaf community and its friends (er, that would be you) begin consistently posting negative YouTube comments beneath the many nonprofit videos that are currently provided with this auto-generated gibberish of which I speak.
Fair enough?
So, please, help me make my case for the quality closed captioning of the online videos of nonprofit organizations. Visit www.ottocapshuns.com today.