Multimedia: Film

The following gives best practices when creating and editing captions in order to make videos and audio projects more accessible.

Captions

Why caption videos?

• Captions allow for a wide variety of members of the public (those who have experienced hearing loss and other temporary or permanent disabilities, non-native English speakers, students of all levels, etc.) to access content otherwise unavailable.

Key terms

• Captions: Captions are a time synchronized, verbatim transcript file that accurately matches the audio in a recorded video and paired with the video file through a media player. They also include the relevant sound effects and other audio components that convey the full context of the video.
• Subtitles: Translation of content into different languages.
• Transcripts: A verbatim text version of the audio presented. A transcript is not time synchronized with the video.

Want to learn more about the importance of captioning a video? Visit University of Washington Accessible Technology.

Consider the following when creating captions:

• Minimum display time should be 1.5 seconds for very short dialog if possible.
• Captions should not have more than two lines of text on-screen.

Sound and Music

• Indicate singing in a video by inserting a music icon (♪) at the beginning and the ending of the text.
  • For example: ♪ Buffalo soldier, in the heart of America ♪
• Display sound effect captions in lowercase italics enclosed in brackets. 
  • For example:  [dog barking] or [child screaming]
• When people are seen talking, but there is no audio, use the following caption: [no audio] or [silence].

Punctuation

• Use proper capitalization and punctuation (question marks, exclamation points, commas, hyphens, etc.).
• Use double hyphens (--) or a single long dash (—) when a speaker is interrupted and another speaker finishes the sentence.
• Use an ellipsis (…) when there is a significant pause within a caption. 
• Use quotation marks for on-screen readings from a poem, book, play, journal, or letter. Also use quotation marks and italics for off-screen readings or voice-overs.

Numbers and Special Characters

• Represent long numbers using traditional conventions. 
  • For example: Telephone numbers (xxx-xxxx; xxx-xxx-xxxx) or (10,000 / 100,000)
• Write out numbers from one to ten, but use numerals for all numbers over ten.
• Use numerals when referring to technical and athletic terms, as well as the time of day.
  • For example: He scored 4 touchdowns in today’s game!

Text Styles

• Bold and underline are not permitted in subtitling.
• Italics should be used only for the following specific functions:
  • A voice-over reading, 
  • When a character is thinking,
  • To describe important background or offscreen audio,
  • For uncommon foreign words and phrases,
  • and when speech is emphatically spoken.

For more information on any of these topics, visit EngageMedia Subtitling

Sources:

• “Accessible Video and Audio Materials.” Accessible Video and Audio Materials, 2021, University of Virginia.
• “Best Practices for Online Subtitling.” EngageMedia, 9 June 2020, EngageMedia Subtitling.
• “Creating Accessible Videos.” Accessible Technology, 2021, University of Washington Accessible Technology.