CLOSED CAPTIONING 101

Accessibility is a core part of Underdog Film Fest, and part of ensuring accessibility for all festival-goers is the requirement of submitted films to have closed captions.

What are closed captions?

Closed captions are on-screen text transcriptions of all audio, including dialogue, music, and sound effects.

This varies from subtitles, which are typically used for translation; meaning only dialogue is transcribed.

They key thing to remember is, closed captions are for accessibility, so all sounds must be included.

captions must include:

• All dialogue, including stuttering, half-said words, etc.

• Words spoken by a narrator

• Song lyrics

• Identification of off-screen speakers

• Descriptions of sound events and music that impact the story

captions should not include:

• Every word or sound effect where the scene’s pacing makes it impractical

• Information that is already displayed on screen, such as text in a slideshow.

CAPTION STYLE

To ensure legibility of captions throughout your film, we recommend styling captions in the following way:

• A white sans-serif typeface, such as Arial or Helvetica

• A black background box for the captions

• Keep each line under 37 characters long, with no more than two lines for each caption

• Sound effects and music descriptions should be shown in square brackets

  • [dog barking]

• Speaker’s names, if specified, and sound effects should be shown on a line of their own

  • (Bill) It’s beautiful weather to go for a walk in the park.

Sentence STYLE

• Each sentence should use a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, also known as sentence case

• Punctuation should follow typical conventions, and should convey how the dialogue is delivered

• Use ellipses or commas when there is a significant pause within the dialogue

  • For example: it's so… majestic

• In order to maintain reading rate, non-essential information can be removed

• Spell out numbers from one to ten, but use numerals for all numbers over ten.
  
  

TIMING

• Captions should coincide with the relevant soundtrack, to preserve the relation between sound and visuals

• Captions should remain on-screen for at least 2 seconds