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  • Hi, I’m Jessica Kellgren-Fozard, welcome to the third in my series of videos focusing

  • on captions on YouTube and their importance, in celebration of International Week of the Deaf

  • In the first video I went through what captions are and why theyre actually useful, the second video

  • was a quick breakdown of how to add captions to YouTube videos and tomorrow’s video will

  • give you a bit more insight into these symbols and what they mean...

  • Today though, let’s go through some frequently asked questions about captions. I asked for

  • your questions about captions on my Instagram and Twitter (you can follow me on those if

  • you don’t already…) and I’ve done my best to answer them but if you have any more

  • questions, please do leave them in the comments below.

  • And now on to what you should and shouldn’t be including in your captions.

  • Firstly though, a few misconceptions about who is actually using the captions:

  • Currently people watch YouTube videos with captions more than 15 million times per day

  • and the number of videos with them is 1 billion.

  • A study on television accessibility by Ofcom found that 80% of people who use closed captions

  • are neither deaf nor hard of hearing, but they might be...

  • Watching in a loud environment

  • Trying to watch without distracting others

  • Using really faulty audio speakers

  • Struggling with the inconsistent volume of this video

  • Watching in a foreign language

  • Watching a really sensitive subject matter in public

  • Trying to save battery consumption

  • Taking notes from educational videos

  • While the remaining 20% are people who do have

  • some degree of hearing loss and are thus the most important costumer

  • for your closed captions because they need them.

  • It does go to show that the demand for closed captions isn’t just limited

  • to one certain group of people and it's specially not one

  • small a group of people- ok but we already went through that in video 1!

  • There are more deaf people thank you think

  • But Jessica, c'mon now, films, television and YouTube videos are all visual- is the audio really

  • that important?”

  • (High pitched) Ok, you try watching everything without sound

  • and let me know how it goes(!)

  • Picture your favourite tv show- yes, my fave

  • is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, yes, I know it ended 15 years ago, no, I don’t care-

  • Undying love.

  • Try to envisage how many different types of audio there can be in one scene:

  • You've got:

  • On-screen dialogue: That's talking characters on screen, you can see them

  • Then you got your off-screen dialogue: That's characters who are talking out of the frame

  • Or a narrator, or a voice over.

  • I'm thinking Gossip Grl.

  • Third we have On-screen action sounds

  • This can be steps that you see being taken it can be swords clashing together in a battle

  • It can be a glass falling and smashing on the floor

  • Anything you can actually see happen.

  • Then Off-screen action sounds: this is someone coming into the front door downstairs

  • Or a zombie you thought was dead lying

  • behind her and it's not cause it's groaning.

  • Five, Background noise This could be traffic, other people

  • talking in the cafeteria, um...

  • an army of slayers doing battle with vampires.

  • Uh, spoiler! Is it still a spoiler if it is 15 years old?

  • Next, In-story media: this is television that is playing around, a radio that is on in the background

  • This is stuff that the characters can actually hear themselves.

  • Music soundtrack...[whispering] Oh I cannot raise this finger with this one, alright.

  • Music soundtrack this is music that is laid over in post-production

  • This is the music that only the viewer can hear and the character cannot

  • It's called non-diegetic for you filmmaking buffs

  • Number 8, additional effects: again this is layered in post-production

  • This would be something like a vampire going [Poof]

  • [Imitates explosion sound effect]

  • Closed captions are important because they

  • help describe every sound and audio cue that plays a part in the story itself.

  • In the wider whole, it builds the narrative up.

  • So without many of the things I just mentioned youll be missing out on a wide range of

  • cues that are used to build a story

  • It's not just the language, the spoken words that are important

  • Convinced you need to use captions yet? Wonderful!

  • I explained in video 1 about the difference

  • between subtitles and closed captions so I’m going to move on to the second most asked question

  • Which is: What is the difference betweenopen captionsandclosed captions’?

  • Open captions are those embedded in the video file that you as viewer has no control over.

  • Think for instance when Netflix does automatic translations into English

  • of characters who are speaking in Spanish and they put that on screen like

  • parts of Orange Is The New Black.

  • Or when you go and see the cinema and is a captioned screening

  • There are all the subtitles at the bottom you can't turn them on or off yourself as a viewer

  • Closed captions are those that are hidden until turned on.

  • These are the types that you get in most television sets and look

  • Down there!

  • Down to the nitty-gritty: what SHOULD and

  • SHOULDN’T you include in your YouTube captions?

  • Just to say: I don’t have a degree in captions, obviously

  • I have a degree in Film Studies.

  • It's mildly useful in my job.

  • It's actually pretty useful in my job.

  • Also, I’m just one deaf person, we all have very different views and experiences

  • I'm sure there are some in the comment section down bellow that are

  • completely different from mine and that's great because I welcome different people's different views

  • What if I make a grammatical error? Should I include that in my captions?

  • Good question. It may feel like correcting

  • yourself is of course the most sensible thing to do and easier for the viewer

  • but what youre forgetting

  • is that YouTube is about personalities, youre being honest and open with the viewer and

  • that’s what theyre responding to. Your hearing viewers are able to experience the

  • authentic sound of you- perhaps you have an amazingly Yorkshire accent

  • and saysithilaterat the end of all of your videos

  • Don’t ‘correctthat tosee you laterHow dull!

  • However, it isn’t completely unnecessary to keep in ALL of your ums and ahs and mm

  • Or 'likes'

  • Unless youre using them for punctuation. They can slow the reader down when faced with an

  • onslaught of rapid dialogue and captions appearing too quickly on screen.

  • You can cut out those unnecessary words but don't ever change the meaning of what you are saying

  • Or show if you are comically hesitating that (comically hesitating)

  • it needs to be in your subtitles as well for a reason.

  • How do I add line breaks to captions on YouTube?

  • YouTube- semi annoyingly- doesn’t allow you to actually include

  • a line break when you are transcribing your words

  • in thecreate captions’. Go back to video 2 if you are confused.

  • This can be really frustrating when you

  • want to transcribe two people who are on screen at the same time but differentiate what they're saying

  • The best option is to write your caption out elsewhere and then copy and paste

  • Maybe in the Notes section on your computer or a Word document or something like that

  • How do I ensure that my deaf and Hard Of Hearing viewers can enjoy watching

  • my videos just as much as my hearing viewers?

  • Boom! This is calledequal access

  • It requires that the meaning and intention of the material

  • is entirely and completely preserved.

  • That’s everything from making sure that you caption the sound

  • effects and dialogue to being true to accents and including some grammatical errors.

  • Try to convey exactly what’s being communicated. Again though, do be aware of not throwing

  • too many words up on screen because it's just going to get confusing and scary for the viewer.

  • It’s okay to edit dialogue to be shorter and simpler but you can't change the meaning

  • or skip things.

  • Do I caption swear words and inflammatory language?

  • This is actually a far trickier question than it first appears!

  • On the one hand, yes, you

  • definitely need to let deaf and HoH viewers know youre swearing!

  • Do not infantilise them and do no think they are stupid.

  • On the other hand

  • [Gasp]

  • [Whispering] It's coming for you...

  • If you bleeped or partially muted the swear word in your audio then do the same in your captions

  • I’ll be talking a little more in the fourth video of this series about

  • Words that you can use in the place of swear words

  • But if youre happy to risk angering the

  • algorithm then go right ahead and do bandy your curses around.

  • [Humming]

  • Be true to yourself.

  • Speaking of being true to yourself...

  • To stop my videos getting demonetised when I talk about my sexuality I’ve taken the

  • word out of my title, tags and description- should I also take it out of any captions I make?

  • If youre one of those people that gets in trouble with the algorithm

  • largely for LGBTQ+ things then

  • please don’t stop talking about it it's very important you do that

  • Do not stop talking about it!

  • But also don't stop making your videos accessible.

  • Consider instead using a mix of closed and open captions.

  • Uhhh

  • If you have a sentence that’s

  • a little risque then embed it in the video itself.

  • Using open captions in the editing stage

  • and then use closed captions for the rest of the video-

  • So that someone who needs to use the captions and searches for videos can then filter

  • Can still find your video because it has closed captions but also get

  • [whispering] what is that you are trying to say

  • and then hopefully the algorithm won't come for you.

  • IF again, if it's coming for you anyway...you do you! Throw all the words you want in there

  • Should I caption all background noise?

  • Since were dealing specifically with YouTube rather than scripted television where every single

  • audio thing you hear is there purposefully

  • I would say...yes and no.

  • Only put in the background noise that

  • you interact with or respond to.

  • If a phone is ringing in the next room and you don’t respond to it

  • Or notice it until afterwards when you are editing and then the video goes up

  • There is no need to put in your captions:

  • 'Phone ringing in other room'

  • It's just not necessary, it's not part of the dialogue it's not part of the narrative

  • But if there is a lawnmower

  • going outside of your bedroom window and you pause every two minutes to get comically annoyed

  • about the lawnmower then yes!

  • Add in '[lawnmower]' and' [lawnmower continues]'

  • and '[lawnmower won’t shut up]'

  • Which again brings us to...

  • Can I put jokes in my captions?

  • Right, this obviously isn’t about directly transcribing a joke that you have made.

  • This is about whether

  • or not it is okay to make jokes that exist entirely within the captions

  • Tricky

  • ON the one hand, as I mentioned in video 2, [High pitched]I find it incredibly frustrating

  • When someone thinks it’s hilarious to go in and fiddle with the captions in anamusingway

  • that actually makes the video completely inaccessible for those of us who are deaf or HoH

  • On the other hand, if you want to:

  • Then yeah, go right ahead.

  • I think that’s okay. It’s more an exaggerated description of an amusing auditory

  • situation. As long as youre not holding certain viewers back from understanding the

  • text as a whole then it’s fine to joke- especially if it’s something just for viewers

  • who need to read like

  • That’s just my opinion though! Other deaf and hard of hearing people please leave your

  • own thoughts down below.

  • Should I caption the cover videos I make- especially since using lyrics might

  • be a copyright problem?

  • Ok, if youve already been given the okay by

  • the holder of the copyright to cover the song or use a clip in your video then just go ask them

  • if you can also have the OK in text form.

  • If you haven’t and your cover hasn’t been picked

  • up by the algorithm as being a cover then,

  • i.e no one has tried to take the profits of the AdSense from you yet

  • Then yes, you might want to be a little wary

  • Potentially unpopular opinion in here but,

  • There are websites and other videos have lyrics of the most famous

  • songs there are, also really small songs that no one knows at all

  • I don't think you have to caption those videos

  • If you have written your own original song then yes, please, do caption it. Firstly,

  • That's really important because

  • I mean firstly it's not only deaf people who use captions

  • And secondly deaf people can enjoy

  • music too. [Gasps]

  • Shocker!

  • Can I alter the position of my captions?

  • Yes, you can! As a viewer you can take the

  • captions that are down here and click on them and drag them somewhere else

  • I don't know if that's possible on phone but you definitely can on a computer so

  • Woo Try it. Try it now! I’ll wait.

  • You can also change the look of the captions

  • by clicking on the settings bar...dial thing down there go to Subtitles/CC

  • And in there click on options and it will give you a whole load of different things like:

  • The colours, the fonts, what you want the background colour to be and

  • how opaque you want it to be

  • All that good stuff. Really good specially if you are

  • dyslexic and prefer reading in one colour over the other.

  • As a creator however you can create an SCC file off site, which will include things like:

  • Positioning information and placement and then you can upload it

  • to the video through the 'Upload a File' that I told you all about in video 2

  • Should I include words that are already on screen edited into the video?

  • Wellmaybe.

  • If it's a title's card like this one:

  • Then no. If it's just one word

  • then yes, obviously it would be confusing for anyone reading

  • What do I do if two people are speaking over each other?

  • That’s a challenge, granted. The best thing to do is a hyphen followed by the dialogue

  • one line on top of the other. I’ll be talking more about this and other symbols you can

  • use in the next video

  • Which will be linked in the description down bellow once it is actually uploaded

  • It should be up in two days time!

  • [Mouth pop]

  • Now back to the studio

  • I hope that’s answered some of your questions about captions and youre now even more

  • incentivised to make sure you have them on all of your videos! And push to make sure

  • your favourite creators are using them too! If you have more questions then please leave

  • them in the comments below.

  • If youre new here and youve enjoyed this video or found it entertaining then please

  • do subscribe! Come and take a look around my channel.

  • It would be lovely to have you

  • See you in the next video! [blows kiss]

Hi, I’m Jessica Kellgren-Fozard, welcome to the third in my series of videos focusing

Subtitles and vocabulary

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