Full text of some of my articles and book chapters. If you have questions about accessing any of my publications, please let me know (seanzdenek@gmail.com).…
The characters on our favorite television programs are just like us: they come home from work and stream their favorite TV shows and YouTube videos.…
![A profile shot of Gweneth Paltrow in Contagion (2011). The on-screen text, Day 2, is partially covered by the closed captions: [Coughs] [Cell phone rings]](https://seanzdenek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Contagion-Header-1080x601-1.jpg)
It can be challenging to caption scenes with multiple speakers. Bottom-center caption placement is far from ideal for readers when it fails to clarify who is speaking. Adding to the difficulty: speakers may talk quickly, interrupt each other, or overlap their speech turns to give cooperative support. When captions are placed underneath or next to each speaker, readers can more quickly distinguish — at a glance — who is speaking.
I enjoyed talking with Courtney Danforth last summer about my captioning research. Check out the podcast with transcript.
I guest edited a special issue of Communication Design Quarterly on “Reimagining Disability and Accessibility in Technical and Professional Communication” (volume 6, issue 4, December…
Check out my new article on enhanced captioning, just published in Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedaogogy (23.1, 2018). Read the full article:…
Can we open closed captioning up to greater experimentation through the use of color, icons, typography, and basic animations to convey meaning?
How do the closed captions convey the changing meanings and emotions of the BB-8 droid’s electronic beeping sounds?
![A frame from Prophecy 3: The Ascent featuring a cityscape at night and the closed caption: [SIRENS WAILING IN DISTANCE]](https://seanzdenek.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Prophecy3-SirensWailingInDistance.jpg)
How often are sirens described as wailing in closed captioning? What else do sirens do in closed captioning other than wail? Does it matter?
Comparing the default yellow closed captions on Hulu.com with the yellow color of the animated characters on The Simpsons.
Each sustained sound in the closed caption track creates a sonic timeline that continues to persist until it is terminated through a change in visual context or a stop caption.
When the same nonspeech caption is repeatedly associated with a specific character or recurring context, it comes to serve as a kind of leitmotif for that character or context.
Subtitles in foreign language films don’t have to be visually boring, uninspiring, or ugly. But too often, that’s exactly what they are.
Check out Reading Sounds, my new book on closed captioning. The supplemental website at ReadingSounds.net includes over 500 video examples discussed in the book.
An email I received recently from a professional captioner. Posted with permission.
How writing homogenizes speech and how the non-speech manner caption attempts to re-embody speech…
Sometimes, punctuation in captions can provide important clues about what’s going to happen, regardless of how well or poorly timed the captions are.
On the importance of verbatim captioning, especially when names are involved.
Examples of fictional characters breaking through the fourth wall…
Recurring sounds on TV shows allow us to explore questions of consistency and accuracy in closed captioning.
Closed captioners don’t caption sounds in isolation. They caption shows.
On the need to consider differences among varieties of English when captioning non-speech sounds…
Even when music is intended to deceive, it needs to be captioned if it’s instrumental to the genre.
When a character’s accent is meaningful or when a scene or line of dialogue hinges on how a character speaks, manner of speech needs to be indicated in the closed captions.
Does logocentric thinking shape closed captioning practices?
Does every repetitive sound need to be captioned? What visual cues are sufficient to indicate a repeating sound in the absence of a caption?
In the case of captioned wordplay, the difference between writing and speaking, text and sound, is obvious.
Inspired by the notion of dramatic irony, I offer a definition of “captioned irony.”
Should poems and other quoted material be captioned as they were originally written?
Should a running gag be captioned the same way each time it occurs?
How should cultural allusions be closed captioned?
What would closed captions be like if diehard fans were in charge of captioning their favorite shows?
What if closed captions were bought and sold as a form of product placement?
When music lyrics are instrumental to a film’s plot, they need to be captioned.
When speaker IDs, musical lyrics, and sound descriptions have their own distinctive stylistic treatments, they can be extracted from closed caption files and studied as separate units of discourse.
An analysis of three captions from Shaun of the Dead (2004) suggests how sound descriptions need to be informed by the sounds and captions that surround them. In this case, “moaning” is suggested as a better fit than “groaning.”
An analysis of one scene from Moon (2009) starring Sam Rockwell. The scene’s captions make use of Speaker IDs to identify speakers who are off-screen. But in doing so, the Speaker IDs fill in a major piece of the narrative puzzle.
Recently, I conducted an informal survey of two hours of TV in an effort to track which and how many ads were closed captioned.
Speakers don’t need to spell things out for caption viewers when these viewers can read it for themselves at the bottom of the screen. Speakers only need to spell it out for those audio-only viewers who don’t have the added benefit of reading.
Captioning is not always a simple transcription of what speakers are objectively saying. In some cases, captions are intended to reflect what the protagonist subjectively hears.
Closed captions can help viewers recognize themes and patterns in movies that might otherwise remain latent.
When sounds in the background are captioned, they come forward. All sounds become equally “loud” on the caption track.
Which sounds are significant? How does the captioner choose which sounds to caption? Are some captions unnecessary? Why isn’t it possible to caption every sound in the environment?
How should gasps, groans, sighs, grunts, scoffs, moans, pants and other assorted “breathy” sounds be captioned? When should they be captioned? What’s the difference between them? Why does it matter?
Movie captions should never reveal information prematurely. In this example, the captions give away a key plot detail before the narrative is ready to do so.
Over the last ten days, the percentage of full episodes and movies with closed captions on Hulu has actually gone down. Overall, that percentage of cc content is embarrassingly low, hovering at around 4.5% for full episodes and 6.5% for movies — and appears to be on the way down.
In this example from Twilight, captioned music lyrics draw meaning out of hiding as the backchannel breaks through into the viewer’s consciousness.
Caption users sometimes know what’s happening before the characters themselves. In this way, captions tell the future.
In this example, the caption user recognizes a heartbeat before the non-caption user that because the bad guy’s captioned sentence is unfinished (“We can nego-“), he will be shot before he can finish saying “negotiate.”
An analysis of attempts by fans to make audible the whisper at the end of Lost in Translation.
Mainstream discourse about podcasting rarely discusses the affordances of the body. It rarely makes explicit the minimum requirements for participating, at the level of embodiment,…
So I’ve been thinking about audio description as technical communication, and in particular the value that an audio description assignment might have for technical communication…