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.
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?
Comparing the default yellow closed captions on Hulu.com with the yellow color of the animated characters on The Simpsons.
Subtitles in foreign language films don’t have to be visually boring, uninspiring, or ugly. But too often, that’s exactly what they are.
Examples of fictional characters breaking through the fourth wall…
Even when music is intended to deceive, it needs to be captioned if it’s instrumental to the genre.
Should poems and other quoted material be captioned as they were originally written?