Filmmakers need to future proof their media and according to a recent article in Variety, most aren’t even considering this.

Acad sounds alarm about fragility of digital prod’n suggests that filmmakers don’t consider future proofing, and that with our current explosion and implosion of digital standards, some films may not be accessible just months after they are made.

As someone said to me last week, filmmakers feel liberated by digital media. There is the perception that a digital file is permanent and reproducible in a whole different way from physical media. But digital media does not at all solve the archivist’s problems.

Why Do Filmmakers Need to Future Proof Their Digital Media?

Future proofing generally means taking steps to ensure that your media and data don’t degrade before you are done with them.

We could be talking about a physical issue, like the short lifespan of fax paper, or we could be talking about the lifespan of hardware or of software applications needed to access the information on media: for instance, 8-track tapes may be intact, but if you don’t have an 8-track player, you won’t be listening to the songs on them. And with digital media, if you have chosen a proprietary file format, and the software to open that file obsolesces for whatever reason, you have the same problem again.

This set of issues is as old as material culture. Do we scratch our messages in the sand or on a stone tablet? Do we write on vellum or on rice paper? If the problem isn’t clear, consider this: would you put the Kobo version of a book into a time capsule… or would you print the book on the best archival quality paper you could find? Or something in between, depending on when you thought the book would be accessed?

What does this mean for filmmakers?

1. You need active file management and a plan in place for output to archival quality media.

For example, the company that we used to work for saved all its client data files on to floppy disks. If we had those floppy disks now and found a floppy drive to play them on, we would find that the files are compiled by proprietary software. It could become illegal to break that software encoding to get the client’s material.

This is the same thing that’s happening with breaking DVD coding. There is a continual and active lobby to make it completely illegal to rip DVD files to digital files — even if you are the filmmaker or rights holder. Potentially, you might have legal rights to the media itself, but might be prevented by law from attempting to access the media, if it means circumventing a digital lock. Read more about digital rights management here.

2. If you want your media to last you have to output to a format you can conserve – such as paper or film or an open-source digital format.

3. You need to back up your data frequently and in several locations. Our guiding principles with our own media are:

• Accessibility: Can we find it when we need to? When we find it, can we open the files? Are the files well indexed and documented?
• Location: Do we have a physical backup? Is it off-site? Do we have several copies?

Here’s an article on the keys to safe data archiving that has a very useful grid that outlines some best practice file formats for archiving.

What are your methods for future proofing your digital media?

2012 is the year of the Dragon. If you were born in 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988 or 2000… this is your year!

A symbol of good fortune and sign of intense power, the Dragon is regarded as a divine beast–the reverse of the malicious monster Westerners felt necessary to find and slay. In Eastern philosophy, the Dragon is said to be a deliverer of good fortune and a master of authority.

People born in the year of the Dragon are to be honoured and respected.

And, as usual, there is both good and bad news.

Good News
Dragons are free spirits. Conformation is a Dragon’s curse. Rules and regulations are made for other people. An extroverted bundle of energy, gifted and utterly irrepressible, Dragons do everything on a grand scale: big ideas, ornate gestures, extreme ambitions. However, this behavior isn’t meant for show and is rarely ostentatious.

Because they are confident and fearless in the face of challenge, they are almost inevitably successful. Look for Dragons at the top of the bill, not playing supporting roles.

Bad news
There are pitfalls to the Dragon nature. Too much enthusiasm can leave them tired and unfulfilled. Even though they are willing to help others, pride can often impede them from accepting help themselves. Dragons’ generous personalities attract friends, but they are solitary by nature. A Dragon’s self-sufficiency can mean he/she has no need for close bonds with other people.

The Water Dragon: 1952 & 2012 

Water has a calming effect on the Dragon’s temperament. Water allows Dragons to be more perceptive of others. Thus, they are better equipped to take a step back and re-evaluate a situation. Water Dragons can be patience and do not desire the spotlight like other Dragons. They generally make smart decisions and are able to see eye-to-eye with other people. However, their actions can go wrong if they do not research or if they do not finish one project before starting another.

The Wood Dragon: 1964 

Wood has a modifying influence and brings creativity to this sign. Questioning and liberal, Wood Dragons enjoy talking about original ideas and are open to other points of view. They are innovative, imaginative, practical and appreciate art. Generally less pretentious than other Dragons, Wood Dragons have the ability to get along with other people. They have the essentials to build a prosperous and happy life for themselves. Still, Wood Dragons are outspoken and at times a bit pushy, even in the most friendly discussion.

The Fire Dragon: 1976

The Fire Dragon is a Dragon doubled and thus a force to be reckoned with! The Fire Dragon can move from calm to combustible in a matter of seconds. In some ways, the Fire Dragon is his or her own worst enemy. These Dragons cannot help feeling they are valuable and all-knowing. When they are right their vehemence and vigor is an asset to the cause. When they are wrong, they are obstreperous and combative.

Though they value objectivity, Fire Dragons aren’t always very good decision makers and are prone to jumping to the wrong conclusion. They also suffer from recklessness and quick tempers. Yet, when they do keep their emotions under control, they emanate a commanding influence on other people.

The Earth Dragon: 1928 & 1988

Earth Dragons make great managers because they are practical, levelheaded and demonstrate a knack for organizing. They still have the need to dictate and be admired, but they are affable, congenial and supportive. Compared to other Dragons, Earth Dragons are less likely to breathe fire at the least irritation. They will work diligently to complete their goals.

The Earth element adds a greater portion of self-control to the Dragon’s personality and usually the Earth Dragon is deserving of the respect he or she desires. These Dragons take their life and romantic responsibilities quite seriously.

Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2012!

• Transcribe accurately what is being said, with punctuation, spelling, and the write words [sic]. Phrase your transcript into captions. Include sound effects.
• Time your captions to the media, matching them with audio and on-screen events. Position the captions to indicate who is speaking.
• Test broadcast appearance, watching the media and captioning together as they will appear when finished. Make sure the positioning, phrasing, and timing feel natural and that it is clear who is speaking. If you find anything that is unclear or awkward, fix it.
• Test readability to ensure that display duration and reading rate are adhered to, and that any timing errors or illegal characters are removed.

2. Know Where Your Supers Are.
Knowing where the supers are helps ensure that the captions don’t get in the way so that viewers understand who’s speaking and the captions don’t interfere with the show. Make sure you have the latest information, since any changes to supers or subtitles may affect your captioning. The last thing you want is the captioning and subtitling on top of each other; sometimes both are needed!

3. Work From the Original Script.
Working from the original script lets you know the spelling of a character’s name or how to spell the name of that make-believe planet. It also helps identify a character who is speaking off-screen. Be sure you’re clear on the story, too: it makes a difference whether your characters are dropping in or out of orbit.

4. Triple Check for Spelling, Punctuation, and Readable Phrasing.
Badly punctuated or phrased captions seriously impair your audience’s ability to understand your media, so double-, triple-, even quadruple-check your captions. Captions and subtitles are meant to help someone enjoy your show, not confuse them further.

Make sure that the right word is chosen… to avoid sometimes hilarious results:

(Should be THEN she BAWLS out Freddy)

Have a project that needs captioning or subtitling? Contact us.

January’s Recipe: A Foolishly Simple Flax Cracker

1 cup flax seeds
1 cup water
Pinch of salt or a drop of tamari

Mix ingredients together and let them sit until the flax becomes glutinous (not the same as glutenous! there’s no gluten in flax!).

Next, spread the mixture in a layer on a cookie sheet and dry in low oven (225F or below) or dehydrator until it reaches your desired consistency. You might prefer pliable, you might prefer crispy.

Possible Add-ins:
Garlic purée, try 1T
Puréed celery, try 1/4 cup
Herbs, try 1T.

If you remember the snickerdoodle hummus recipe (note: the recipe’s at the bottom of the post) from a few months back, these crackers are a perfect fit. But they are also great with cheese, peanut butter, cream cheese, jam, honey… anything you don’t want to eat straight off the spoon.

***
Bonus: Looking for some lunch recommendations in Yaletown? Check out our favourite go-to spots.

Wow, we’ve been in Yaletown since 1995! Today we highlight 3 great grab-and-go lunch options that you might not know about.

Salsa and Agave for any type of Mexican food…but we especially like the veggie and chicken tostadas. Fast, fresh and delicious! There are 2 locations in the same block, one for eating in, and one for taking out.

Bean Around the World’s Quinoa bowl. We go to Bean Around the World (used to be known as the Yaletown Market) for great soup, but even better is their quinoa bowl with veggies, chicken, and pineapple salsa!

Euro Pastry House’s Zucchini Schnitzel. Right in our very own building is the Euro Pastry House. It used to be run by Zoran, but now it’s Renée’s place and thankfully she kept his menu! Great for sandwiches of all kinds–the zucchini schnitzel on marble rye is delicious.

Where’s your go-to lunch spot in Yaletown?

In the video, we talk about the closed captioning and subtitling business, the work we do at Line 21 and the effect technology has had on the industry.

Thanks, Production Heads!

Christmas is in the air here at Line 21 and most of you are probably busy wrapping things up for the year. Before the holiday festivities are in full swing, here are 3 things you can do to prepare your captioning and transcription projects for 2012:

1. Prepare your schedule.

The film and TV industry have ever-changing deadlines and your captioning and transcription provider needs a detailed schedule outlining, in particular, your audio mix and layback dates as well as your final delivery dates.

Pulling together your schedule now will help kick-start your project in January.

2. Sort out what your deliverables are and in what formats.

Outlining what you need can help your service provider plan the best process for your project. Create a detailed list now that you can discuss with your captioning and transcription provider in January.

Remember to check for as-pro scripts and that all of versions you are delivering are accounted for in your show’s formatting. If you have a longer and a shorter version, it’s quite a bit easier to get your longer version captioned and scripted first, and then to edit the captioning and scripts down to match the shorter version (or versions).

3. Pull together the requirements for your captioning and transcription projects.

Start collecting the script and media files that your captioning and transcription provider needs.

Not sure what the requirements are? To give you an idea, here are the requirements that Line 21 needs for captioning your media and for transcription projects.

Happy Holidays from everyone at Line 21!

Take a much deserved break and enjoy the time with family. Thanks for being a part of our 2011 and we look forward to 2012!

Line 21 Holiday Hours:

Closed Dec 24 – 27
Open Dec 28 – 30
Closed Dec 31 – Jan 2
Open Jan 3

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December’s Recipe: Hot Buttered Rum

Is this a recipe or a reminder? Either way…

2 oz rum, your favourite kind

Lump of butter

1 t brown sugar

Boiling water to fill the glass

Try a cinnamon stick for swizzling. Cheers!

Raw Footage Transcription

Raw footage transcription is a common thing to do with interview footage (video or audio) when you need a way of searching who said what, when, and where.

Many editors don’t require full verbatim for their raw footage, but it’s nice to have and makes cutting and pasting together a full transcript a lot easier. In addition, you might want to take your rough transcription and build it out into a full dialogue list at a later time.

Tips for raw footage transcription:

• If you choose to do your own transcription, allot yourself some dedicated time for typing and listening… probably quite a bit more time than you think it could possibly take.
• Our choice for transcription software is Inqscribe. We don’t recommend attempting voice recognition. It requires so much proofing that you might as well just start typing.
• You might want to enter your raw footage into a logging application like PilotWare. This is completely do-able if you follow the application’s formatting details exactly. Attention to detail is critical.

Line 21 offers bulk rates for transcription on a tiered schedule, so if you have a huge number of hours to get through, or even if you just need someone to help with overflow, we can get the job done quickly and efficiently. We’re masters at managing these high-volume, tightly scheduled jobs.

Transcription For Post Production and Distribution

At the post production and release stage, you may be asked for any of a variety of as-shot or as-produced scripts to accompany your project into distribution. Your distributor or broadcaster will have very specific ideas about the transcription format they need. These can include (from simplest to most complex):

Dialogue List

A dialogue list includes word-accurate dialogue and speaker IDs, and may or may not include timecode.

As-Produced Script

An as-produced script is an exact reflection of the final program as it will be broadcast. It includes act breaks, scene breakdowns and descriptions, continuity as required, plus word-accurate dialogue and IDs. As-produced scripts will also sometimes have timing for scenes or acts.

CCSL or Combined Continuity and Spotting List

Here we reach full complexity!

A Simple CCSL is one where:

• each shot is numbered and given a time reference
• continuity is concisely described
• dialogue is word-accurate and includes ID and is fully spotted
• and main titles and supers are numbered and timed in.

The script is completed using either a timecode format, a feet-&-frame format, or both.

A Comprehensive CCSL includes all the elements of a Simple CCSL, plus adds numbering for all titles, includes fully timed subtitles, annotations for the subtitles to assist translators and make sure they understand the dialogue, and notations about whom each character is speaking to. A full list of end credits is also included.

Custom Scripts

Don’t see what you need? Line 21 can draft a script in a style that best suits you and your distributor. We can include just those elements you need, leaving out any that you don’t, making the most cost effective use of your production budget. Please call us anytime to discuss how we can best serve you.Find out more information about Line 21′s transcription services.

November’s Recipe:

Raw food brownies

These are amazing: gluten free, sugar free, vegan, and so delicious! Also: dead easy.

14 medjool dates, pitted (you need the juicy ones)

½ cup raw almonds or walnuts

½ cup raw cacao

Pinch of salt

Some raw vanilla

Blend all in the food processor. If you like them really smooth, process the nuts first. If you like them chunky, process everything all at once. Add a few more nuts if your batter is too loose, add a bit of water if it is too tight. It should press together easily.

Form into balls. Roll the balls in a bit of coconut or cacao nibs, if you like, and put them into the freezer for 10 minutes or longer to stiffen them up.

Enjoy!!

Via The Vancouver Raw Food School as reported in the Vancouver Sun.

Closed captioning (CC) is often a misunderstood aspect of the post-production process. Below are common questions about closed captioning that we often hear at Line 21:

1. What’s the difference between closed captioning and subtitling?

While both CC and subtitling display text on screen, closed captioning is meant for a non-hearing audience and so includes non-verbal information in addition to what speakers say. This can include sounds effects, speaker IDs, and positioning (left, right, centre) to indicate who is speaking.

Subtitling assumes that the audience can hear but doesn’t understand the language, so it deals with what the speakers say but doesn’t include the non-verbal information.

Hint: If you are planning to do both captioning and subtitling for your project, let your closed captioning provider know. It is more efficient to build captioning and subtitling at the same time. A good practice is to build a timed master English subtitling list to form the basis of all future language versions.

2. What’s the difference between open and closed captioning?

Open captions are visible to all viewers, whereas closed captions are only visible to those who activate them.

3. When do I need closed captioning?

You need closed captioning any time you want to include viewers who can’t fully hear or appreciate your audio for reasons that might include hearing loss, a noisy surrounding environment, or because they are learning the language.

Broadcasters are required by law to include captioning, but it is also a great way to give viewers another way to receive information. For instance, have you ever watched a film where the accents were so strong, or the voices were so quiet, that you weren’t entirely sure what was said? Good captioning would help you out here.

Captioning transcripts can also be used as the basis for fantastic dialogue lists and other post-production scripts. If you are planning a web presence, consider posting the transcript (or portions of it) to your blog or website.

4. Are there different types of closed captioning?

Yes.

You probably see online captioning fairly often when watching sports and news or current events programming that goes straight to air. Online captioning is also known as realtime captioning, and is performed by stenographers. You should expect excellence in realtime captioning, but also realize that the captioner can’t stop to look up any unfamiliar terms, and that they don’t have the opportunity to go back over their work. Realtime captioning is done as rollup-style captioning.

Line 21 does offline captioning, where we work on captions in advance of broadcast. This gives us the opportunity to give your captioning an extra several passes. There are two main kinds of offline captioning:

Roll-up captioning: is used when time is tight to broadcast, and when there are few changes of speaker. The captions are not phrased for clarity, and normally the viewer has to figure out from the picture who is talking. Rollups are the least labour intensive method of captioning, and should therefore be the least expensive…but the transcript should still be perfect.

Here’s an example of roll-up captioning:

Pop-on captioning: more closely resembles subtitling, where the captions are phrased into 2-line titles which display sequentially, each one individually timed. Each caption should form a unit of meaning, and should be phrased to make it easy to read and understand.

Here’s an example of pop-on captioning:

5. How can the closed captioning process be made easier?

Know what all of your deliverables are and in what formats (as much as possible), before you start captioning, post production scripting, or subtitling.

Let your service provider help you plan the best process for your project. For instance, sometimes you will not be able to provider a copy of your show with final audio and picture, but your captioners will be able to start with preliminary media and finish to final media or final notes to shorten your final delivery timeline.

Also, always make sure to tell your captioners about any changes made to audio or picture after they have started work, or your captioning won’t match your final picture.

Find out more information about Line 21′s captioning services.

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October’s Recipe: Broiled Vegetables with Yogurt

This might sound crazy, but… trust us.

• 2c yogurt
• 1t thyme
• 2 tomatoes
• 1 or 2 onions
• some heavy-bodied vegetables: maybe 3-4 potatoes, 2 eggplants, or a head of cauliflower
• some medium-bodied vegetables: zucchini, mushrooms, peppers, enough to cover the  bottom of a roasting pan when chunked
• 3/4 c olive oil
• lemon wedges
• salt and pepper

Instructions:
Coat the bottom of a roasting pan with 1/4 cup olive oil.

Slice your heaviest vegetables into 1/2 inch slices or use cauliflower florets to make a single layer in the bottom of the roasting pan. Sprinkle with salt, and broil until brown and tender, flipping once. Remove from pan and put in mixing bowl.

Re-oil the pan and blacken the medium-bodied vegetables and onions, roughly chopped, under the broiler. Remove from pan and put in bowl.

Re-oil pan and put in the tomatoes, halved, cut side down. Broil until the skins blacken, remove the tomatoes, and chop. Add to bowl.

Toss all vegetables in the bowl with the yogurt and thyme. Salt and pepper to taste, put the mixture in the roasting pan, and broil until charred on top. Serve with lemon. Amazing!

Thanks to Mark Bittman.

The strategies we use to manage our time are top of mind this time of year, as work schedules heat up, the kids go back to school and film festivals begin. Not only does better time management mean less stress, but it also means more time to spend at the VIFF this year.

Here are 5 time management tips we follow at Line 21:

1. Block out the time you need, plus a buffer. When a project comes in at Line 21, we get it on the calendar right away and carve out the space the job will need, working backwards from the deadline. We also make sure to add a buffer at each step so that if emergencies arrive, we have a bit of flexibility and don’t get completely derailed by small delays.

2. Handle the small “must dos” first. At the start of each day, tackle the manageable jobs first. This prepares you for the bigger tasks. Once all the “must dos” are crossed off your list, you can move on to your optional tasks or, as we like to call them, “floating priorities.” Just make sure you don’t float them for too long or they become urgent, and no one wants that!

3. Have designated days for repeated tasks. Try to have designated days each week for repeated tasks, like bookkeeping day, cold calling day, and networking day. Of course, our favourite day is client lunch day!

4. Fit in 1 personal task a week. In between shows and deadlines, we all have daily life to fit in. If you have a long list of appointments – doctor, dentist, bank, furnace cleaner, industry surveys for Statistics Canada etc, – try to work one in each week.

5. If you work late nights, have a variety of activities to do. It is really exhausting (and sometimes impossible) to focus your attention on the same task for hours, especially at night. We are in our jobs for the long haul, so try to view it as an endurance event, and make sure your work habits are sustainable.

4 Films We’re Excited To See At VIFF This Year

Waking the Green Tiger

Gary Marcuse and Betsy Carson’s newest film about a burgeoning environmental movement in China. The film is at the VIFF as part of the Heaven and Earth environmental film series. A broadcast on the Nature of Things is planned for December 1. We love this film!

A Family Portrait in Black and White

Julia Ivanova’s amazing story about biracial children in Eastern Europe. The film has been to Sundance and will also be on The Knowledge Network on October 25 and 26 as part of their Storyville series. We are proud to have been able to work on it, and look forward to seeing it at the VIFF!

Bone Wind Fire

Jill Sharpe’s new film for the NFB about Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, and Emily Carr. This short film is absolutely gorgeous — it’s extremely evocative and completely inspirational.

Sisters & Brothers

Carl Bessai’s newest film follows up his earlier Mothers & Daughters (2008) and Fathers & Sons (2010). This film has some serious starpower in Cory Monteith (Glee), and one of our super favourites, Gabrielle Miller. As with the previous two in the series, you can expect some hilarious and true ensemble storytelling.

Download a PDF sneak preview of all the films at VIFF this year.

September’s Recipe:

Snickerdoodle dessert hummus! A comfort food with some major health appeal.
Source: The Wannabe Chef via Carrots n’ Cake

Snickerdoodle Dessert Hummus
2 cups chickpeas, washed and drained
¼ c almond butter
¼ c maple syrup
2T brown sugar
1t cinnamon
Garnish with cinnamon sugar

Method: food processor for the lot!

I feel like my head is gone

And what the hell is going on

And it smells like new mayonnaise to me

This was the editor’s best guess at the lyrics of the song in his show. His peers stridently encouraged him to contact the producer of the show for lyric confirmation, and we all learned a lot that day. First of all, lyric sheets with producer sign-off are far preferable to guesses. Second of all, it is really worth considering when listening to lyrics (or any other dialogue) whether you are parsing the phonemes correctly. Did you hear “Linda’s farm” or “Lindesfarne”? And ultimately, if it can’t be determined what the lyrics are… they have to be left out. We can’t provide viewers with total nonsense.

I have worked on hundreds, possibly thousands of music videos since then, and we always request lyric sheets, despite my reputation for “spidey senses.” We have had hip-hop video producers tell us that there are no lyrics used in their videos… in which case we ask them for a transcript of the words. Most hip-hop videos would be impossible to caption intelligibly without transcripts provided by the actual artists… but not surprisingly, most videos are not true to their lyric (or word) sheets. We are always filling in blanks.

The hours we have spent researching lyrics are countless. Before we had the internet (I started captioning in 1991), we would go to the library, buy CDs, tapes, albums for liner notes, or call anyone we could think of with our questions. My dad was always particularly helpful. “Hi, Dad, do you know this song: whoa, back buck and gee by the lam? At the end of the line, could he really be saying “Cunningham?” The internet really transformed how we perform our work, but a second (third, fourth) set of ears is still invaluable. On occasion I have had someone else say the phrase we are working on out loud, and then we go through the process of attempting different parsings of the sounds until finally the words start to pop out. Then we go for verification.

In dramas, we always ask producers whether they want lyrics for incidental music included, and if so, we request lyric sheets. And we check for producer and broadcaster preferences. Some producers and broadcasters request that every word of incidental music be included. Some request that incidental music be left out. On many occasions we have captioned, even, to preliminary sound mixes, then completed the captioning to final mixes… discovering that the music has changed. And always when international, pulled-up-blacks, second broadcaster versions, or DVD versions of previously captioned materials come up, we check for music substitution.

Music substitution occurs during the production of a show for obvious creative reasons, like the piece doesn’t fit the tone the director would like to achieve, but there are also possible rights questions for music inclusion. The show may not secure the clearances they need to use the song at all, in which case there  may be a last-minute substitution which needs to be updated in the captioning. This happens not infrequently with “happy birthday,” which is notorious for being unclearable. Particularly in documentaries, production teams might not be aware of the difficulty of including footage of a family gathered around a birthday cake!

As well, a song may be cleared for use for a short period of time, making it unsuitable for inclusion on DVD or in international versions. We have recaptioned entire seasons of dramas, removing the high-profile pop songs they used on first broadcast and replacing them with (generic) instrumental only. Music clearances of incidental music is the reason that WKRP in Cincinnati will not be appearing on DVD any time soon.

We have, however, had requests from clients to leave the captioning off performances in performance shows, captioning only the interview sections of those shows, and we had a lively exchange one time with a broadcaster who supplied us a broadcast of a sung performance all in Latin (sung in four parts! extremely challenging on a number of levels); when we completed the captioning, the broadcaster said that they were expecting something a lot more like [SINGING IN LATIN]. We are still very proud of the captioning for that episode; every word was researched, it was all positioned to indicate the singer, and the interweaving of the captioning of each singer really represents the hear experience. It’s a portfolio piece for us, an also a way of explaining the continuum we operate on sometimes, between the bare minimum amount of information a caption can convey, [SINGING IN LATIN], which at least supplies the language information, which a hearing viewer may or may not have. Word accuracy with timing and positioning supplies the full information, and very few hearing viewers would have all of that in their viewing experience!

The broadcaster was very happy with the job we did for them, by the way, and just had not considered that we might do the… full approach on the captioning of that material.

In my opinion, there is no excuse for not captioning music performed by characters on screen. The basic principle of captioning is to provide the information that a non-hearing viewer would miss but that a hearing viewer would have access to. The time we take to perform the captioning means, however, that we should be able to supply details that a hearing audience might not have time to catch. What Eastern European language was being spoken? What was that phrase again? We can mitigate the effect of accents and timing, foregrounding information that might otherwise be lost.

In captioning, there is no special style, aside from italics, to indicate incidental music, which presents interesting questions. If you caption incidental music, you really foreground what might be more subtle cues to a hearing audience. Some incidental music comments strongly on the action. Sometimes we feel that captioning every word of the incidental music might draw attention to it unduly. I like to consider as a guideline how much strength the song has received in the mix. As with everything in captioning, we are trying to work with the producers and directors to make sure that the entire audience has access to the same information. This is the bottom line and the pride we take in doing the job well.

Kelly Maxwell