I used closed captioning sometimes to figure out what a garbled sounding line is, and have noticed that sometimes the cc is completely different than the line the actor said. The other night I was watching a show, Futurama if anyone cares, where the voice actor said “ham” and cc substituted the word “anus.” Sometimes it’s clear that there are sound games being played (for example the cc saying- sofa king, instead of “so fucking” but why the other substitutions on previously recorded shows, like the example above? Is it that a cleaned up show is being ran with captioning that was done before the original “bad” line was removed?
[bender] Kiss my shiney metal ham! [/bender]
Yeah, I think this has been discussed here before. It seems that in many cases, the final – or even no-so-final – script is sent to the captioning people, and then changes are made while filming. Sometimes an actor will ad lib something good and they keep it in, or the actor might make a mistake so minor that they don’t bother fixing it. Either way, it’s not going to match the captions.
I understand that they send the script to captions before filming, to save time. The part that angers me is that they ought to proofread it against the actual filmed version.
I understand that this can’t be done for a live news broadcast. But this sort of thing even happens on movies!!! :mad:
Never mind.
Captioning is also done well after production.
I think the OP’s guess that an unedited CC file ran with the edited episode is correct. For a handful of markets, subtitlers will clean up their files and companies will release edited versions of movies so as not to offend viewers.
lately my CC has on TV has been rather garbled and almost useless. I’m not sure where the fault belongs, but I’m guessing it is Comcast.
I did do a search, but missed it if there was an earlier thread. I found a staff report that said caption writers actually get a copy of the show to write from in the case of pre-recorded shows and that they watch and type for live shows as they play.
Khadaji, I’ve seen the gibberish too a few times.
Eh.
I do closed captioning (& open captioning) for a very, very small business.
Sometimes I’m given a script; generally I have to transcribe the show.
When mistakes appear, it’s because of one of two reasons:
One, when I’m given a script, the mistake is already in the script, and it’s not supposed to be my job to correct them–we give a discounted rate when they give us a script, so I’m just supposed to encode the captions ASAP & correcting stuff can double the time it takes. Sometimes I correct mistakes anyhow because they make me twitch.
Two, when I have to transcribe the show, well, when something is hard to understand, I just give it my best guess, and I can get it wrong. If my transcription doesn’t make much sense, I’ll call someone over for a second opinion. The more garbled or slurred or mumbled the line is, the more spectacularly wrong my transcript can get.
Not sure how one can get “anus” from “ham,” though.
Thanks for checking in with first hand experience, Elyanna, and thanks to everyone else also.
I’ve seen CC that was so insanely different from what was actually said that I can only guess that it was done on purpose. The Simpsons and Family Guy are very guilty of this. I actually find it quite amusing!
Speculation in search of support or debunking:
Surely it must also sometimes happen that captions just simplify what is said to make it readable at the pace they have to move to keep up with the show. Think Gilmore Girls or X-Files or any really-talky-sometimes-run-away-at-the-mouth type shows. Why caption “Scully, if I ever get out of this human-sized cocoon, I’m going to try to be a better person toward my fellow man” when “Scully, if I get out of this, I’m going to try to be a better person” reads so much faster?
I use cc to find out what words people said often, also. Lately on The Wire, I find the cc is off in specific ways. An actor says, “we jacked them up,” and the cc says, “we arrested them.”
I also find that cc is sometimes changes so it fits in a certain amount of space (usually two lines). So a big word might become two very small words, or three words might be left out of a sentence as long as the resulting sentence might mean pretty much the same thing.
For real laughs, turn on cc while you are watching a foreign film with English dubbing. The dubbing and the cc are usually horribly wrong from each other.
How would that increase profits for the film company?
Most questions about why they do something that way can be answered by considering the question of profits.
My WAG, the original script sent to CC said “anus” and got changed after someone threw a fit about it.
I believe that anyone who throws a fit over the word “anus” should have a ham shoved up theirs. But, that’s just me.
Just a semi-related sideline on the intro to one of Eddie Izzard’s stand-up CDs, they actually recommend that Americans attempting to understand him turn on their CC. Eddie explains how it’s done. . .
I keep the cc on all the time. Used to drive the ex completely ape-$#!+
They mention on the DVD commenary that the line was originally “You call that an anus?” but somewhere along the line became “You call that a pressed ham?” The final line change must have been done sometime after the closed-captioning was done but before the show aired- it’s very easy in animation for an actor to come in and loop a new line shortly before air.
You will see this kind of truncation, but more so in DVD subtitles than captions. In my experience, CC is more concerned with showing exactly what is said than keeping up with the scene than subtitles are, even if it causes the captions to remain onscreen several seconds after the spoken dialogue has ended.
Check out some West Wing DVD subtitles for some amazing truncation work. I hate to think how captioners handled that one.
The main reason is that closed captioning is provided very grudgingly, and at the lowest budget possible. It’s usually done by typists hired from temp agencies who make about $12/hr. or less. The transcribers are forced to do it as fast as possible, and they only get one shot at it—the supervisor will usually not let the typist replay a section for clarification. If you ask to play back a section, they will growl at you and generally make you feel like an idiot. This issue is discussed ad nauseum on deaf message boards, and people who have worked as CC transcribers frequently chime in on the discussions.
I should have said in my post that I’m much more familiar with DVD subtitles than actual live CC stuff.