NatCapVidMo Day 6: Life of a Freelancer

DISCLAIMER: Yes, I am a freelancer, but I do not subscribe to the business practices shown in the above video. Don't try this at home, kids.

I found Life of a Freelancer via Freelance Switch's Twitter feed a few months ago. Even though I'm not a graphic designer, I've hung around enough of them to get most of the industry in-jokes, and I definitely sympathize with the need to portray one's self as a legitimate business enterprise when in reality it's just one person in their boxer shorts on a cell phone. I'm always careful to point out that I'm a sole proprietor rather than a multi-employee CART firm, but I admit that back before I started renting coworking space I did used to say things like "I'm sorry, I've been out of my office all day" when by office I meant "the corner of my living room next to the fire door." If you're not self-employed, you might not enjoy this video quite as much as I do, but I hope you'll get a laugh out of it anyway.

By the way, I transcribed this video in steno using a $45 keyboard and Plover, the open source steno software I've been developing with a (freelance!) Python programmer for the last year. If you've ever been interested in learning steno but don't want to pay $1,500 just to get started, check Plover out! It's completely free and works like a dream.

NatCapVidMo Day 5: Gerald McBoing-Boing

I found this one delightful, but also pretty poignant. It's from the great mind of Dr. Seuss, of course, and was voted #9 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of All Time. I really enjoyed doing the sound effects on this one. Well, day five is in the bag. I saw a woman reading No Plot? No Problem!, the book written by the founder of NaNoWriMo, but even though I felt a little twinge at not being part of the madcap noveling crowd, I have to say I'm really enjoying this so far. What'll I caption tomorrow? No idea! I guess I'll find out. As always, requests are welcome.

NatCapVidMo Day 4: That Man

As someone who came of age in the '90s, I've got a soft spot for Neo-Swing, cheesy as so much of it was. This music video, released in 2010 by Caro Emerald, is a standout, I'd say. It's peppy, it's catchy, and the animation is supremely well crafted. It's even got a bit of kinetic typography to help jazz up the captions. I don't want to do too many music videos this month, because in a way they're just too easy, but this one was hard to resist.

NatCapVidMo Day 3: That Keith Wann Show Information

I was hoping to post this before tonight's Keith Wann Show, but the first time I tried to caption it I discovered that I'd been working on the Vimeo version, and Vimeo files don't yet support Universal Subtitles. Oh well. After captioning the show (guest hosted this week by the superb Windell Smith, whose Peter Sellers-esque comedy stylings you see in this video) I dug up the YouTube version and was able to caption it without any problem. So this is coming about an hour after midnight, but I haven't gone to bed yet, so I'm still counting it as Wednesday's NatCapVidMo entry. I love captioning ASL videos. I'm not yet fluent enough to caption them by sight, but when they're voiced it's a pleasure to link up the three modes of communication -- two visual, one auditory; two English, one Sign -- so that the video becomes accessible to anyone who knows either ASL or English, whether they can hear or not. Someday I'd like to do more ASL captioning without having the voiceover to guide me, but I need to become much more nuanced in my understanding of the language first.

Keith Wann Show Interview Transcript is Up!

The transcript from my interview on That Keith Wann Show last Wednesday is now online. You can read it here. When he uploads the ASL video (probably in a month or so), I'll caption it and link it here as well. It was a really fun evening; Keith and Windell and I talked about all sorts of stuff, from theater captioning to the issue of how to build connections between the Deaf and deafened/hard of hearing communities, to the virtues of New York City diner food. Here's the audio file, and once again, here's the transcript. Special thanks to my awesome colleague Cory, who captioned the show last Wednesday while I was busy talking.

NatCapVidMo Day 2: The Vogelkop Bowerbird

I was watching this wonderful documentary, Attenborough in Paradise, just a few weeks ago. It's available on Netflix Streaming (though not with captions, tsk-tsk) and it's an amazing view into the lives of the birds of New Guinea. This is my favorite part of the documentary, the segment on the Vogelkop bowerbird.

NatCapVidMo Day 1: Transcription and Translation

I fooled you with that title, didn't I? I was especially tickled by the mention of the transcription happening in realtime. (CART, you'll remember, stands for Communication Access Realtime Transcription). But strangely enough, I didn't find this video by searching for "realtime" or "transcription". I went through the archives of some of my favorite videos and found a link to a 7-minute video by the same animation company, and decided that a 4-minute video was more my speed for the fist day of NatCapVidMo. So I clicked this one, got it all down on my steno machine, and captioned it in just a few minutes using Universal Subtitles. Easy as anything. This video goes out to my brother William (last seen in What Is Steno Good For Part Four: Mobile and Wearable Computing), who's a PhD in biochemistry with a special love for ribosomes. I'll have another captioned video for you tomorrow. As always, requests are welcome. 'Til then!