NatCapVidMo Day 16: Out of Sight (With Audio Description!)

I've placed my usual embedded video with captions by Universal Subtitles above, but if you watch it, you'll notice that the only dialogue is the name "Gogo", and other than that the captions are just sound effects. Out of Sight is a beautiful short animation by Ya-Ting Yu, Ya-Hsuan Yeh, and Ling Chung, three students at the National Taiwan University of the Arts. I decided that since the captioning job was such an easy one, I should try my hand at audio description.



My audio described version can be found here. You can also paste the URL (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQXD6jkv4hQ) into EasyTube, an accessible YouTube interface that allows for keyboard navigation. I've seen a few audio described videos and have read some guidelines on audio description, but this is my first time actually attempting it, so I'd be grateful for any feedback from blind or low-vision people who give it a listen. It was really fun to do, and even though I've now seen this video probably a dozen times, I'm still not sick of it. Bravo to the Taiwan University Team! For more information on the video, go to their website here.

Edited to Add: I've attached a transcript of the audio description below.

--

Animated footprints of a dog.

The rest of the dog is gradually sketched in, then filled with color.

The legs and feet of a little girl, Chico, holding the dog's leash and walking.

The words "out of sight" painted on a white fence.

The legs and feet of a man walking past the fence.

A sunny day. The little girl is walking her dog and smiling.

The man approaches from behind and snatches her purse.

Her dog chases after the thief, dragging Chico along.

She slams into a tall fence and the dog breaks free, running through a ragged opening in the boards.

She feels a draft coming from the opening.

She bends down and feels around the edges of the opening.

She crawls through it into a pitch dark, cave-like space.

She gropes around and finds a small twig.

A drop of water briefly illuminates the darkness as it falls into a small puddle.

She waves the twig and the window of a house emerges out of the darkness.

The twig has transformed into a magic wand with a star on the end.

She taps her head with the wand her colorful clothes transform into a black dress with a witch's hat.

She runs her fingers along the hat and smiles at her transformation.

She traces the wall with her wand, heading toward a small patch of light in the distance.

She collides with a tree and falls down.

The darkness is gone and she is in front of a blue house with yellow shutters.

She continues to walk, waving her magic wand in front of her.

Her wand taps against a metal rod with a pleasant chime.

She smiles and runs her wand along the row of metal rods, which become a metal fence as she passes by.

Birds fly up and out of view as a plain brick wall is revealed.

She pauses and taps her wand against the wall, then sniffs the air.

The blank wall becomes a bakery window with pies, cakes, and a swinging sign reading "bread".

The bakery door opens. A woman walks out and past Chico, carrying a bag filled with bread.

Chico continues walking, tapping her wand against the wall.

She sniffs again, and a woman walking past sprouts large pink flower petals that encircle her face.

As Chico inhales deeply, she begins to cough.

She's encircled by a cloud of smoke from a passing man with a pipe.

She passes an alleyway.

A beige, vaguely spherical shape is rolling around on a garbage can.

The shape jumps to the ground, rolls towards her, and transforms into a kitten.

The kitten rubs happily against Chico, who smiles.

The kitten hears Gogo's bark in the distance and runs away.

As the walks, houses and shops spring into being when she taps them with her wand.

A stork drills a manhole in the road with its beak.

A church springs up, with a bell ringing in its steeple.

Cars that look like fish swim by in shallow water, smoking pipes.

A fish bus picks up several strange, animal-headed passengers, then moves on.

Chico looks up.

A giant whale blimp with 10 rippling fins floats benignly over the city.

Chico cups her ears and enjoys the sound of the whale blimp.

Gogo runs up to Chico carrying her purse in his mouth.

She drops the magic wand and it transforms back into a twig.

She hugs Gogo and feels the purse carefully before realizing what it is.

She smiles happily and picks up Gogo's leash.

They walk off together along the bright and colorful city street.

The camera pans upward to show the contrail of a passenger jet moving through the sky.

Credits. Still sketch of the dog barking at the thief up in a tree.

Another sketch of a man coming out of the bakery while Chico's dog navigates the opening door.

A sketch of Chico squishing Gogo's face and grinning while he wags his tail.

NatCapVidMo Day 15: Molecular Gastronomy

Disclaimer: I take no kickbacks from Moto. Heck, I've never even eaten there. I sure would love to, though. I love eating weird stuff, especially weird stuff made using Science, so Molecular Gastronomy is one of those things I've been wanting to try for ages. If I ever find myself in Chicago, I'll definitely give it a try. I thought it was pretty funny that one of the dishes in the video was frozen cooked pureed pancakes. I used to have to cook pancakes, then puree them, at the group home I used to work at, for the clients who had swallowing disorders. Never thought to freeze the puree on a plate, though; I think it might sort have defeated the purpose.

Well, that's day 15 of NatCapVidMo. Half the month gone, half the month left. I'm having a blast so far. Thanks again to Universal Subtitles and all the people who upload interesting stuff on YouTube.

NatCapVidMo Day 14: The Antikythera Mechanism

The Antikythera mechanism is a fascinating piece of machinery, and Michael Wright has built a fully functional working model, which he demonstrates in this video. The narration is a bit dry, but the thing itself is just beautiful.

This video was very easy to caption, but it took me several hours to find something appropriate for today's NatCapVidMo. Now that I'm reaching the middle of the month, my ready sources of captioning material (especially since I'm trying to limit the number of music videos somewhat) are running dry. If there's a video you'd like to see captioned, please comment on the blog or email mkk@stenoknight.com. As long as it's under 10 minutes and safe for work, I'll do my best to oblige. And even if you don't need anything captioned, tell your friends about the NatCapVidMo project, and maybe they'll come up with something. Thanks!

NatCapVidMo Day 13: Foux du fa fa

Universal Subtitles isn't just for captioning English to English! I took this song from the brilliant television show Flight of the Conchords, captioned it in French (with a little help from the internet), then, using my magnificently advanced French skills (two semesters in college nine years ago) translated it into English for your viewing pleasure. You can select either language from the Universal Subtitles menu.

Profitez!
(Enjoy!)

NatCapVidMo Day 12: Feynman on Fire

Richard Feynman, one of my all-time heroes, explains how fire works. I love the way he talks about stuff.

NatCapVidMo Day 11: Visual Illusions

So Universal Subtitles isn't just fun and games. The above video was shown in one of the classes I CARTed today. Yesterday the class's instructor picked out the video and informed the student, the disability office transcribed it, I got the transcript, and then I captioned it on my lunch hour so that the student could watch it in class. Usually when there's a video shown in class I'm not given any warning, so I have to CART it on the fly. It's not usually a big problem, except that day when the professor decided to show this video (warning: salty language) out of the blue, which is not the easiest thing to write, let me tell you. But even when I'm able to CART the video accurately, it can often be a frustrating situation for the student, because they're forced to constantly look back and forth between the video screen and the laptop's CART display, which not only gives them a crick in the neck but can also result in them missing some of the words, some of the video images, or both. Captions are of course ideal for this, but before Universal Subtitles it wasn't generally possible to get a captioned video up in time, especially since professors don't tend to choose the videos they show in class more than a day or two ahead of time. Now if I have even a little advance notice, I can transcribe the video (or have the disability department do it for me), caption it in minutes, and give the instructor the link to the Universal Subtitled version instead of the original one. Easy as anything!

Because I did this video on my lunch hour, have done a total of nine hours of CART today (seven in the Bronx and two in Manhattan, including a mad dash from the former to the latter via Metro North), and have to do 24 audio minutes of paid transcription work before going to bed tonight, this video is not as finely polished as some of my previous ones. For instance, there are a few captions with hanging/orphaned words, which I usually try to avoid. It would be great if Universal Subtitles offered a "line break" option within a single caption block, but I suppose that's not ultra high priority. Anyway, I hope you like it. I know my client was pretty happy with the results.

NatCapVidMo Day 10: The Mimic Octopus

Yep, another nature documentary. This one's pretty incredible, though. That is one versatile octopus.