Video creators hope to set their content apart from the competition by using eye-catching thumbnails, captivating animations, and, most importantly, excellent content.
However, a quick trick like closed captioning can increase viewer engagement and requires minimal time and effort to execute.
But what is the best way to do it? This guide will discuss the top 7 best practices for captioning and why content marketers should use them.
1. Speaker Identification
Let’s start this guide by understanding the different practices you can implement for speaker identification:
Dashes
It is an easy technique to recognize a different speaker. You can use a dash followed by a space and the dialogue to indicate that a different character is talking.
Name/Title
This best practice for captioning helps viewers identify which character is speaking by identifying new speakers by name or title. There are various approaches to identifying speakers using names or generic titles.
Speaker-Oriented Placement
This identification method manually places horizontal captions to follow each speaker around the screen. Coupled with it, you may use dashes and names, or they might not be identified at all unless they are off-screen. Viewers having trouble with center-placed identification may find this style helpful, but others may find it difficult to follow and distracting.
However, speaker-oriented positioning is less popular now because it is incompatible with many online streaming services and video players.
2. Placement
After speaker identification, the placement of your caption is equally important. Some streaming platforms like Netflix have their standard style guidelines. However, if you want to learn the available options, here are some:
Bottom-Center Only
Nearly all televisions and internet video players support this style. It is occasionally the only placement choice and frequently the default on certain web players for various online caption file types. Bottom-center positioning, while compatible, may mask lower-third video graphics.
Bottom-Center, Moving from Lower-Thirds
Many streaming and television networks use this captioning best practice by default, and different captioning providers follow suit. When lower-third graphics are present, the bottom center captions are positioned on top of the screen.
3. Off-Screen Speech & Narration
Another best practice for captioning is how you transcribe the off-screen speech and narration. Here are two methods you can use:
Italics
Off-screen conversation and voice-over narration are frequently distinguished from one another using italics. Besides, it occasionally works in conjunction with speaker IDs.
Descriptors
You may use name descriptors in addition to italics to signify off-screen speaking or narration. They are sometimes used to denote off-screen speaking without the use of italics.
4. Non-Speech Information
Yes, we have covered a lot in previous sections, but what are you going to do when it comes to transcribing non-speech information, sound effects, and music? This part of the guide will cover the best practices for captions to include these details:
Brackets
In this style, sound effects and musical descriptions are enclosed in brackets. Typically, lowercase words are surrounded by brackets without any spaces. However, sometimes sound effects may feature extra spaces or italics in addition to being in uppercase.
Parentheses
You may use parentheses to indicate sound effects, which is almost the same as using brackets.
Detailed Descriptions
This captioning best practice has become popular among hard-of-hearing caption users because of its inventiveness and entertainment value. It is an entertaining method of drawing people into a show. However, the viewer may become confused if you use advanced vocabulary in the descriptor.
5. Character Limit, Color & Font
The readability of your captions is integral. What purpose would all the captioning serve if your audiences find it difficult to read and comprehend? This section covers captioning best practices related to color, font, and character limit:
Font Type
Medium-thickness sans serif fonts work well with captions. Extra thin or bold fonts can make text difficult to read. It can be more challenging for audiences to read a highly ornamental (decorative) typeface.
Color
Usually, closed captions appear as white text on a black box that is either opaque or semi-transparent. White lettering with a black outline or drop shadow is also a captioning best practice.
Although you may style open captions in other colors, viewers find white on black the easiest to read. As a branding approach, you may use various hues. However, ensuring the right amount of contrast is optimal.
Are you confused between closed captions and open captions? Our guide breaks it down for you!
Character Limit
By default, closed captions have a line restriction of 32 characters. While line restrictions for subtitles can vary, we recommend you keep it at 42 characters per line for readability.
6. Censorship & Profanity
Want to steer clear of penalties and bans? Apply these captioning best practices to comply with profanity and censorship regulations:
Bleeping
You can use bleep to censor the audio. It is usually represented in the subtitles as [bleep], (bleep), or [BLEEP].
Dropped Audio
Usually, the obscenity appears as […] or (…) in the captions when the audio is muted or dropped.
Partial Censorship
Another way to transcribe profanity is using the first and/or second letter of the word followed by asterisks or dashes, such as sh- or sh**. It is generally used when the producers want the audience to identify the term in the captions. However, we recommend using dashes if asterisks fail to appear properly on some player/television combinations and caption file types.
7. Compliance
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires closed captioning for several kinds of audiovisual programs. It mandates that people with disabilities must have equal access to information as those without disabilities. Thus, you should check the requirements of these laws and comply with them as part of captioning best practices.
Learn more about which laws and regulations mandate you to add captions to your video content in our detailed guide.
Conclusion
The top 7 best practices for captioning can help you win over the subtitling game, video content accessibility, and expand your audience globally. We hope that these tips will help you while captioning. However, remember that each streaming platform may have its unique guidelines. So, make sure to check that before starting.
If these best practices overwhelm you and you find it challenging to do it in-house, you can contact a professional service provider. Limegreen Media is a media localization powerhouse, empowering media houses, production firms, and distributors with linguistically accurate and culturally appropriate captioning services since 2017.
