Axxlog

A year and a half ago, I wrote:

A manageress of captioning at a large broadcasting alliance yelled at me for an hour and twenty minutes in a meeting, during which she had the temerity to ask if it were wise for me to post “professional” pages and also pages that dis redheads, particularly since her company is run by one. I guess she didn’t actually read those pages, which in fact venerate redheads, as long as they’re male, not derived from a bottle, and not jailbait. The issue, I guess, is being a bit too openly gay.

Well, I’m available in only one model.

That manageress was Heather Jewell, and the large broadcasting alliance was Alliance Atlantis.

Why is it time to name her? Because Heather Jewell is running for office in the federal election – as the Conservative candidate in Scarborough Southwest in Toronto. She uses her work in captioning as part of her campaign platform. By seeking a seat in the House of Commons, she becomes as public a figure as is possible in Canada; by including her work in captioning, it becomes grounds for fair comment. It’s in the public interest, given that she hopes to become an MP.

Let’s review her campaign literature (capitals in original):

As head of the Condition of Broadcast Licence Closed-Captioning Department at Alliance Atlantis Communications, Heather has helped to redevelop a closed-captioning service for the hearing impaired that greatly enhances their television viewing pleasure. Heather helped to develop an all-new, concise, Canadian style guide for closed captions. She hired and trained expert linguists to execute the style guide in such a way that enabled the hearing impaired to gain maximum viewing experience. That system is now in place at Alliance Atlantis channels like the LIFE Network, HISTORY Television, Showcase, the FOOD Network, BBC Kids and more.

First of all, I have a B.A. in linguistics; I am a linguist. How many of her staff – mostly women in their 20s, based on my observation of their office – are actual linguists? Second, the Canadian style guide is a travesty, with nearly 100 unaddressed issues that I have declined to publicize.

Further, I later wrote Jewell a multi-page letter. I explained that the massive preponderance of evidence holds that captions need not and should not be edited to a low speed. (For many years, Alliance Atlantis edited all captions, even scrollup captions – to 150 words per minute, if memory serves.) It was shocking that the manager of a captioning department could labour under the misapprehension that captioning viewers could not read faster than 150 words per minute with comfort (“viewing pleasure”). It was even more scandalous that she was unaware of the existing research. Jewell virulently defended her department’s practices, often in a loud voice. She demonstrated a willingness to stick up for what’s wrong.

What does the press say about her?

“Long memories in Scarborough Southwest”

Jewell, who bills herself as coming from the more “progressive” side of the party, runs the closed captioning department for Alliance Atlantis television.

“Area federal election aspirants start running”

Jewell is head of the Condition of Broadcast Licence Closed-Captioning Department at Alliance Atlantis Communications.

Thus, Jewell presents herself as a specialist in captioning on her own site, and the media – including this site – are talking about it.

Now, what’s my problem?

In my experience, she’s vaguely homophobic. What I wrote in December 2002 was completely accurate: She did yell at me in a meeting (held 2002.06.19 – I should have posted this earlier to mark the anniversary). At no time did we discuss keeping the meeting off the record, let alone agree to do so. I yelled right back, and, at the end, asked her how we could improve things after having had such an acrimonious session. She didn’t see anything unusual in what had happened.

But she absolutely did ask me if it was wise to link my professional sites to a site that “disses” redheads. There was also some mention that it might be unwise since I was looking for support from a company run by a redhead – Michael MacMillan, the Alliance Atlantis chair and CEO, who is actually merely blond as of the last time I saw him.

Now, remember, this is someone who runs a captioning department and she can’t actually read a few simple Web pages. (The site does not “dis” redheads.) But it was and is my impression and belief that, had I run a page on my personal site devoted to female redheads (Cate Blanchett? Julianne Moore? Nicole Kidman?), nothing would have been mentioned.

Remember, to apparent homophobes, it’s only “unprofessional” to be gay. You need special dispensation for that. Being straight is always “professional.” But there’s always something disreputable, tawdry, unmentionable, shameful, or impolitic about being queer – in her apparent estimation.

It would almost be amusing to note that the older captioning houses in the U.S. are staffed notably by Jewish women and gay men. I’ve never met a Jewish woman in captioning in Canada, and only one gay man (over ten years ago, and he hated his job and was getting out of the field). A hypothetical homophobe would not be the right person to run a U.S. captioning office, with or without legal protections in place. What I view as Jewell’s homophobia seems to be OK at her job, though – even in a federally-regulated sector and a province that both have strong human-rights protections on the grounds of sexual orientation. I view it as entirely possible that, should she hold homophobic beliefs as I suspect, she does not allow them to create a poisoned work environment and does not engage in any kind of violation of applicable laws. It would be interesting to interview her gay staff, if any.

Am I making a mountain out of a molehill here? No, because Jewell is running as a Conservative candidate. The Conservative party is homophobic in history (at least on the Alliance and Reform sides), by policy (in its opposition to gay marriage), and according to its members’ many foot-in-mouth statements.

Keep in mind that, if elected, she must represent everyone in her riding, including gay constituents. Would she be able to treat those constituents fairly – particularly given that she would likely be required to support Conservative policy?

There are no public statements by Jewell that indicate, or disprove, any anti-gay bias she may hold. EGALE Canada notes that she failed to respond to the questionnaire sent to political candidates. In Xtra (2004.06.24, p. 11), Paul Gallant states that “Jewell didn’t respond to questions about her position on queer rights – who knows?”

An absence of public statements in support of the constitutional and other rights of gay, lesbian, and bisexual Canadians (and everyone protected under human-rights law) does not constitute homophobia. What it also doesn’t constitute is gay-positivity. It seem reasonable to say that silence indicates approval of Conservative policy. She’s running for them, after all.

I contacted the Conservatives and Alliance Atlantis via E-mail for answers to these questions:

1. Is Heather Jewell on a leave of absence from Alliance Atlantis? (Paid or unpaid?) Or is she still, during the election campaign, discharging her responsibilities as head of that department?
2. Does Heather Jewell have permission from Alliance Atlantis to cite her job position (and many trademarked network names) in campaign literature…?

Andrew Skaling of the Conservative Party wrote back with “These are questions that are best asked of the Heather Jewell campaign or Alliance Atlantis,” who refused to respond.

If Heather Jewell or her official agent wish to reply, they may; they have their own Web site, after all, and Web publishing is the root of this issue. Certainly they should keep in mind that Jewell is now a public figure.

The Canadian federal election will be held Monday, June 28. If Jewell wins, she will surely resign her position at Alliance Atlantis. There is a good chance her replacement will be better and will improve things. Then, though, suddenly the House of Commons will be home to someone who can claim expertise in captioning. That might or might not be advantageous, given that Jewell can be counted on to defend everything Canadian captioners do, including the mistakes.

If she loses, she goes back to running a captioning department, and all this becomes a part of her documented history.

I certainly don’t hold any malice toward Heather Jewell. I have merely refused to forget what she said and how she said it.

Happy Pride, Heather!

Update (2004.06.29): Heather Jewell lost to Tom Wappel by about 10,000 votes. (I’d link you to the Elections Canada results, but, despite claiming Level A Web accessibility, the page is unlinkable.)

This could be a case of being careful what one asks for. Wappel is a notorious and intransigent right-wing nutbar who is about as anti-gay as is imaginable in a democratic society. He’s worse for my interests than Jewell was. The distinction, which may prove to be historically insignficant, is that he doesn’t work in captioning and was never homophobic to me.

Updated, March 2007

Gee, look who’s back.

1. “Deaf, partly deaf push for better closed-captioning”:

   With the help of a sign language interpreter, he explained that weather and traffic reports and some breaking news reports have incomplete closed captioning, making them difficult to understand.

   That’s what happens with captions spooled off a Teleprompter. They don’t even count – literally. (See longer article.)

2. “Crystal was so five minutes ago”

   Crystal sang of “Mystic River”: “There’s a beating; it’s like a Disney-Eisner meeting.” But the closed-captioning on Disney-owned ABC instead said, “It’s like a Disney-Pixar meeting,” leading some to believe the network wasn’t forewarned warned about the shot at Disney chair Michael Eisner.

   Do you think if Marc Okrand were still wandering the halls bragging about flying out to Hollywood to oversee captioning of the Oscars this sort of thing would have happened? Kaplach!

3. “Media as ‘bridge’: It’s for players to decide”:

   On the idea of subtitling television programmes for the deaf, for example, Singapore Press Holdings’ (SPH) MediaWorks executive director Wee Leong How said the ministries’ reply had already noted that broadcasters had explained previously that they faced resource and time constraints for such a move.

   What the hell do you expect from Singapore? I’m surprised they do not flog deaf people there, or perhaps simply imprison them.

4. “SRK is king of Phahurat”:

   Indeed, even the VCDs and DVDs of the original versions are subtitled in English for the benefit of those who do not understand Hindi. According to dealers here, the subtitling is done primarily in Pakistan. “It is done in Malaysia as well but the quality of the stuff coming in from there isn’t good enough,” says one of them.

   And it’s a whole lot better over here, is it?

5. “Does the Terapin record closed captions?”: It can’t. VCDs use MPEG video, which doesn’t have a vertical blanking interval. In theory, captions could be stored away somewhere, rather along the lines of DVDs, and regenerated, but I expect that horse has long since escaped the barn.

6. Two items on same-language subtitling:

   1. “Open Letter to the World Bank e-forum on ICT for Rural Development”:

      There are two extremely important initiatives on literacy in India. One is software in Indian languages from Tata Consulting, which has helped more than 80,000 users in areas where computers are available. The more important initiative is captioning of Bollywood movies in the language of the movie. This allows illiterate people in the audience who sing along to follow the text and gradually pick up basic literacy. This practice is helping several hundred million people in India, and will help many more as it is more widely practiced. Closed-captioning of TV would help even more.

   2. BBC Prime seeks to benefit from pushing education angle”:

      Dunsford explained that BBC Prime is pitched as a tool of learning English. He said the key to localizing the channel is airing most of the programs with subtitles.

      After the initial surprise of seeing subtitles, people are getting used to the idea, he said. If you have a certain level of understanding, the subtitles can be used to help improve your understanding. If you have no understanding, you can still watch and enjoy the programs.

      For many years, the channel was unable to even consider adding another cost in terms of subtitling, as it was not financially viable, Dunsford recalled. Only as BBC Prime expanded its distribution across Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and became a financially successful channel, was it able to look at investing back into the channel through localization.

      In Hungary, without the subtitling we would not have the distribution, he said.

      Dunsford declined to reveal the costs of subtitling or launching in Hungary, but maintained that subtitling opened a new way of promoting the channel in the country. The work was outsourced to the local arm of Broadcast Text, a multinational broadcast subtitling company.

      Well, this is probably bullshit, of course. Any programming from the recent decade would have been closed-captioned to begin with. If the BBC were truly concerned about cost, they’d simply decode the captions, perhaps using the flawed DTT system of re-typesetting them in Tiresias.

      Oh, but wait? You don’t want captions? You want same-language subtitles, bottom centred, with no sound effects or non-speech information and heavy editing? Right. That’s really gonna help an ESL learner.

All right, I’ve sat on this for a couple of weeks and now it is finally time to call bullshit on certain deaf people and certain other blind people who appear to have rather less of a commitment to accessibility than we noncrips do.

On the MoPix notification mailing list, suddenly we started seeing notations like the following:

1. February 13–19: “We’ve been contacted by numerous movie fans and MoPix users who are blind and visually-impaired regarding the soon-to-be-released film, The Passion of the Christ, directed by Mel Brooks [Gibson, shurely?! – later fixed]. Folks want to know if this film will be described. We are working with the film’s distributor now on this issue, and further information will be provided to folks via this list as soon as we have it. Note, the film will be subtitled, and so will not have Rear Window Captions.”
2. February 20–26: “This film is currently being described in the Media Access Group’s Los Angeles office. Our current estimate is that the description for the film will be available a few days after the film debuts in theaters. We’ll pass along further information about where and when this film will play with descriptive narration as soon as we have it. Note, the film will not have closed captions, as it will be subtitled.”
3. E-mail: “I believe they have only heard about the description piece from consumers, and so that is their priority as a first-time MoPix participant. You can understand why much of the world would think that the subtitles are enough; as a matter of fact, we haven’t heard from anyone in the deaf/HoH community expressing disappointment that the film will not be captioned. ”

Shall we recap, friends?

Some Hollywood studios are such cheap bastards that they only caption and do not describe their first-run pictures. The number of these films is pushing a hundred at this point:

• 32 “large-format” pictures (mostly Imax), though do please note that Space Station and Imax NASCAR were indeed described, contrary to WGBH’s misinformation
• 60 Hollywood pictures

For Austin Powers in Goldmember, which was only MoPixed because I persuaded my generous colleague at Alliance Atlantis to pay for it, costs were estimated as follows for a two-hour runtime:

• Rear Window captioning: US$2,000 ($16.66/minute)
• DVS Theatrical narration: $12,000 ($100/minute)
• MoPix disc engineering and replication: $7,500
• Total: $21,500

The movie actually ran 94 minutes, so costs were lower, on the order of $18,500. WGBH description is six times as expensive as WGBH captioning. Nonetheless, the entire cost is trivial.

Thus began the rash of captions-only movies.

• It’s so much cheaper!
• We know about “clozecaption”; we’ve heard of that before. It’s subtitles, right? We know that.
• This DVS… I dunno. I just don’t see a lot of blind people going to a movie theatre.
• Besides, we can reuse the files. We have to caption the thing for home video anyway, so this way we can pretty much do a 2-for-1.

(They can’t actually “reuse” the files unless WGBH captions for home video, which happens from time to time, as in one version of Solaris I’ve seen.)

I accused deaf people of hypocrisy for letting this happen. I know from decades of experience that grassroots deaf people, who don’t even consider themselves disabled except when legally or politically expedient, aren’t really concerned with accessibility. They just want their needs met. If they even bother to think about it at all, here’s what they think: “Accessibility is for disabled people. I don’t need accessibility.”

Some deaf organizations understand the need for universal access. I assume there are scattered deaf individuals who understand the principles at stake. But many grassroots deaf people don’t give a damn. “Give us captioning and you’re done” is the entirety of their attitude.

Now, are blind people any better?

We have, in The Passion of the Christ, the third known theatrical showing of a picture with descriptions only, the others being My Left Foot and Stardom. Perhaps our dear British friends have given that concept a whirl, though they hardly matter, given their capacity to do so very much wrong.

I have done the usual searching (I am rather good at that, you know) and have found no evidence whatsoever that blind groups or individuals have made the following points:

1. It’s just grand you made the film accessible to us, but we’re not the only ones who need accessible films.
2. You seem to think subtitles are captions. Have you ever tried understanding a movie with subtitles and no soundtrack? (What is happening to Beatrix in Kill Bill Vol. 2 as she’s loaded onto the bed of that pickup truck? All I see is black screen.)
3. You’re aware, are you not, that subtitled films are captioned all the time? In fact, Kill Bill has both, if you’d like to have a look.

I need deaf people to publish a logically defensible argument why movies should be captioning-only. I also need blind people to write a similar argument demonstrating that movies should be descriptions-only. I would also entertain a third argument that subtitles are captions. I expect all those arguments to be easily refuted, and would elicit a great torrent of laughter here.

Next I’ll need the same arguments as articulated by service providers, particularly WGBH. I wouldn’t be chuckling at those, I’d wager.

While we’re waiting, I will point out that the only people who seem to give a shit about accessibility for both disability groups are people with no sensory disabilities. Like me.

I’m not going to stop working in a field I’ve devoted half my life to merely because some of the beneficiaries of my work are hypocrites. What I also won’t stop doing is calling them hypocrites. I’ll quit when you do: If you want me to stop calling you hypocrites, quit being hypocritical.

It’s a yes-or-no proposition: Do you support accessible cinema? Movies with captions only or descriptions only aren’t accessible. What, then, are you going to do about it?

It wasn’t a sure thing that the Explorer 8000 PVR would record and play back captions with no trouble. ReplayTV muffs it, for example.

The problem, you see, is digitization. Not all lines of the TV picture are recorded. NTSC DVDs, for example, begin digitizing at Line 23 (Taylor, DVD Demystified, p. 292). But oopsy! captions reside on Line 21.

So for DVD, in broad terms the captioner has to provide a file in the vaunted .scc format, which DVD-authoring software can import and digitize in a special packet of the digital stream. Compliant DVD players – and not all of them are – then regenerate the caption data in Line 21 on playback. I don’t know how home DVD recorders work, actually, and I’ve checked for details. I don’t see how it could be anything but the same way, except in that case they’re capturing and reshaping actual Line 21 data.

Anyway, PVRs use the same MPEG encoding that DVDs do, so it was my fear that the box would be poorly engineered and wouldn’t capture the captions.

So far I have had not the slightest problem with conventional captions – that is, Line 21, field 1, channel 1 (“CC1”), where vastly in excess of 99% of all captions reside. Now, what about the rest of them?

CC2 (Line 21, field 1, channel 2)

Rarely used, mostly for easy-reader captions, though nobody is consistent about this. Arthur has regular captions on CC1 and easy-reader on CC2, while the Tonight Show has English on CC1 and Spanish (still in HIDEOUS ALL-CAPS) on CC2.

CC3 (Line 21, field 2, channel 1)

Also rarely used. Only known application is Spanish on some episodes of 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II. Spanish tends to be available if and only if items on the show are frozen well enough in advance to caption them in English and translate. I haven’t seen Spanish captions in weeks.

I verified that CC2 captions work fine on the PVR. I can’t find an episode of either flavour of 60 Minutes with CC3 captions, and I might not have found one by the time I give the PVR back. Verified that captions on CC3 work fine on 60 Minutes II.

Too much muchness

A success story, then? Not quite.

Just like my previous digital box (this firmware is clearly common to the two models), the PVR always passes captions through, including these times:

1. When you call up either or both Info screens.
2. When using the electronic program guide.
3. When using any recording function whatsoever in which video with captions is shown as picture-in-picture, as in setting up a program recording.

That means captions cover up what you’re doing. And this isn’t a small thing: Most captions are on the bottom third of the screen, where, coincidentally, nearly all the menu screens you have to respond to are located. Captions cover up what you’re doing, I reiterate.

But is that all? Not hardly!

You can turn on the 8000’s diagnostic menus by holding down the button in the centre of the arrow keys on the face of the 8000 for five seconds. When the light starts blinking, press Info. You can then left- and right-arrow through what are reported to be 22 screens of diagnostic information. It’s fun to do – once.

And while you’re doing it, all the captions on the program you were watching come right through. I shit you not. The pattern seems to be that TV audio is never impaired even when picture is reduced or blocked; whenever there’s audio there are captions.

So what should it be doing?

Worse

Block captions when using picture-in-picture or when picture is absent but audio is present.

Better

Block captions from being transmitted to the television when using picture-in-picture. Decode them inside the 8000 and place them on the picture-in-picture. (This will also work for the dedicated picture-in-picture function: You can watch, listen to, and read captions only on the main picture; you can only watch the inset picture. This way you could at least read along.)

For the latter idea to work, the PVR would have to decode its own closed captions – trivial compared to what else it does, but they’re altogether likely to screw up the fonts. Other PVR-like devices do their own captioning, like virtually any computer running WinXP Media Center Edition.

Interestingly, my old digital box, a 3200, also transmits captions whenever a menu is onscreen. It too is doing something wrong. My question is: Was this a deliberate design feature (in which case it’s a bust) or is it a bug? Either way, it needs fixing.

David Pescovitz, “Wirelessly Enabling the Disabled”:

Currently, the best captioning technology offered by some movie theaters is Rear Window, a scrolling LED display

Nothing scrolls. It’s pop-on captions only.

mounted at the rear of the theater that displays mirror-images of the captions already embedded in Hollywood films.

They’re not “embedded,” and they’re certainly not embedded in all Hollywood films, as implied. Captions and descriptions reside on a separate CD-ROM that can be played by itself, or its contents can be copied to a hard drive. In either event, the player, reading timecodes that are embedded in Hollywood films (on the frame margins), and triggers caption display and description playback. There are no separate prints, and in fact you can use any print you want of a specific movie.

Hard-of-hearing audience members watch the film through transparent reflective panels mounted on the chairs.

They’re translucent. They could be transparent for reasons of optics, but they aren’t. They’re smoked plexiglas.

“It’s awkward,” Mitchell says. “Even if the text is provided on the screen itself (at the bottom), you have to constantly look at the words and you miss the picture.”

That’s disingenuous. Any offscreen captioning system would generate the same complaint, as would all captioning systems, period, if you think about it.

Anyway, since I’ve watched more movies with Rear Window captioning than anyone else, I can categorically deny that “[i]t’s awkward.” If you’re in a good seat near the display, and if the reflector is in good shape, and if the LED display hasn’t been beaten to shit, the system works extremely well. It’s not very good for neophytes, though, or anyone with presbyopia, since it becomes difficult to switch focus between the captions and the movie.

The Center’s solution is simple, yet effective. Captions already embedded in films are transmitted to a PDA,

They’re not embedded in the film.

either belonging to the patron or borrowed from the theater. A tiny monitor that clips on any pair of eyeglasses virtually suspends the caption in the wearer’s field-of-vision.

This is the same as the Virtual Vision approach that was tried and rejected. You know, two different Technology Review articles have run on this topic, one of them written by me. (The other one, which I have here in front of me, is “Wireless for the Disabled,” December 2003/January 2004 [abstract], with no byline.)

Of course, live settings require a typist to provide the captioning.

No, a stenotypist. A stenocaptioner. CART, if you want to be more precise.

As speech recognition software improves though, it’s easy to envision a PDA-based portable captioning system so hearing-impaired individuals can read their real-world conversations without breaking eye contact.

Two generations hence, possibly, yes.

In that case, though, how does the “hearing-impaired” person talk back? Isn’t this the converse of reading out phrases from a foreign-language phrasebookbook, but not understanding what the natives say to you?

By the way, until I try this system and know it works, I think the idea of staring down in your lap at a PalmPilot to read captions is a non-starter. How is this really better than Rear Window? It apparently is not. I’m sure our dear British friends will lap it up, though, as is their wont.

See also

• Wearable Captioning homepage
• CSUN presentation
• Behind the booth
• Test of Closed-Caption Systems at Langley Theater