Portfolio Piece

Why I am Sharing this Clip:

I saw my grandma Belle in Colorado the fall before she passed in 2014. There I captured a moment with us making goofy faces at the camera and I will cherish it forever. I am including it here because I want everyone to have a precious moment like this with their aging parents/grandparents. It was meaningful for me to catch her on a good day - despite the dementia. I am so glad I got to show her my wedding pictures and make goofy faces together.

I LOVE that she says to share this video with anybody and everybody! 

I also used the opportunity for my portfolio to learn how to make it with captions- read below for more on the technical process. (You may need to click the CC icon to see the captions.)

Quest for Access:

When I captured this video, I was on the road but it melted my heart and I had to publish on social media right away. There was something about reliving the moment on video and hearing her voice that brought me back to my childhood. Cousins in Israel shared it with their own children who had heard stories but never met THE Grandma Belle. Naturally my sister, Sarah, who is Deaf, wanted to enjoy the video, too. I remember being on the light rail in Denver, on my way to meet a friend for lunch, and so glad our other sister, Kelly posted a transcript. I decided that I still wanted it to have captions. I had directed and produced a feature film with subtitles so the technical process was fairly straightforward. I can't wait for the day when mobile captioning is possible!

Next Steps on Caption Testing:

Vimeo had a built-in captioning service called Amara that was super easy.  As I mention on this page about more online accessibility issues, video is becoming increasingly important across digital platforms. I predict that the #withcaptions movement will become more visible as we continue to use more video in our lives. 

From Paul Roth's explanation, the Youtube process for captioning is also easy and similar to what I've tried at Vimeo. He does a great job advocating that - even though it takes time - it is worthwhile. I'd like to compare it with CaptionTube software to see how they differ.