Captioning Awareness Week

• Let’s start with an easy one – what is captioning?
  
  Captioning is a way to make theatre performances accessible to deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people – which is 1 in 3 adults by the way! It’s a bit like turning on the subtitles on TV, but in real life.
  
  Every word that the actors say (or sing) is displayed, line by line, and the captions include character names and factual information about music and sound effects, so that deaf audience members have exactly the same experience as hearing audience members. The captions can be shown on big screens, on mobile devices, or even built into the set design like in Wonder Boy.
  
  At BOV you often use caption units, so the captions are shown on screens, usually either side of the stage. Audience members that want to use the captions are seated so they can get the best sightlines of both the stage and the text. These are often the best seats in the house! Deaf, deafened and hard of hearing audience members can sign up for BOV’s access scheme to find the right seats and get discounted tickets.
  
  The captions themselves are usually three lines of amber coloured text, scrolling upwards against a black background, which our research showed was the easiest to watch for a long period of time. Plus, the caption units were chosen specifically so there isn’t an afterglow when the theatre goes to blackout. You’re getting all my nerdy caption knowledge, now!
  
  This form of captioning was developed by Stagetext’s founders, three friends with varying forms of deafness who were fed up of not being able to access theatre performances. They took matters into their own hands, and worked out how to make theatre accessible via text, and 24 years later, there are over 1,200 captioned performances taking place across the UK each year. 

• How does captioning work?
  
  There’s a lot of detailed work that goes on behind the scenes. First, a trained captioner will prepare the captioned script. They do this by working with the original script of a show, watching the performance on a video and seeing it IRL at an early point in the show’s run. This check is needed because most shows don’t follow the script exactly, and to be accessible, the script needs to be as close as possible to what is being said onstage – including reflecting the way the lines are delivered. If an actor pauses, the captions pause too!
  
  All of this goes into creating a captioned script that’s word perfect and unique to the production. It’s so unique that the captioned script of one Hamlet is very unlikely to be the same as another. This detailed prep is the reason why captioned performances normally happen towards the end of a run, not at the beginning, and also why a short run might use a different method of captioning (ask me about live subtitling!)
  
  On the day of the performance, with the screens ready to go, the captioner sits backstage or in a box, and cues the captions live, one by one. They’re able to skip around the script if things change, and even add a quick ad lib if needed. It takes a lot of skill and concentration to be a captioner, it’s a real art!

• Ok I’ll bite, tell me about live subtitling!
  
  Well since you asked… live subtitling is a way of captioning unscripted speech. It can be used for Q&As, conferences, talks, comedy and occasionally theatre shows with a short run, as there is less prep time required.
  
  Live subtitling is delivered by speech-to-text reporters – you may know them as court reporters or palantypists. They are highly trained people who use special phonetic keyboards to transcribe text very quickly and accurately in real time. The keyboards are almost like pianos, with the speech-to-text reporter ‘playing chords’ that the machine parses into words incredibly quickly. We’re talking up to 300 words per minute at 99% accuracy – wow! Audience members often think these captions are being generated by AI, but AI doesn’t yet have the level of accuracy needed to provide equal access.
  
  You’ll know if you’re watching live subtitling because text appears on screen word by word (rather than line by line), and it is usually shown on a TV screen or a device. You may not actually see the speech-to-text reporter though – they usually work from home.

• Who is captioning for?
  
  Everyone! Although captions are specifically designed to be accessible to deaf audiences, we know that they also support literacy and concentration. We get feedback all the time from neurodivergent people, and people who have English as an additional language, who say they love captions too. Our research has also shown that young people aged 18-25 are more likely to use subtitles at home than older groups, who are statistically more likely to be hard of hearing. So, if you ever miss a word, or use subtitles at home, why not try a captioned performance?

• How did you first become involved with Stagetext?
  
  I first came across Stagetext at a panel event on accessibility. I was amazed to see that everything that was being said by the panel, was appearing on screen word for word. I could see this was a brilliant form of access for deaf audience members. But it also seemed like… magic! Even complicated jargon and off-the-cuff remarks appeared perfectly on the screen. How did they do it?! (Spoiler – it was live subtitling!) When the job came up at Stagetext, I jumped at the chance to get involved.
  
  When I joined Stagetext, I learned that loads of people discover text-based access like I did – by accidentally stumbling across it. Our Captioning Awareness Week campaign is about spreading the word so that people can discover captioning on purpose!

• What’s going on during Captioning Awareness Week this year? This year’s campaign is centred on recent research shared by RNID that shows there are 18 million deaf, deafened or hard of hearing adults in the UK. Previously, the estimate was 12 million people, so it’s a big leap! The reason for the change is not because there are suddenly more deaf people, but that previous research didn’t include people who were deaf in one ear.

• Best part of your job? So, for Captioning Awareness Week, we are encouraging deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people to celebrate being part of something big, to share their experiences, or to try captioning for the first time. We’re also encouraging cultural venues to celebrate their access provision!  Getting feedback from people who use captions. I regularly hear from people who say that captioning has opened up experiences that they thought they’d never get to be a part of. Access changes lives!

THE NEXT CAPTIONED PERFORMANCE IS FOR NEVER LET ME GO ON THE 16 NOV