"If accessibility is about inclusion, videos about accessibility should be too." Part case study, part primer. Lessons learned while making "The Viking and The Lumberjack", an accessible video web series.
Learn how V&L filmed, edited, added audio description, and captions to their series.
Seriously, if these two can do it, anyone can!
Originally presented at CSUN 2016.
2. @TheBillyGregory
Full Disclosure
• This is a story about how
we made V&L accessible
• I am not an expert on this
subject matter
• I’m going to be 100%
honest about how we
make V&L
• A lot of this info came from
listening to our viewers
(or a Lumberjack)
Not an expert
…and not being jerks
20. • Audio Description is an audio-only track
• Synchronous with the video
• Describes necessary visual content
• Usually delivered during pauses in dialogue
• Supports comprehension for users who cannot
see the video
What is AD?
33. What is CC?
• Text equivalent of spoken words or
meaningful sounds in video content
• Allows people with hearing loss or deafness
to get equal access to information
• Also, provides additional benefitsadditional benefits
We’re all adults, right? This is also talk about making videos on the internet… there’s not way we, as a group, won’t make at least 1 reference to “other” types of videos on the internet. But I assure you there is nothing in here that offended me. Read into that however you’d like.
This is me, you can follow me on twitter
I am not an expert
But I am going to be 100% honest about V&L video creation
⁃ successes and failures
- some of this info might be wrong. I’m just telling you what we do.
a lot of this talk came from listening to our viewers
⁃ and, you know, not being dicks
I should also mention that most of our videos live on YouTube so this walk will be mostly about that
• Background info on the series / what we’re about etc
• mike saw Karl and I talk at CSUN, it was awful but Karl and I recovered by bantering for a hour about nothing
• Instead of firing us, he gave us series
• We wanted to be Key & Peele - blew entire budget on first episode
• if we wanted to do more we had to be creative
• couldn’t - in good faith - release episodes for a series about a11y w/o being accessible
• So we did it ourselves.
• Since episode 2, V&L is 100%
• written
• shot
• edited
• captioned
• described
• … by V&L
and by “accessible” we mean
Audio Description and Closed Captions
so think of this as less of a “how to”
and more of a case study
I want to talk a bit about how we make our videos
not to glorify what we do, but to explain our process a bit
Our first two episodes had a budget
we filmed these in a real studio with real cameras and all that
Then we went broke
⁃ shoot where/when we can
⁃ we film on a tight budget and even tighter timelines
⁃ We couldn’t be more low-tech if we tried
our first attempt at DIY was in Costa rica
we used a GoPro and an iPhone
CSUN we used Mike’s suite
we tried to use a script
it didn’t work, it was awkward
Really awkward.
latest episode was filmed between August and November in
Vienna, Budapest, Denver, Toronto
filmed with an iPhone on a selfie stick
5 episodes, filmed in 5 countries - literally hundreds of views
we got a little bit better every time and over time, 1 thing became clear
Something we’ve always known, and we say to our customers all the time
I’m surprised it took us this long to realize, since it’s the same basic principle as web a11y
⁃ film somewhere quiet or with minimal BG noise
⁃ describe as much in your script as possible
⁃ leave room when filming to describe later
⁃ Think about all this stuff, plan for it
⁃ you’ll thank yourself when it’s time to
This is where the fun begins, we do all out own editing in iMovie
• shoot lots of takes
⁃ in case we can’t use because of BG noise / mumbling
• use the takes that
⁃ are funny
⁃ easy to understand
⁃ require the least amount of AD
Sign off from Mike
Too many “adult” jokes / re-edit
YouTube doesn’t have the ability to offer multiple audio tracks
you have to create 2 versions
We found it was very important to make both versions the same length
for reasons I’ll get to in a bit
Described Video
this is nothing new, Joe Clark wrote about it as far back as 2001
AMI have a great BP section if you google it
http://www.ami.ca/media-accessibility/Pages/Described-Video-Best-Practices.aspx
Speaking of AMI, when I first wanted to add AD to V&L, I reached out to one man first
I’d be remiss not to mention Rob here
He helped me so much in understanding AD and how best to go about it
Go fund me account
Rob actually helped me understand one basic principle when it came to AD…
Just tell people what they need to know
if you talk too long / too much it’s too confusing
Preference is to describe facial gesture rather than guess at emotion.
These guys (Netflix) took a LOT of flack about their lack of AD
Mostly because of this show (Daredevil)
Blind super hero show that isn’t accessible to blind viewers
these days there AD is top notch
Sina Bahram mentioned just yesterday that the are the best
they don’t downplay, they tailor AD to the audience
Sometimes you have to use the standard approach. to AD
this is an example of our standard AD, it’s a scene from our latest video
in other cases we were able to work it into the script.
having AD makes videos more accessible
AD as part of the script makes it more inclusive
CC isn’t just for deaf viewers
Karl and I talked about this in Episode 3 “Rebranding a11y” where we thought it really should be called “Do not disturb” mode
There are plenty of services
for the V&L Hangouts (Friday at noon - location TBA!)
we use ACS (Alternative Communication Services)
TV Worldwide did the first couple
We were too broke to hire anyone so we used
First we upload the video
then YouTube will generate the auto-captions - and we’ll get back to them
this can take a couple minutes to appear
Now we want to go into the English (automatic)
and we can see how google has generated the text
we can see they aren’t perfect, so let’s clean them up a bit
once we click “edit” and we can now edit the text blocks
we can also click / drag those rectangles
or drag the edges to these rectangles to lengthen or shorten the amount of time they are displayed on screen
once they are done, we can hit publish
now we can see our cleaned up captions
remember when I mentioned how we wanted to keep our videos the same length?
here’s why
we’re going to add captions to our AD version
to do this, we’re first going to export the captions from the first version
which caption type doesn’t really matter here
and we’re going to add them to our AD version
Be careful with the arrow keys
Save often
Do NOT trust the auto-captions
I mumble, I get it.
I mumble, I get it.
now… I’m not gonna say that she didn’t win because of this video but…
now… I’m not gonna say that she didn’t win because of this video but…
make episode 1 available
eliminate the need for AD in all our videos
keep making V&L vids for whoever watches them