Emily Wang: Midterm Portfolio – #1 Captions
Project Description:
For Assignment 1, I decided to caption the trailer of one of my favorite animations Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, which adapts six short stories from three collections by my favorite Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The anime is about a giant talkative frog, a lost cat, and a tsunami help a bank employee, his wife and a schizophrenic accountant to save Tokyo from an earthquake and find a meaning to their lives. The editing tool I used was Clipchamp.
Documentation:
#First Draft
For the first draft, I mainly focused on captioning the characters’ dialogues, background music, and various sound effects. I used sound emojis, [ ], and “” to differentiate between them. However, after I exported the video and rewatched it, I found it hard for audiences to recognize which character is saying what part of the caption. Therefore, I decided to apply different background colors to different character’s captions. And for non-major characters, I would leave the background transparent. The colors were chosen based on the character’s characteristics and emotions.
#Final Work
Transcript:
[Sound of gate opened]
🎵 Enigmatic piano playing 🎵
[Man breathes heavily]
“I would like to grant you a”
“wish.”
[KOMURA shudders and pants]
KYOKO: “Wish?”
[Buzzing, squelching, gasping]
[Loud clap]
[Inhales sharply, then exhales]
🎵 Enigmatic music playing 🎵
MERCHANT: “Tokyo Times!”
MERCHANT: “Death toll rises to 10,000!”
SASAKI: “And she just watches TV?”
KOMURA: “She hasn’t said a word since the earthquake.”
“Kyoko.”
KOMURA: “It’s as though I don’t exist.”
“It is your duty to get me a result by next week!”
“IS THAT CLEAR ENOUGH?”
[Upbeat cowbells and cymbals]
SASAKI: “If she had a lover, she wouldn’t stay at home”
SASAKI: “watching buildings crumble all night long.”
KOMURA: “Right.”
[Gasps]
“Call me Frog.”
KYOKO: “I’m never coming back.”
“No, no, no, why don’t you take a short trip or something?”
🎵 Sombre music playing 🎵
“What’s the most painful thing that’s ever happened to you?”
KYOKO: “Living with you…”
KYOKO: “is like living with a chunk of air.”
KOMURA: “I can’t remember.”
🎵 Dramatic music playing 🎵
“What are you doing here?”
FROG: “I’m here to save Tokyo from devastation!”
“When was the last time you had sex with your wife?”
“Tomorrow there could be an earthquake.”
KYOKO: “No matter what you wish for,”
KYOKO: “you can never be anything but yourself.”
🎵 Music slowly concludes 🎵
Reflection questions:
Q: Where do the text and image rub up against each other in your assignment? Where do you find tension or curiosity?
A: When I was doing the captions, I found it hard to let the pace of the captions match with the visuals. Usually the visual moves so fast and results in the overlapping between captions.
What is the theme of the work? What is it you aim to express?
The theme of the work is to present the key visuals and dialogues and introduce the main characters of the film Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. I aim to express the emotion flow among different characters in the trailer.
How is that theme particularly expressed through the modality of the week?
I applied different background colors to different main character’s captions in order to let audiences can distinguish between the dialogues. Also, for the non-pivot characters, I did transparent background. The colors were chosen based on the character’s characteristics and emotions.
Which elements of the work are beautifully/wonderfully/perfectly expressed through the modality?
I believe the emotion flow, the tension of the plot, and the key characters are well expressed through the modality.
Which elements are lost or inexpressible through the modality of the week?
Some of the key visuals are not expressed. It would enhance the accessibility if more audio descriptions were included. Also, since this is a trailer, it would be better if I could inform my audience in the beginning.
Who does this project exclude? Who would not be able to interact with this work ? Who is this modality not accessible for?
This project excludes people with vision impairments.
Now that you’ve identified who is excluded, what is one way you could remix this piece to include another population? (You don’t have to make this part, but think about it and write about it)
Definitely adding audio description of visuals and include the description like ‘The director uses montage technique that the camera switches fast to the next scene. A young man is walking downstairs hastily’.
Additional Modality:
Based on my reflection, I make this piece more accessible for people with vision impairments. The previous work was designed specifically for people with hearing impairments. For this work, I add another layer of audio description of the visual so that people with visual impairments can better understand the theme and the plot of the work.
When adding the audio description, I first add an explanation of what this work is before the startof the video. Since it’s a trailer, everything happens really fast. So I add still frames between the shifts of scenes in order to have the narrative explaining the visual. I also adjust the audio description to make it not overlapping with the conversations between characters in the trailer.
Though the pace of the plot is disrupted in some way, it’s much easier for people with vision impairments to construct the scenes in their own minds and also to understand the theme of the trailer!