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Joke Captioning

 In humor, timing is everything
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Often times, when a movie is has captions the typed punchline is broadcast well in advance due to the fact that the punchline and the setup are often on the screen at the same time.

This presents a problem because while the listeners have the benefits of pauses to allow you to not see the next step in the joke, many of the non listening audience do not get that same benefit.

By retyping the movie captions in such a way as to place the punchline, word or humorous phrase in the next frame and thus staggering the content. No time is even lost because you can start the next complete thought in the same frame as the punchline.

—sartep, Oct 21 2004

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       This was used by Berlitz (language schools) in their TV ad here in México (where movies are subtitled, never voice-overed until they are broadcasted by national TV stations).   

       The ad shows around 15 people sitting in the darkness of a theatre; the flicking light of the screen barely illuminating their faces as they watch a movie in english. Most people's eyes move from left to right (reading the subtitles), while a young woman laughs all by herself. The rest of the audience laughs simultaneously, a couple of seconds after her.   

       The slogan of the ad: "Movies were meant to be watched, not read. Learn english."   

       I think the only way to enjoy a movie is learning the language in which it's spoken because, even if the sub-titles come ahead so you can laugh at the joke, good chances are the translation of that joke isn't completely accurate. Humour is such a hard thing to translate...
—Pericles, Oct 24 2004
   

       Why did the chicken cross the road? At the other side arrive!
—spiritualized, Oct 24 2004
   

       Or how 'bout this joke arrangement.   

       When I was at Kodak and I ran the company...

...into the ground.


Imagine putting all of that into one line and how much that would kill the joke.
—sartep, Oct 24 2004
   

       It generally makes sense to learn the language of the dialogue in the film, but what if it's in a language you aren't likely to come across very often? I saw a film in Farsi last year, and there would have been little point in learning it just for that purpose. Also, what about deaf people?
—nineteenthly, Oct 24 2004
   

       //Also, what about deaf people?//   

       Exactly.
—sartep, Oct 24 2004
   

       //It generally makes sense to learn the language of the dialogue in the film//.   

       it's obvious that I have no interest in learning finnish or danish just to watch a couple movies. I'm only saying that it would be ideal (in order take the most out of a movie) if one didn't need to deal with captioning of any kind.   

       //Also, what about deaf people?//   

       For the purpose of this idea, I don't think it makes a difference for deaf people; they're already missing half the content of the movie anyways, and they do just fine with the already existing close captioning, I would say.
—Pericles, Oct 25 2004
   


 

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