Really a Useful Note: Closed Captioning

According to a post in Ask The Tropers, someone has mentioned the Closed Captioning trope looks like a Useful Note. I just skimmed through it, and it has identical wording to a Useful Note page. We should change it to one.

edited 17th Aug '17 2:35:22 PM by jameygamer

Looking at the page, I can see how it can work as a useful note.

Opening.

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report

Make it a Useful Note.

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I'm all for Useful Note-ification.

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I find that it's a trope, but the page reads like a useful note.

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Why do you think it's a trope? It potentially could be used on a page for a home video company, but I think it would do just as well as a Trivia trope for said home video company.

So how would you propose we fix the page to make it look like a trope? I'm all ears.

edited 18th Aug '17 1:26:33 AM by jameygamer

It's a very basic metatext trope. It probably doesn't even need examples, although you can probably extract a bunch from the description. I'm also not sure it strictly speaking needs to be rewritten if you don't.

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I support making this a Useful Note. I fail to see how accessibility functions are tropes.

edited 19th Aug '17 1:20:33 AM by GastonRabbit

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

1+ to make Closed Captioning a Useful Note.

Metatext trope. Writing spoken words on the screen so you can view them is most assuredly a storytelling device.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Did you know that the captions and the dialogue are often not matched up correctly? My favourite example of multiple translations is Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door.

• English dub
• English subtitles
• Closed Captioning (English)

None of the three translations match up more than 60% of the time. So which language track is the "accessibility function", then?

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I was referring to the intended purpose of closed captioning, which is to display text for people who can't hear the audio. I never said it was a perfect solution. I was also talking about closed captioning that displays text for audio that's in the same language. Subtitles that translate audio in a different language didn't even cross my mind when I wrote my original post and I don't consider them to even be the same thing as CC, at least in terms of purpose (with one being intended for people who can't hear the audio and one being intended for people who can probably hear it but can't understand it).

edited 19th Aug '17 7:32:16 PM by GastonRabbit

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

It holds true even if the language doesn't change. But you can't really use "this specific use of this trope doesn't look like a trope to me, so none of it is a trope" as a valid argument.

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Whatever. I'll wait and see where this proposal goes when/if it gets a crowner or timer because I don't want to keep arguing over this.

edited 20th Aug '17 4:53:50 AM by GastonRabbit

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

And I would like to argue about it, so that we can explore different points of view for this subject. To my view, the crowner is for after the debate has gone as far as it can, and people have evaluated all relevant information. I don't think this thread has gone over all the evidence yet.

I am not Hard-Of-Hearing, but I grew up with the closed captions on constantly. Because of that, I don't see a storytelling difference (I might argue a legal distinction) between "subtitles for foreign language" and "subtitles for Deaf and Hard-Of-Hearing". The narrative discrepancy that I usually note is that SDH has musical notes and sound effects written, when foreign language subtitles don't.

Did you know that a song is almost never captioned, even if there's a SDH track? Even if the main characters are singing, there often isn't a written form. Musicals are rather hit-or-miss that way.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

When I said I don't want to keep arguing over it, I meant it. Several other people want to make this a Useful Note, so ask them instead. Some didn't even give a reason why they voted in favor of making it a Useful Note.

edited 20th Aug '17 3:00:51 PM by GastonRabbit

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

My personal vote is for Useful Note. I personally think the way this trope page is written, with all the technical details about CC, it works better that way.

It would look a lot better as a Useful Note.

Really I dont see there being a real need for it as a trope. In the same vein we dont need a general Subtitles trope. Its the exact same thing but Closed Captioning has sounds and onomatopoeias written down.

A useful notes just saying that difference and such will work but that's about it.

We have the opposite trope as is, Subtitles Are Superfluous for those that dont bother to include them at all.

Yes, you've said that. I agree that the current description is focused in a historical perspective rather than a storytelling perspective.

I don't agree that the concept isn't part of storytelling.

That's actually not an available distinction. CC doesn't always include those, and Subtitles don't always neglect them. What makes subtitles not part of the whole process of creating and telling/showing a story?

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

It probably may need a rewrite to show why it would be a storytelling device if it remains a trope.

One example off the top of my head where CC COULD be considered for storytelling is sing along programs such as the Disney Sing-Along Songs series. That franchise's entire concept used a storytelling format of CC.

edited 21st Aug '17 2:02:54 PM by jameygamer

A reasonable condition.

That is a subtrope to the more general Subtitles trope. Please see Follow the Bouncing Ball.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Alright, so I checked the related tab on CC, and one of the wicks is to both the main Wheel of Fortune page and the show's trivia page. Both examples of CC on those pages say the same thing.

It's also been used as a trope example on X-Men: Evolution, Bobby's World, and Animaniacs, but it's also used as a Trivia example on The Last Ship.

What do you make of this?

I make no sense of that. Useful Notes are not allowed to be listed as examples on a work's Trivia subpage. Trivia itself is not a storytelling device.

I contend that Closed Captioning is a metatextual trope like the dialogue cards of a Silent Movie. Since the spoken and written dialogue are often not the same, I object to dismissing an "accessibility function" from storytelling tropes.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Think it's time for a crowner to decide what to do with CC? That means at least two of the CC examples I just listed will need to be moved.

Good point with silent movies. CC is on the Text Tropes list.

edited 22nd Aug '17 6:36:44 PM by jameygamer

Closed Captioning is an understandably option for those who cant hear or understand. Those are different from cards for Silent Movies which are part of the plot.

It is not a trope or anything of the sort. Its not even trivia really, the absence of it though is trivia and the page already exists.

edited 22nd Aug '17 6:51:02 PM by Memers