Thanks to Bill Creswell who responded to my recent blog entry, "Captioned Movie Trailers!" He gave me a web address leading to a website titled, "Subtitled Movie Trailers!" Click here to check it out!
They have over 100 trailers that are subtitled. I checked some of them out. The subtitles appear to be burnt in with the movie. Unlikely Bill Creswell's captioned trailers, you cannot turn them off. So the captions will appear a little soft rather than sharp because it's not embedded. Overall, I still recommend that everybody check the website out because they are doing quite a good job on captioning the trailers.
It's always great to see people working hard to make their websites more accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing communities.
Have a Happy New Year!
Bill Creswell, a web developer who works for a theatre that provides closed captioning and descriptive audio. He first contacted me earlier this year in response to my captioned vlogs and asked how I did it. I shared some information with him regarding captioning video clips.
I must say I am pleased with what he has done so far. The reason why he wanted my help in the first place was to see how he can caption the movie trailers on his own and provide them at the local theatre he's employed at. I don't know if he has managed to get any in. But he is doing a fine job of captioning movie trailers and posting them on his blog.
I certainly hope this will be the starting point of pushing the studios into providing English subtitles for the movie trailers on their websites and other websites hosting the movie trailers. I also share the same complaint toward websites like CNN.com and other websites where they provide a large amount of video clips that are inaccessible to the deaf and hard of hearing. It has been years and nothing is still being done about it despite the loud complaints.
I just want to let Bill Creswell know how I really appreciate his hard work and dedication to making the movie trailers more accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing communities around the world.
Bill, keep up the great work! I really appreciate it, and I imagine many of us do too as well. By the way, for these who are interested in watching the captioned movie trailers, just click here to gain access to Bill's website.
Enjoy!
Press Release
Harkin campaign becomes the first Senate campaign to use innovative service to provide disabled persons with access to online video.
Des Moines, IA – Senator Tom Harkin's campaign website launched a new service at www.tomharkin.com/closed-captioned-video to make the campaign's online video accessible to those with hearing disabilities through an innovative closed-captioning program provided by www.ProjectReadON.com.
A longtime champion for persons with disabilities, Senator Harkin authored the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990 to protect the civil rights of more than 54 million Americans with physical and mental disabilities.
“The Internet has been instrumental in bringing our democracy closer to the people and it is our duty as Americans to ensure that that those with disabilities can have full use of the technology,” said Senator Harkin. “The recent CNN/YouTube debates illustrated the effectiveness of online video and I am proud to be partnering with Project readON to provide technology that helps to give Americans with disabilities an equal opportunity to engage in our democracy.”
Project readON is the web's leading and most innovative closed-captioning service that works toward a single goal of making online media content available to all by giving users the power to decide exactly what videos they want captioned and by giving webmasters an innovative and easy to use caption player to install on their websites.
“When Senator Harkin’s office contacted us I can honestly say that this was perhaps the highest point in our professional life of working in the closed captioning industry. To be sought out by the person that wrote the very act that spawned our industry is, to say the least, an honor. We look forward to contributing to online video captioning becoming the norm across the web, and it’s a great personal pleasure to be a part of Senator Harkin’s online video message as he takes the lead in that effort!” -- Mateo Gutierrez, co-founder of Project readON.
The campaign will continue to update and add additional closed-captioned videos to this innovative service. For more information regarding Project readON's innovative services and technology please visit, www.projectreadon.com or contact Mateo Gutierrez at mateo.gutierrez@projectreadon.com
I know I haven't been writing for my blog in the last couple months. I don't expect to write on a frequent basis this month, as it will be a very busy month.
Now, let's get to the good news. According to Variety, "Jericho" will return on February 12. It will be replacing the recently cancelled TV series, "Cane". It will be airing at 10:00pm, ET/PT.
As some of you may remember, "Jericho" was cancelled once the season finale was aired earlier this year. The fans started a big campaign by sending them letters and boxes of nuts. Yes, nuts. It was a reference to the season finale.
Instead of a full season, which would contain 22 to 24 episodes, they will be only airing 7 episodes. It's mainly due to the scheduling conflicts and they already had taken down the sets at the soundstage where it was filmed. A full season requires a lot of time for script writing, building new sets, casting new actors and all sorts of preparation. It's not an easy task.
You also can read a message from the president of CBS Entertainment, Nina Tassler. Just go over to Jericho's message boards to read it or just click here to read the message.
Just to let you know, it has been reported in the last couple months that they are cutting down on the cast to save money. I can't say I'm surprised. If the reports turn out to be accurate, then most of the older characters will be gone for good. That means Pamela Reed who plays Gail Green, the mother in the Green family. It has been confirmed that Skeet Ulrich (Jake Green), Lennie James (Robert Hawkins), Michael Gaston (Gray Anderson, Mayor of Jericho), Brad Beyer (Stanley Richmond), but I don't have a word on his TV deaf sister, Shoshannah Stern (Bonnie Richmond) being in any episodes of the second season. It wouldn't be a big loss, but I'm just letting you know that she may have not made the final cut. Even if you protest, she will not be in any of the episodes. They already wrapped up on the production months ago.
Alrighty, that's all I can tell you at the moment because the information on the upcoming second season is still sketchy. I must say I'm a little surprised because there are always so many spies in Hollywood. Yet it's so quiet when it comes to "Jericho". Well, maybe we'll hear something soon.
February 12, 2008 at 10:00pm ET/PT. Mark that date down in your calendar.
