

The FCC is (inadvertently) censoring my film - lisper
http://blog.rongarret.info/2014/05/the-fcc-is-inadvertently-censoring-my.html

======
IvyMike
To those saying that the $200-$800 shouldn't be a factor:

Some time in 2004, I went to a pre-release screening of a movie in Hollywood.
The director was there, and afterwards he did a Q&A. Someone asked "Is there
anything you would have changed about your movie?" The director's response:
"If I had had $400 more, I would have [filmed a scene much differently]".

So the immediate follow-up was "Wait, $400? How much did your movie cost?" The
answer: $7000.

It turns out that you may have even heard of this particular movie: it was
Shane Carruth's Primer. It's one of those small indie films that managed to
break out and make a profit. But I guarantee for every Primer there are 100
other films that don't make it, and some of them are quite good. The question
is do we really want to lose access to those films?

(I personally think the answer is trying to get that $800 down to under $100
through automation and tools, but we're not there yet.)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_\(film\))

~~~
lisper
I'm the filmmaker and the author of the blog post. The total budget for "But
for the Grace of God?" was about $10k. It depends a little on how you count. I
spent $2k on equipment (mainly an HDV camera), $1k on software (Final Cut
Pro), $3k on editing (all of which was ultimately wasted because I ended up
editing the whole film myself) and $2k on music licensing, plus some
miscellaneous expenses. Close-captioning would cost about $500 or so, or about
5% of the total budget, or about 50% of what the film has made.

~~~
washadjeffmad
Yeah, but this is maybe a ten hour job for an amateur using free (OSS) tools,
and it's to keep a much bigger investment where it can make money. Estimate
about three hours per hour of footage to transcribe, then two to three times
the length of the film to sync the subtitles and, if required, embed. You
could have knocked it out in a weekend then written a blog exploring what
technical and formal steps you took to comply, which would have been a much
more apt and interesting topic to see on HN.

Calling it censorship is a bit much, but I get the frustrating sentiment that
is keeping up with compliance.

~~~
lisper
It might be a ten hour job for someone who knows what they are doing, but I am
not such a person. I have zero experience with closed captioning, so for me to
do it myself, not only would I have to do the actual work, but I would also
have to climb the learning curve which almost certainly would take more than
ten hours. It would make a lot more sense to just pay someone to do it for me
(which I will probably end up doing).

But that's not the point. The point is that because of a government regulation
(one which does not even apply to my film, BTW) I have to pay $500 or lose my
distribution. That, to my mind, is the very definition of a "chilling effect
on free speech", not unlike a poll tax. It doesn't matter that the amount is
relatively small, and that I could easily afford to pay it. It's the principle
of the thing. Poll taxes were relatively small too. My concern is actually not
so much for _my_ film, but the thousands of titles out there made by people
for whom $500 or ten+ hours of work is actually a substantial burden, and the
thousands of films that might not get made because this extra burden pushes
the producer over the edge to decide it's not worth the bother.

------
ggchappell
I see where the writer is coming from, but, as someone with lousy hearing, I
find it difficult to sympathize. Part of me wants to yell, "Quit moaning and
just caption your film!"

But there are difficulties. The writer has a life, I'm sure, and lots of other
things to do.

The irony is that I'm sure there are people who would be happy to do it for
him. Some of them might do it free. And for someone with experience and the
proper software, I imagine a passable job might take a day and an excellent
job might take two days.

The main barrier, I would guess, is legal rights. You generally cannot legally
take someone else's film and modify it, without their permission -- no matter
how altruistic your motives are.

What we need is a standard way to cut through the legal barriers.

Perhaps a document could be drawn up that makes the right to add accomodations
for disabilities (in an accurate manner) available to all, while leaving other
rights unmodified. Then small filmmakers could just indicate that their work
falls under these terms.[1]

A nicer alternative would be for a law to be passed that applies such terms to
all creative works. But I don't expect that to happen any time soon.

[1] EDIT. Or maybe something like this already exists. Does anyone know?

~~~
DanBC
A crowd sourced website where rights owners to low budget films can ask for
closed captioning (and audio description) would be great.

With some kind of version control the captions can get incrementally better.

This would work well for text - captions and suntitle translations - but not
so well for audio description.

You monetise the site with donations from film makers and from charities
wanting better accessibility.

------
lsiebert
Closed captioning doesn't have to be particularly good though, if live closed
captioning is any indication. Why not just run it through a text to speech
engine?

------
stuaxo
I wonder if the fansub community could help?

~~~
ggchappell
> I wonder if the fansub community could help?

I'm sure they could, but they would first need to be _allowed_ to help. See my
other comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7724124](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7724124)

~~~
lisper
I would be thrilled to have someone volunteer to close-caption my film. In
fact, I'd even be willing to pay for it. But AFAICT it's not so easy to do.
But maybe you know something I don't.

~~~
IvyMike
So I am just a guy on the internet, not an expert, but did you look into using
"Amara"? It's not completely clear to me but it seems like it might be
possible to get volunteers to do the transcription. They also claim to offer
lower cost professional captioning services, too.

[http://www.amara.org/en/](http://www.amara.org/en/)

If you do contact them, please consider sharing what you learn--I'm completely
ignorant but willing to learn, and you might help the next guy. Good luck!

~~~
lisper
Nope, never heard of them until now. I'll look into it. Thanks!

------
DanBC
How hard would it be to add closed captioning?

Why did film maker ignore the needs of some viewers when they made the film?

~~~
lisper
It would cost about $500. I "ignored" the needs of some viewers because I was
completely clueless when I started making the film, and I was only slightly
less clueless when I finished. It was not my intention to ignore the needs of
the deaf community (in fact, I am generally a supporter of the deaf community)
but it just never occurred to me that a deaf person would want to see it. In
fact, if there is even a single deaf person out there who wants to see this
film, it would surprise me.

~~~
DanBC
Even for guerilla filmmaking $500 is not much. I donrecognise that it is a sum
of cash that might be seen as not needed.

Perhaps Kickstarter could help here? "I have a product that is almost
finished. Now I just want to do the final bits. I believe everyone should be
able to access this film so I want to add closed captioning and audio
description for hearing impaired and sight impaired audience."

Sorry for seeming cross in my first post.

