Subtitles and Captions

DEMO PROJECT for DOWNLOAD

DOWNLOAD THE Captions Project Demo file and unzip, then open it in Premiere. There's a practice sequence, and multiple demo sequences. The folder also includes a Subtitle Package example.

TUTORIAL

Use Premiere to work within a familiar editing environment. This section will rely on you checking out one of the online tutorials if you want step-by-step instruction.

This Adobe text-based tutorial is simple and easy to follow. 
This Adobe video and webpage tutorial is easy and quick to follow too.
This video tutorial from VideoRevealed is good. 

What You Need to Get Started

1. Your video media
2. A dialogue script
3. Editing software that can create captions (like Premiere)

WHAT IS A DIALOGUE SCRIPT?

A DIALOGUE SCRIPT is exactly what you think it is! It's a document that lists the cast of characters, and contains all of the dialogue with the character names. What is doesn't contain is all of the scene descriptions.

This script is used exclusively to assist a captioner that would be involved in creating translations later on (language translation or hearing accessibility purposes).

PROCESS FOR CREATING A DIALOGUE SCRIPT
Use the film's original script to guide your caption input. After creating the captions, you can then export an SRT and use it's content to generate a dialogue script.

Open the exported SRT file using a basic text reader like NotePad (PC) or TextEdit (Mac). You can then copy and paste this content into a standard word document. Save this document as your Dialogue Script. When a captioner receives this, they'll now have the exact timecode to guide the alignment of their translation captions.

Three Creation Options for Premiere

1. You can create new captions in your Premiere editing file
2. Or, you can import an SRT movie caption file into your editing space and continue to edit / affect them. 
3. Or, you can use Auto Speech-to-Text Transcription in Premiere, (some have used Facebook for this too), and then edit the results and create the new captions from this activity.

Other than Premiere

2021 Premiere has a significant limitation. It does not export the formatting information on subtitles. That includes colour, size and position of the captions. Professional broadcasters want and need this information. BUT, YouTube does not, and so the Premiere export SRT file will be fine.

This site explains how to edit your SRT document to add the formatting manually (This is really labour intensive). 

Here are some suggestion for free or low-cost subtitle software that is for creating captions. You'll need to look through them to see if they retain formatting for SRT export.

Two Export Outcomes

1. You can create captions and export them as separate "sidecar" files, which includes the SRT. 
1. The limit of Premiere is that the formatting will NOT be retained.
2. You can create captions and "burn" them into your exported media.
1. The formatting WILL be retained.

Both of these export options can be accomplished by creating one set of captions and exporting them using different settings.

Which caption type should I choose?

In general, you should choose SUBTITLE. There are a few caption types to choose from, but this is the most relevant for consumer and semi-professional use.

Subtitle. A "sub rip subtitle" format, generally and widely used by consumer and professional levels. Can be used for online, broadcast and theatrical uses. You can edit this file's information manually if needed, by using a simple application like TextEdit or NotePad (none of the other ones allow this).

Unfortunately, Premiere's method does NOT include position formatting in the exported file. This can be a problem for broadcaster needs, who usually require positioning fixes, to make sure text doesn't cover actor's mouths, etc.. To accomplish this level of formatting in your SRT, you'll need to use a professional level caption software.

CEA-608 (Standard Definition TV, analog broadcast, outdated), Closed Captions used for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Community, aka SDH. White on black only, 1 font size. 

CEA-708 (High Definition), also SDH. Closed Captions modern standard. Can appear as static or scrolling. Used in TV and mobile platforms. White on black only, 3 font size options. 

EBU Subtitle. A European modern standard, professional format for TV broadcast, available in 25 and 30fps. This is usually distributed as an STL file. You can't manually edit the file's "text" information without specialty software.

Teletext: a UK / Euro standard, using 25fps. This is for live captioning. You can't manually edit the file's "text" information without specialty software.

Speech-To-Text Auto Transcription

Review the video / website tutorial to learn this. Premiere is able to analyze the audio in your Timeline and come up with captions automatically. It can pick up voices within a background and music soundtrack. It creates a singular line of text, and you'll need to separate it out.

Click the Transcribe sequence button in the Text panel. 

Modify a few settings before the process begins. Oddly, it can also identify different types of voices to generate Speaker 1, 2, etc.. This is considered a potential issue (privacy, data mining?), and a warning window pops up to ask if it's okay.

The render can take a while, even for a really short clip.

Once done, you'll see text appear in the Text panel's captions. 

To edit this, EXPORT this as an SRT file

Open the SRT file using NotePad (PC) or TextEdit (Mac). Separate out the lines of dialogue and properly identify the character names. You've now created the basis for a Dialogue Script. Use this file to 

TIPS & TRICKS

1. Increase the height of the audio waveform so you can also see the dialogue start and stop points
2. Use Markers to place timeline indicators. Select the video clip and type the letter M. A small tag appears on the video.
3. Apply colour coding to the dialogue to help visually track character's dialogue captions (select caption clip, Edit Label)
4. If you remove a Captions item during an edit, it is deleted from the Captions track. You will need to recreate it manually if you restore that clip or clip section.
5. Use the "Essential Graphics" panel to customize text format. But be aware that subtitles/captions have guidelines! Choose the "Edit" tab and select your clip to bring up the options. Create a Track Style to retain your formatting, which will apply consistent formatting as you go.

Use an existing SRT to Edit Cations 

You are importing an external SRT file into your editing project, and dragging it to the captions track. You may need to reposition it so it aligns properly. 

By applying MARKERS on your video / audio to indicate your first (or all) dialogue IN point, you can quickly align an imported SRT caption file.

1. File > Import > select your SRT file
2. It appears in your Project Manager panel
3. Drag it to your pre-made subtitle track. 
4. WARNING: Notice that while the individual captions retain their placement in relation to each other, the entire collection likely does not know where to start. It goes wherever you place it. 
1. Have all captions selected, and slide to re-position these to align correctly. 
2. By applying MARKERS on your video / audio to indicate your first (or all) dialogue IN point, you can quickly align an imported SRT caption file.
   

Embedded Files

This is limited to professional broadcast services.
You can IMPORT and EDIT pre-made captions that are "embedded" within your imported media file. These are caption files that travel within the media itself, and are not visible in any other way except to appear as editable files when imported correctly into Premiere.

You can import files that already have closed captions embedded in them, or closed caption "sidecar" files. You can import the files into your project by doing one of the following:

1. Select File > Import to import embedded caption files or caption "sidecar" files.
2. Import through the Media Browser using the file's context menu.

For example, when you import a QuickTime clip that contains embedded captions, the captions are automatically imported. If a QuickTime clip has an accompanying "sidecar" caption file, then import the "sidecar" file just like you import any other file.

To detect and automatically import embedded caption data in a media file, select the Include Captions On Import check box under the Media section in the Preferences dialog box.

The option to "Export as Embedded" is available only for pro codecs like MXF OP1a, DNX, and ProRes and requires that the caption track format be set to one of the broadcast standards like CEA-608. QuickTime embedded export currently only supports embedding CEA-608. For example, if you have an SRT in sequence, that cannot be embedded.