Dear filmmakers, vloggers, and video-creators who submit pieces for captioning,

I know you have done quite a lot of work on your video. You have scripted it, cast it, chosen filming locations, created costumes, perhaps acted in it yourself, and even edited the whole thing. I applaud the hours that go into each piece, the sheer volume of work you have put in to make your piece the best it can possibly be.

Tragically, however, your perfect-video recipe is missing one essential ingredient: good audio.

There are many ways in which you can botch your audio, and sometimes you don’t even think about them. Perhaps it seems like a good idea to add music in the background – in fact, background music is quite important in the telling of a story through film – but you do not balance out the music with the audio. This makes it difficult for your captioner to hear what your characters are saying, and therefore makes the captioning job even more difficult.

Another way you tend to botch your audio is with background noise. If actors’ voices are not properly recorded with a microphone, their words tend to blend in with all the other background noise from the filming location. This can be avoided simply by making sure each actor has their own microphone, and intentional background noises are recorded and also balanced with the rest of the audio.

A third issue captioners tend to face is mumbling. When the people in the video don’t speak clearly, the video is almost impossible to function. The captioner ends up simply doing guesswork, leading to inaccurate captions and a less than preferable final product. It is possible to speak quickly and clearly – think John and Hank Green’s Crash Course videos – so long as mumbling is avoided and audio is properly recorded.

In short, if you wish to have high-quality, accurate captions, then the audio must also be high-quality, especially if you are not providing a script. It is not that the captioner’s work needs to be lessened, but rather that it is next to impossible with poorly-done audio. So next time, give your audio a little bit of TLC, and your captioner will thank you.