So, Pauline, thank you so much for joining us today to talk about captioning as an access facility. Our focus today is really on the practical steps involved in implementing captioning as an access facility. But, first of all, could you start just by giving a little bit of information about yourself as a captioner, and maybe the work that you have done? Ok. First, I am going to describe myself. I am forty-seven years old. I have bright red hair and I am wearing black, because that is my favourite colour, other than red. About the captioning, how I got into that initially, as a visual artist, I was actually quite interested in audio description and providing that service. But, I happened to be studying sign language and working a lot with an arts and disability organisation in Belfast that had a lot of deaf people coming through the doors. So, I was communicating with deaf people, not particularly well, it has to be said. But, I was still learning and the opportunity came up and I thought, do you know what, I�ll go for it. And basically the advert said that you needed to have a really strong interest in language, which I do have, and I found that I got through the initial stage of training and then from there on in that was me on the road to being a captioner. And your work as a captioner, what does that involve? Ok, so captioning is providing written words alongside what the actors are saying in the theatre, primarily. I have captioned at other venues as well. I have maybe captioned poetry, music. Whenever there are other things happening on stage, if they are visual, you don�t necessarily need to put a caption for them. But, if there are sounds that are going to help the audience�s understanding, then those things need to be put up as well. Ok, great. Well, we�ve talked about in our unit, the importance of preparing, you know, well in advance for captioned performances. And, we mentioned the importance of having the DVD, the script and seeing the performance beforehand. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and your experience of that? Ok, so there are certain things that we need, as captioners, quite well in advance of the actual performance. So, primarily, the first thing you need is a script. Ideally, that script should be electronic and editable. Occasionally, you�ll get copies of a book that may have been scanned and you can�t edit them at all and it involves a lot of typing then, which just adds to the workload. Because literally you are looking at every single comma and full stop in a script to make sure things are spelt correctly, the grammar is correct, and also later, when you start to work with a DVD and then the live performance, you are checking that your timing works. DVDs are a really important part of it, as well. For really big touring companies, they�ll produce a DVD, maybe at the beginning of their run. But if they are going for a couple of years, that DVD no longer is relevant, in terms of the cast that are on the stage. And, although the general, overall feel of the performance is pretty much the same, actors will deliver lines slightly differently for each performance that they do. And, if the actors have changed intonation, pauses, you know, things like that change as well. So, it is really important to have a very up to date DVD before you go and see the show because getting the timing and things you get a lot of that from the DVD. And then, when you go to the show, at least a couple of times, if that is manageable, you�re looking to check things like, is that person visible? Because we use a slightly different way of introducing people if they're not visible. So that the deaf audience aren�t confused if there are words appearing but there is nobody there that they can be attributed to. Little things like that, to get a feel for just how the whole thing is looking, and also that gives you the sense of, �Do I need to put that on screen?" �Is that very visible?� Because if you put things onscreen that are unnecessary, you�re just drawing people�s attention away from what they really need to be looking at at that stage. So, yeah, the script, the DVD, and then those performances that you need to see. The best time to see those performances is right at the beginning of the run, for viewing the performances. It sometimes happens that you�ve got a really short run. Or, for whatever reason, the company would prefer it, or the theatre would prefer it later in the run. It leaves you with a very small window to actually prepare that stuff and get it really tight and sorted. Yes, so that is great. You have so much information, in terms of what you need to do in advance of the performance. What would you say would be the main challenges on the day of the performance? Ok, possibly the audience would be one of the main issues. Depending on the layout of the theatre, it is sometimes not possible. Some of the modern theatres would have an area where the captioning can be done from, where I would have a really good viewpoint for seeing the stage, for seeing the screens, and also being able to hear everything that is happening clearly, but I am separated from the audience. Some theatres, that is just not possible and you might be sitting, literally, right next to the audience. And, if you�ve got a really big audience, maybe with a lot of children, if they are screaming and crying, there�s maybe people on their mobile phones, not quite ready to start the performance. Or, there is an argument happening. These are all things that have happened, including being asked for directions to seats when you are literally sitting there trying to get the show out and do things. So, that can be one of the major challenges. Other challenges in the past would have been, possibly, things like, again, because of layout of a particular show, all the things that were happening, being asked to sit where I couldn�t see the screens, which really goes against everything we do as captioners. But, it was kind of one of those situations where you need to do this because we can�t do it any other way, and of course, inevitably, on that night, the screen stopped working but I couldn�t see that it stopped working and it took a little bit of time to get that message relayed to me and to be able to fix the situation. So, try not to be coerced into doing those things. Of course, just on your point, in terms of the noisy audience, would you say then that some audience members would actually benefit from captioning? Maybe people who aren�t deaf or hard of hearing, that they could benefit from captioning as a facility, in terms of improving their experience of the performance? Absolutely, we have done a little bit of research here and a couple of performances with questionnaires, surveys, just little brief things were put out. And, in one of them over seventy per cent of the audience said they benefited from having them there. As you say, whenever there are noisy audiences, there are maybe loud things. I mean recently, we�ve had the experience of doing panto. There is a lot happening in a panto. So yeah, it is there for people to refer to, to go, oh that is what that person said. Sometimes, with singing as well and if there are different accents coming in, it can be a little unclear what people are saying. It is there as a reference point for anyone and a lot of our audience members wouldn�t declare that they are deaf or have any need of that. It is more, maybe, afterwards when they have experienced it they realise, yeah, it is really useful to them. So, thanks so much Pauline for that. You have provided us with loads and loads of information that will be so useful for our unit. And thanks again for taking the time to meet with us today. No problem, thank you. Thanks.
