AMV Contests Banning or Discouraging Editor-created Subtitles?

[ResyAMV]

Hello! Weighing in with my two cents...

I'm able in pretty much all regards, so I can't speak on behalf of any communities, but this all just has me thinking. As someone who has volunteered for the unpaid non-profit convention (though not in AMV circles), I understand how much hard work goes into events with only satisfaction as a reward. I know that asking AMV coordinators to add a tedious task to their workloads is a lot. At the same time, people with disabilities often just have it harder for various reasons, and don't get a choice in that. I think all of us who are able should really seriously consider taking the requisite steps to make AMV contests enjoyable for /everyone/. I think the multi-screen approach for those who have the option is a great idea.

I know AI is a touchy topic, but it seems like this may be one application that could be really useful? I don't really touch the world of AI myself, but if time and uniformity are concerns, it seems like there's probably something out there (or will be soon) that could put some rough subtitles on videos. Then a human would only have to proofread rather than go through the arduous creation process.

[SQ]

I saw this last night but didn't get a chance to reply until now.
I still want to voice my opinions, but unfortunately some will be repeats of what people got to say before I could chime in! lol
I'll just heavily summarize the repeated things.

History of the Subtitle Rule at Contests
AMV contests have been running since ~2001. Back in those days, many AMVs used fansubs, and as a result the subtitles would often get left in the AMV. Since the subtitles had nothing to do with the AMV itself, it was ultimately deemed a quality issue, and subtitles were summarily banned. (There was also the fact that cons didn't want to inadvertently advertise piracy.)

Nowadays, this is much less of an issue due to softsubbed anime. However, the perception that subtitles ultimately distract from the videos remains, and while rules may have been slackened across the board as text work has become a little more prevalent in AMVs, the perceptions of subtitles being overall bad has not. The fact that most AMVs that use text work and/or subtitles generally don't fall into the types of vids that people like to see at an anime con has not helped that perception, so it's still (usually) a good idea to have some kind of subtitle rule ot discourage those types of entries, just to make it easier on coordinators when it comes to DQs and quality assurance.

Who would actually want (music) subtitles in videos?
As the multiple replies here have shown, a lot of people. I would also appreciate subtitles in vid shows.
People outside the anime con circuit (primarily vid shows and expos of fan vids -- e.g. live action videos) all have subtitles required on every video.

So this isn't a thing that nobody would use. In fact, 59% of Gen Z and 52% of Millennials use subtitles when watching TV, so we're not even in the minority anymore. There may not be that many D/deaf or HoH individuals in an audience, but accessibility helps everyone.

Personal argument: people arguing against (accessible) subtitles in AMVs are trying to dictate what a "quality" AMV should be
We could argue back and forth about foundations of editing and how that applies to AMVs, but when it comes to sync, lyric sync is a thing many people already do frequently, and without the ability to understand the lyrics, meanings and intention gets lost. Not to mention what another respondent said about the videos that focus on dialogue, such as comedies and trailers.
You do not have be d/D or HoH to be unable to understand the words, either. There are a host of other audio processing issues people can have, not to mention that conventions aren't exactly the ideal environment for vid shows to begin with, so there are atmospheric concerns for even hearing people.

Of course, for anime conventions, they ultimately have to run a show that will appease the most people. Some cons will have audiences that prefer certain things. Someone here may run a con where most of the audience is distracted by subtitles, no matter how accessible they may be, and that should be taken into consideration. **But we should poll in that case, not assume.** This should also be said for AMV contest finalists as a whole. The types of AMVs at conventions is so far away from what is tending online, that we might find that we need to change what our perception of "quality" is all-together.
But, again, this is up to coordinators and their shows and knowing their specific audience's wants.

Accessibility is too hard to do on this big of a scale?
This month is the third year of my running an online vidding event with accessibility in mind.
I have not had to tackle the subtitle thing yet (the platform does not allow srt tracks, but I allow hardcoded ones if editors want to put them in their vids), but I focus on something extremely time-consuming: People with photosensitivies.
With the help of some people in my server who are photosensitive, we developed the Vidding Photosensitivity Relay for videos. It is essentially CWs for things that may trigger headaches, migraines, and seizures.
Before this, I thought those people just didn't edit or wouldn't watch fanvids. I was wrong. There are plenty of those people. And, again, this isn't even a novel consideration. Live-action fanvidders have been tagging "physical triggers" in their works for years before now.

I'm mentioning all this to say I have some experience in this matter and hopefully my words will be believed here:
Yes, people appreciate it, they appreciate it a lot.
It's not perfect, but the thought counts. Previously they were invisible, but now they can have at least some sort of inclusion.

BUT ALSO:
YES, IT IS A LOT OF WORK, IT IS TIME-CONSUMING, and I don't think anyone will fault you if you say you do not have the actual manpower to do these things. HOWEVER, most of you don't even look into it!! You just write it off completely as being of no benefit to anyone and too hard. You could at least set out a low effort yes/no poll and if people want them!

VPR took me over an hour for most videos, just a single video, but do you know what caption tech is available? Do you realize what having a budget opens you up to?
Excuse me for the rudeness here, but boo-fucking-whoo if it takes an extra hour to set up one screen with open captions. Hell, have a completely different time slot for it in a separate, smaller room, where you show the vids with captions. Or have a dedicated panel where you only show vids that have editor-added captions.

Google has auto-captions. Apple has live transcription options. There are services that can do live-captions for a monthly fee. You can set aside $30 and pay someone to set up srt files as videos get submitted. You could require editors submit their own srt. You could find that one volunteer who actually likes captioning videos (fanvid expos have tons of them, they have captioning parties).

Take an hour and go browse r/deaf or just go find someone who knows d/Deaf people and ask them what auto-transcription service they would recommend or if they have any resources.

At least give the IMPRESSION that you care about people who might have a different opinion than your own about captions.

Final note: it should not matter what this person's vids with subtitles look like.
The fact that it's even a thought that we can disregard this person's opinion if their videos weren't up to your perceived standards is absurd, especially since the stated topic at hand was accessibility.

[SQ]

I can't edit my post but I just want to re-iterate that if your particular audience would not like captions, that's perfectly fine, and every con/test is going to have a slightly different target demographic, some of which will have a majority of people who don't want to see any captions at all.

However, cons usually have an accessibility department now, and a lot of amv contest coordinators keep in touch with the editing community, so putting out a survey and/or poll to your target audience asking them about captions (and anything else you might be curious about) should be encouraged instead of assuming that the way the events are currently being held is fine.

[SQ]

Sorry for now triple-posting, but Goop made several great points in the Sakura Con thread, which I want to bring attention to in the more general thread in hopes more people may see them:

If there is a more appropriate place to have this discussion, I would welcome a larger conversation. I find rules banning or discouraging subtitles at AMV contests disheartening, to put it lightly, and though I'm not at all a legal expert, I also wonder about the legality of such rules in the United States. While laws like RCW 49.60.520, requiring "television closed captioning in places of public accommodation" in Washington, don't seem applicable to Washington's Sakura-Con, the outright barring of an accessibility feature feels to me like something that shouldn't be permitted under the ADA.

I think the spirit is AMVs are MUSIC videos. Therefore, I think the idea is that it's for people to enjoy the music. (so, to some degree, it's already exclusionary, because not everyone enjoys music for one reason or another.) Disclaimer - i myself is quite new to this space... still also learning.
If it's purely an accessibility issue, subtitle by itself actually doesn't help someone enjoy the music (at least I don't think, but I'm capable of hearing). Seems to me, it at best just improves understanding of lyrics. But music to me is so much more than lyrics. Music communicates a mood, an emotion, a feel without a single word, with its tempo, volume, and sound.

I'd really like to point to this short news clip about Amber Galloway Gallego, an ASL interpreter who works at concerts. Most relevantly, I want to pull out this piece:

Brhe Berry: Now that the video has gone viral, Amber says the number-1 comment she's noticed is people asking why deaf people would go to a concert.

Amber Galloway Gallego: Deaf people feel vibrations. And science has actually shown that once they feel the vibration, it triggers the same part of the brain that hearing counterparts have triggered, that releases all the good chemicals that are in our body.

So, d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing people absolutely can and do enjoy music! AMVs are not an art form that inherently excludes this population.

I also strongly disagree about lyrics. If a song includes lyrics, I think that's an integral part of the song—and it's also an integral part of my AMV process! My notes and planning documents for AMVs are so about matching images to the lyrics. Why should we have rules banning accessibility to those lyrics—to an important, crucial part of an AMV? The National Institute of Health reports that "[o]ne in eight people in the United States (13 percent, or 30 million) aged 12 years or older has hearing loss in both ears, based on standard hearing examinations" and that "[a]pproximately 15% of American adults (37.5 million) aged 18 and over report some trouble hearing." That's a lot of people who could benefit from subtitled AMVs at a convention in the States.

But also—subtitles can be helpful to anyone! Especially on AMVs! Lyrics can be hard to make out even for hearing individuals, but if I'm watching a subtitled AMV, I'd be able to easily understand what the editor was doing with the lyrics. Without those subs, I might have had no clue what the singer was saying, but the subtitles allow me to better appreciate the song and the work of the editor. In a similar vein, AMV subtitles could be really helpful for someone learning the language of the song.

I've already thrown out so many links, so here's another one while I'm at it that discusses the many, many benefits of captioned videos for everyone. I think there's plenty of data to suggest that subtitles help way more than they hurt, and it's been incredibly discouraging to have received so much resistance to the idea of subtitled AMVs at a con. Anime fans already can rarely watch an English dub with subtitles that match the English dub. Why create even more barriers? Especially when so many people watch anime subtitled and are very used to subs!

Every contest has a different personality and there are a LOT of AMV contests out there. Don't get discouraged!

Thank you so much. I'm a pretty new editor, but I'd love to try more contests in the future!

And another (hopefully final) note of my own is that, just because people aren't submitting active complaints about lack of captions doesn't mean anything. I've never complained about any event for not having captions (I'm hearing) but in the same vein, I would also greatly prefer if they were captioned (or there was a separate showing with them).

Additionally, it's possible people are complaining, but it's not getting to the right people. What does the con's accessibility department have to say about complaints or comments they are receiving? (If the con has one)

[espressoyourself]

Deaf/hard of hearing editor here. I am unsure how many of us are there but...

I think subtitles on AMVs for lyrics/voice overs are actually a very good for accessibility. I cannot hear lyrics very well when it's coupled with music unless I listen to the song over and over in a lyric video, then I am able to make out what is said by reading alongside while listening.

I cannot tell you how many times for comedy entries that I just sat there, wishing it to be over because I didn't understand a word of what the comedy was about if it was audio only and not visual. It's part of the reason I stopped going to AMV contests because I didn't find it fair to vote for the "funniest" video which I had no idea if it was well made or not due to this lack of information cuz I was just born that way....or the fact that someone chose a song that fit perfectly with the scene lyrical wise and I miss it because I couldn't hear the lyrics.

Personally, I would love the compromise that maybe one screen had subtitles in the future for accessibility. I know it would be a nightmare to try and pull off, but I think it would help a lot more people besides just the deaf/hard of hearing community. I also have a processing disorder which also adds to my misunderstanding of lyrics in songs and I am pretty sure I am not the only one. Autistic people have this issue as well and Im sure other disabilities and/or people who have English as a second language also benefit from this.

I have to work 3 times as hard to make an amv due to not hearing lyrical/beat sync, but I still enjoy editing regardless... so seeing a bit more accessibility would make me very grateful.

I am also a HoH editor, so this is coming from that perspective. I have nerve damage, so I have to edit using audio peaks as a visual cue and generally prefer to use bone-conduction technology to help me bypass some of the loss. Comedy is such a good example - and so are trailers. My biggest gripe with trailers across the board is that it’s difficult to understand the words they’re saying in such a big hall that wasn’t built with acoustics in mind. Many of the trailers then suffer with becoming nonsensical and don’t receive fair judging/votes from the audience because they’re hard to follow.
It’s not a problem you’d notice when pre-judging with headphones on. I noticed it at Kumoricon - one of my favorite trailers, Akiba Gems, was great with headphones on but really hard to understand in our AMV contest. Closed captioning makes sense for those videos, to me.

I think what's being lost here is that it's not a matter of being Deaf or being hearing. We aren't a monolith and we exist in a spectrum. Even many profoundly Deaf people can feel and enjoy music. I can't hear violin anymore, but I like it because I can feel it in my eardrums - when it's nice, it tickles and when it's less nice, it itches. We aren't in a binary. And like Deafness is a spectrum, the solution can be in a spectrum, too. I agree that subtitles can be visually distracting to a generalized audience. I like watching videos without subtitles as a purely visual experience and I like watching with subtitles to fully understand the scope of what's happening.

I believe most cons, especially one on Sakuracon's scale, run their contests twice - why not have the second showing be disability-friendly or, resources permitting, have a third accessibility run? There's room in this discussion for creative solutions that exist beyond a yes/no binary.

[Kireblue]

Before this conversation continues, I just want to make sure everyone is on the same page. It has never been said that deaf or hard-of-hearing people don't exist or wouldn't be at an AMV Contest. Also, it has never been said that accessibility isn't something that should be taken into consideration. I'm mentioning this because it feels like it is being implied that someone has said this.

The first question asked in the thread is if there was a legal requirement for subtitles to be in an AMV Contest. The answer to that question is no.

It was also mentioned that the logistics and time to set this up isn't as simple and easy as one may think. Nothing regarding running a 3-hour AMV Contest will take simply 1 hour, and the amount of time already invested in these events by coordinators means that any time spent on one thing is less time spent on other things. Also, just because tools are becoming available to help the process, doesn't mean that they won't take a lot of time to implement.

Also, even if adding subtitles is done, there is a question as to if this truly adds accessibility. When watching anime or media, the pace and cuts of the scenes allow you to watch both the footage and take in the subtitles. AMVs have a lot more cuts than a 3-minute anime scene, and so reading the subtitles, while also listening to the music and paying attention to the footage along with whatever effects or text or motion graphics the editor has added is undeniably a lot. And so ComplicatedMuse said "Don't put a piece of wood on top of a stair and call it an accessible entry". I think that adding subtitles for accessibility may fall into this.

And lastly, it was mentioned that subtitles can be very distracting for the average viewer (which is part of the reason why they are discouraged in the first place). This is especially true if the subtitles are low effort or done in a distracting font, position, or typography. And so it do feel that it is fair for any coordinator to have reservations or is off-put on the idea of adding them to their production.

I'll also mention that these summaries that I've made are not simply based on comments in this chat, but also conversations that I've had on Discord regarding this matter. And so I just wanted to say these things in one place to help everyone understand each other's intentions and perspectives.

[MarshmallowGoop]

I'd also like to clear up some confusion. But first, to everyone who's commented and shared their experiences: thank you. This is a topic I've wanted to discuss with AMV communities ever since I first saw contest rules that listed "Subtitles, karaoke lyrics, and superfluous text" as "restricted material," and while it probably took me way longer than it should have to finally ask about it, I'm very glad that my thread has encouraged more discussion about accessibility at cons.

And, not to get too emotional, but some of the resistance and pushback has been... difficult for me to deal with. For everyone who's left kind, supportive, reassuring posts: thank you so, so much. I don't know if I can describe how much of a relief it was to feel like I'm not alone here.

There's been so much said in this thread—which is amazing! But it does leave me struggling to know where to start. I guess I'll start with my original intentions: in the Sakura-Con thread, I was purely asking if editor-created subtitles would be allowed, as the rules struck me as a little unclear on the matter. While I would love if every AMV at an AMV contest were subtitled—and I'm thrilled to learn that Tora Con subs every entry!—I wasn't really asking if there were any laws requiring AMVs shown at cons to be subtitled, nor was I pushing for every video at a con to be subtitled (no matter how much I'd like that).

My point of contention was that I believe that subtitles shouldn't be banned. If an editor would like to subtitle their own video, I think they should absolutely be allowed to. While it would likely mean that not every video at the con would be subtitled, my line of thinking is that something is better than nothing—that anyone who'd enjoy and/or benefit from those subtitles (like myself!) would at least have the videos that editors subbed themselves as opposed to zilch. I've never argued for an "all or nothing" approach with this; the original purpose of my question, and this thread, was the prohibiting of subtitles: doing so strikes me as extremely unfair, exclusionary, and... something that feels like it should be illegal. It's maybe not the most apt analogy, but it'd be like saying that a building isn't allowed to have wheelchair ramps. It doesn't sit right with me at all to ban subtitles at an AMV contest; it never will.

That said! I know that subtitles aren't for everyone. In my second post in the Sakura-Con thread, I noted this directly:

What increases accessibility for some people decreases accessibility for others. I recognize that subtitles can be distracting to some audiences. My favorite way to handle subtitles is to have them soft/toggleable—that way, people who want them can have them, but those who don't can easily turn them off.

An event like this just doesn't exactly allow me that option. And since subtitles help more people than they hurt, I would rather go the direction of including them.

I never, ever meant to imply that d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals are a monolith who would all universally appreciate subtitles on videos, and I apologize if I came off that way. Everyone has their own preferences, and it's totally okay to not like or want subtitles on AMVs. I don't hardsub my captions for a site like YouTube, that allows softsubs, for exactly this reason. I want people to be able to enjoy my AMVs in the way that they most prefer.

But when I'm left with the choice of only including subs or not? I'd be profoundly uncomfortable with choosing not. No, subtitles wouldn't make an AMV contest more accessible to absolutely everyone, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed because there's plenty of research to suggest that subtitles do way more good than harm—for anyone. I linked a nice, to-the-point resource previously, and I'll link it again here. The abstract sums things up very well:

Video captions, also known as same-language subtitles, benefit everyone who watches videos (children, adolescents, college students, and adults). More than 100 empirical studies document that captioning a video improves comprehension of, attention to, and memory for the video. Captions are particularly beneficial for persons watching videos in their non-native language, for children and adults learning to read, and for persons who are D/deaf or hard of hearing. However, despite U.S. laws, which require captioning in most workplace and educational contexts, many video audiences and video creators are naïve about the legal mandate to caption, much less the empirical benefit of captions.

And I'll also pull out this bit, too:

Eye-movement studies document that captions are read easily (d’Ydewalle & de Bruycker, 2007), attended to effortlessly (d’Ydewalle, Praet, Verfaillie, & van Rensbergen, 1991), and integrated smoothly with the soundtrack of the video (d’Ydewalle & Gielen, 1992). Standard verbatim captions are as effective as more detailed or elaborated captions (Anderson-Inman, Terrazas-Arellanes, & Slabin, 2009; Murphy-Berman & Jorgensen, 1980).

Of course: AMVs may be a bit of a special case. And I'd love any studies focused on AMV subtitles specifically. But for now, I can only offer my own personal experiences as a novice editor who captions all of her videos.

And I'll say this: I hardsub my AMVs on Tumblr because there is no softsub option there, and maybe it's out of politeness, but I've never received a single comment on the site complaining about my subtitles being distracting or detrimental to the AMV. I've similarly never received a comment on YouTube complaining about my captions; like in this thread (thank you!), there have only been compliments and questions about how I did it. (Which is information I'm very happy to share. More on this a bit later.)

YouTube also allows me to look at numbers. I'll share two examples here; one is my most-watched video (which I also included Japanese subtitles for because the lyric booklet included an official Japanese translation for the English-language song), and the other is the one shared here previously:



[Image description: Subtitle stats for a YouTube video with 50,297 views. Of those, 31,923, or 63.5%, watched with no subtitles/CC, and their average view duration was 21 seconds, or 59.5% of the video. 14,597, or 29%, watched with English subtitles, and their average view duration was 21 seconds, or 60.5% of the video. 3,658, or 7.3%, watched with Japanese subtitles, and their average view duration was 18 seconds, or 51.2% of the video.]



[Image description: Subtitle stats for a YouTube video with 7,822 views. Of those, 4,726, or 60.4%, watched with no subtitles/CC, and their average view duration was 28 seconds, or 42.8% of the video. 3,076, or 39.3%, watched with English subtitles, and their average view duration was 32 seconds, or 48.3% of the video.]

The majority of viewers don't use the captions—whether that's because they don't like them or don't know they're there is unclear—but those who do use the English subtitles, in these two examples, at least, spend at least slightly more time on average watching the video than those who don't, indicating to me that, like the research above suggests, they're more engaged with my work and the video than if they didn't have the subtitles on.

(It's interesting that those watching with Japanese subtitles spent less time on average with the video, but that might fit a little with some research noted in the linked article, where Japanese students learning English as a second language were put into four different conditions: with the video and English audio only, with the video and English audio and Japanese captions, with the video and English audio and English captions, and with the English audio only. It was found that "after watching the videos with Japanese captions, the students recalled as little as they recalled after not even watching the videos (the audio only condition).")

That's probably all I really have to say on this particular note—that I think more people would appreciate subtitles on AMVs than you may think—but I'd be really interested in a poll/research/etc. on the subject.

And now: I adore the idea of a con with multiple screens using one for subtitled AMVs! That is a beautiful, beautiful solution that I think is actually very feasible—and definitely not as difficult/time-consuming as it's being made out to be.

That's not to say that it won't be extra work. Believe me: I caption videos as a part of my job, I caption all of my AMVs (and any MEPs I've had the pleasure of being a part of), and I know very, very well how much time, effort, and energy goes into subtitling. But the thing about AMVs is that you're going to be mostly subbing songs—with lyrics usually easily found online. Unlike my job, where we're creating (or editing—more on that in a bit, too!) scripts that aren't just found on the Internet somewhere, with AMVs, most of the work would really just be in timing the subs. And I have coworkers who do that at two-times speed! If there are two hours' worth of AMVs at a con, that could probably be subtitled with simple, accessible subs in a matter of a few hours. (At work, we're supposed to spend 2-3 times the length of the video subtitling at the most.)

As SQ brought up, editors could also have the option to submit caption files themselves. Then, if you have any preferred typesetting that the editor didn't do, you could edit them rather than doing everything on your own.

I think a lot of people would really appreciate a subtitled option—I definitely would! And I absolutely love talking about subtitles and would be very happy to share what I know about subtitling to anyone who would like to start subtitling their AMVs. I don't at all gatekeep how I sub because I want more people to be subbing AMVs!

I've been meaning to put together a detailed rundown on how I personally do the karaoke soft subs, but here's a short tl;dr version I put together bit back if anyone is curious:

It's maybe a bit involved, but I wouldn't say it's difficult exactly, just takes some time. I'm not sure if a basic overview will really help, but maybe the most important thing to know is that you'll need at least two programs: Aegisub and YTSubConverter. They're both free! Aegisub will let you make the karaoke, and YTSubConverter will convert the .ass file to a .ytt file to be used on YouTube. I find Aegisub difficult personally, so I also use Subtitle Edit (also free!), but you could do it all on Aegisub if you're better with it than me, haha.

I always start with just base subtitles timed without karaoke. There are tons of ways to do this--exporting from a video editing program, doing it all in Subtitle Edit, etc.--but once that's done, I make the subtitle file an .ass file in Subtitle Edit. Then, I click on "Advanced Sub Station Alpha styles" (the big A), and I set how I want the karaoke to work. The primary color is the final color it'll be, and the secondary color is the color before the lines are sung. (You can also make different styles here; for "Monsters" [a MEP I subbed], I made different styles for each different placement, and for dialogue (not italics) versus the song (italics).)

After that, I open the .ass file in Aegisub, hit the karaoke button (the microphone and music note), and just decide how I want the karaoke to work by inserting lines between syllables (or words or letters, however you want it done). Then, I play through each little section to make sure it's timed right, and rinse and repeat!

There's also a detailed video tutorial here. And YTSubConverter's page has a lot of good resources, too.

There are many people in anime fandom who know way more than me—I may be a professional, but the kind of captioning I do at work is usually very different from the captioning I do for AMVs, and there are anime fans who do the kind of typesetting and subtitling that absolutely blows my mind. I really think subbing AMVs at cons is very, very possible and not at all the huge difficulty that it's being made out to be.

But on the subject of AI tech for subbing: at work, we've actually mostly switched to using speech-to-text AI like Whisper to generate timed, mostly accurate captions. Then, we simply edit them. Subtitle Edit has a Whisper option built in now, but I've given it a go on a couple of my AMVs, and I have to report that it doesn't really work well for songs. However, I'd still say that subbing most AMVs with basic captions really probably won't take that long when the lyrics are likely readily available.

I think the last thing I wanted to say is that I can understand concerns about readability, etc. of subtitles. Perhaps a style guide could help for any editors who'd like to submit with subs? Personally, even for cons that explicitly allow editor-created subtitles, I'm unsure of which subtitles to submit: plain or karaoke? And if I submit plain, how "plain" should they be? Would it be okay to have them be color coded? With fades, etc.? I can definitely see how karaoke subtitles can be distracting, and I've actually been meaning to add a separate English subtitle track on YouTube for just plain subs, too. (Especially because a huge downside of the karaoke subs on YouTube is that they make it so the generated transcript is kind of garbled, and then that means that the text can't be easily translated into other languages. So, I can definitely do better with accessibility, too!)

And with that, I hope I addressed everything I meant to here. But as a final note, I do want to be clear that I really appreciate AMV contest coordinators and organizers! It's a lot of work! I totally get that, and I never meant this thread as an attack on anyone. There have admittedly been some comments that I've taken really hard—the attitude of "not wanting to do something that will 'only benefit a few at the expense of the many'" struck me as the kind attitude that would also be against closer parking spaces because those mean the majority of people must park farther away, and that's genuinely extremely upsetting to hear—but that this thread has helped open up a wider discussion is fantastic. Thank you again to everyone who's pitched in.

[Kireblue]

My point of contention was that I believe that subtitles shouldn't be banned. If an editor would like to subtitle their own video, I think they should absolutely be allowed to.

I also believe that subtitles created by the editor shouldn't be banned. And like SQ mentioned before, the rule is generally meant to ban subtitles that are just there because they were left behind from the original anime episode being hard-subbed. This has always been seen as a sign of inexperience from the editor in the same way as having a Cartoon Network watermark appear in your video would.

The reason why editor-created subs are discouraged is that 99% of people who have done so in the past have done it in a way that has completely ruined their video. So the harder stance that some events take in the matter is ironically meant to be a courtesy to the entrant. They're telling you that for whatever reason, they or their judges have not enjoyed seeing subtitles on the screen when watching AMVs. And so if you'd like to do well in their judging process, and your video doesn't need subtitles, you should submit an unsubtitled version. I'm currently not aware of a lot contests that outright ban editor-created subtitles, but I do know that most do not encourage them. I see the rules allowing or banning subtitles as a personal preference for the event, and not really that different than many AMV contests banning American-made animation (while others encourage it), or figure skating competitions banning backflips.

What increases accessibility for some people decreases accessibility for others. I recognize that subtitles can be distracting to some audiences. My favorite way to handle subtitles is to have them soft/toggleable—that way, people who want them can have them, but those who don't can easily turn them off.

And I'll say this: I hardsub my AMVs on Tumblr because there is no softsub option there, and maybe it's out of politeness, but I've never received a single comment on the site complaining about my subtitles being distracting or detrimental to the AMV. I've similarly never received a comment on YouTube complaining about my captions; like in this thread (thank you!), there have only been compliments and questions about how I did it. (Which is information I'm very happy to share. More on this a bit later.)
on.

I'll also mention that another reason why subtitles are frowned upon during the judging process is that even if a subtitled AMV makes it into the finals at the event, it is very likely to not have a good viewing experience for the audience. AMV Contests are very popular events at conventions, and so they prioritize having them in the largest room that they can spare at the moment. And so attendees in the back of the room are often very far away from the screen, and those in the front are often way too close. If you're too far from the screen, the subtitles are worthless because you can't read them. If you're too close, they're distracting and it becomes even harder to focus on the footage. Also, subtitles that were designed to be watched on a computer monitor or streaming platform doesn't always translate that well to a theater setting. They may either be too big, or too small, have a hard-to-read font, or have a color that doesn't work well in dark rooms compared to bright rooms. And so this is just one more reason why subtitled videos are hard to get right. I say this as both an AMV Contest coordinator and also an Anime screening director who often deals with the issue that the subtitles for movies simply can't be read by half the audience.

I've never argued for an "all or nothing" approach with this; the original purpose of my question, and this thread, was the prohibiting of subtitles: doing so strikes me as extremely unfair, exclusionary, and... something that feels like it should be illegal. It's maybe not the most apt analogy, but it'd be like saying that a building isn't allowed to have wheelchair ramps. It doesn't sit right with me at all to ban subtitles at an AMV contest; it never will.

In the case of building ramps, there are laws saying buildings need to have those ramps. And so if someone were to ban them, the building would violate the law. There are no laws regulating video editing competitions and the law that you mentioned in your original post is exclusively meant for television broadcasts which will always come with the option for closed captioning. None of the programming within an Anime Convention would be considered a "television broadcast", so as you mentioned, the law wouldn't apply to a convention for several reasons. As I mentioned before, banning something from competition is simply a personal preference. Unless of course, you're banning a person's video because they're disabled, but that obviously not the case here.

That's not to say that it won't be extra work. Believe me: I caption videos as a part of my job, I caption all of my AMVs (and any MEPs I've had the pleasure of being a part of), and I know very, very well how much time, effort, and energy goes into subtitling. But the thing about AMVs is that you're going to be mostly subbing songs—with lyrics usually easily found online. Unlike my job, where we're creating (or editing—more on that in a bit, too!) scripts that aren't just found on the Internet somewhere, with AMVs, most of the work would really just be in timing the subs. And I have coworkers who do that at two-times speed! If there are two hours' worth of AMVs at a con, that could probably be subtitled with simple, accessible subs in a matter of a few hours. (At work, we're supposed to spend 2-3 times the length of the video subtitling at the most.)

As SQ brought up, editors could also have the option to submit caption files themselves. Then, if you have any preferred typesetting that the editor didn't do, you could edit them rather than doing everything on your own.

The last point that I'll try to make is that for the production value of the show, fairness to all the finalists, and viewing experience of the attendees, contest coordinators often try to achieve a certain uniformity throughout the contest. This is why all the action AMVs are played together and not in between the romance videos. Intros, Outros, and editor/ song credits are also banned so that the convention can create a uniform title card for each video and the audience doesn't get swayed by someone having "cooler" or more extravagant credits. So I think that's where the idea of "if one video has subtitles, all of them should". And if all of them should, then the responsibility of adding them should fall on the coordinator and not the entrant.

Requiring or even asking an entrant to subtitle their video is a non-starter. You'll be surprised, but simply asking people to read the rules is sometimes too much. Contests used to demand that people add 3 seconds of black space before and after their videos and a ton of people chose either to not enter, or ignore the rule completely and submit anyway. Also, I get entries from people from all around the world who almost certainly used a translator to navigate the submission form. Asking them to create subtitles in English wouldn't be an option. So for those reasons and the uniformity reason, this will add a lot of extra work for coordinators (who already spend a tremendous and backbreaking amount of time and effort just to get the show to run as-is).

Anyway, tried to address as many of your points as I could although I know I probably missed some. But I think that's everything I want to say on this issue.

[MarshmallowGoop]

I think one of my key arguments here is that subtitles are, undoubtedly, an accessibility tool. There are laws requiring them to make content more accessible, even if not in the case of AMV contests specifically. Subtitles aren't like backflips in figure skating or American cartoons in AMVs. They play a very vital role in helping ensure that people can access content that they otherwise might not be able to.

Having a personal preference against subtitles in AMVs is completely fine, and I do agree that hardsubbed footage from the original works shouldn't be used. But banning or discouraging something that does help a lot of people better access the material, that does have laws requiring them to be there for accessibility purposes (even if not in this exact situation), feels very bad to me.

I can't make anyone else feel the way I do. But those are my feelings, and it's been heartbreaking to be told that no, I can't subtitle my video for a contest because I personally care about subtitles and want to provide that access.

Concerns about the readability of subtitles at cons is a valid concern. But I don't think that means that we shouldn't try. I believe that there are many people who would benefit from subtitled AMVs.

I also never meant to say that entrants should be required to submit subtitles; I only meant it as an option. I'm only one editor, but I'd be happy to upload my .srt or .ass files to competitions so that they could use those to subtitle the whole show and also have a non-subbed option for those who prefer no subs. I also understand concerns about uniformity, but personally speaking, it doesn't particularly bother me. AMVs should be about variety.

Finally, I apologize if I've come off as aggressive in my responses. That was never my intent. Video captioning is part of my career. It's something I feel very passionate about. It's something I care a lot about. There are so many times where subtitles are required in my line of work and aren't provided, and I have to fight to get those provided. People are hurt by a lack of subtitling, and my posts come from a place of concern for that. I really initially only wanted to subtitle my own personal AMV because that's something important to me.

[XStylus]

I think one of my key arguments here is that subtitles are, undoubtedly, an accessibility tool. There are laws requiring them to make content more accessible, even if not in the case of AMV contests specifically. Subtitles aren't like backflips in figure skating or American cartoons in AMVs. They play a very vital role in helping ensure that people can access content that they otherwise might not be able to.

Nobody here is anti-accessibility. This community is about as welcoming and inclusive as you’ll ever see. If your ultimate goal is accessibility though, there are more productive ways to go about it.

With all due respect, you’re putting a fascinating amount of effort in trying to make one vid accessible when that one vid hasn’t even made the finals — a substantial hurdle. If it’s not in the finals, it usually doesn’t get exhibited at all, thus making your argument moot. Even at other major AMV events that don’t have no-subtitle rules, an entry with subtitles often faces long odds. Rule or no rule, the stigma that subtitled AMVs face isn’t unique to our event.

Your argument would carry better if you were advocating for broader accessibility for the entire contest. As a matter of fact, this whole topic has inspired a robust sideband discussion of ideas on how to make that possible. That debate, too, has been spicy because it introduces an all new set of problems, challenges, and differences of opinion, but at least the conversation has started. That's progress. Take a bow for that.

But that type of accessibility is something that is best handled at the operations/technical/presentation level for reasons I already touched on in my previous message earlier in this thread.

I can't make anyone else feel the way I do. But those are my feelings, and it's been heartbreaking to be told that no, I can't subtitle my video for a contest because I personally care about subtitles and want to provide that access.

Tell you what: When we find a way past those problems, challenges, and differences of opinion I alluded to, I’ll know who to contact when we need a subtitler.

Finally, I apologize if I've come off as aggressive in my responses. That was never my intent. Video captioning is part of my career. It's something I feel very passionate about. It's something I care a lot about. There are so many times where subtitles are required in my line of work and aren't provided, and I have to fight to get those provided. People are hurt by a lack of subtitling, and my posts come from a place of concern for that. I really initially only wanted to subtitle my own personal AMV because that's something important to me.

You haven't been aggressive at all (that title would probably go to me), just really, really, really insistent. Perhaps myopically so, if I may be so forthright.

But I applaud your passion. Text is your craft, and you want that to be seen and appreciated, especially by those who would most stand to benefit from it. I get you, I work with people just like you. It might surprise you to know that my day job is at a company that dubs and subtitles a lot of anime (I'm professionally credited on a few). I don't talk about it much because I... ...uh, need to keep this somewhat gray-shaded hobby separate from my professional life. But if there's ever a job opening for another subtitler/captioner, I might drop a hint in your direction.


I’ll close this message by cluing you in on something: There's a loophole around our subtitles rule:

Don’t be boring with text. Make them a star of the video. Use your text in a way that is artistically dynamic. I don’t mean just giving them a fancy font, polychromatic colors, and a ball bouncing atop the words in pace with the lyrics. I mean in a way that is so clever and interesting that removing them would break the whole concept of the video. Amaze with them. Fire up a copy of After Effects, pull up some animated text tutorials on YouTube, and go nuts. That's how "Radiant" sailed all the way to the Finals in one of the fiercest and most competitive categories of our contest.