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Post-Production - Do you add captions to your video?

Last updated by Tiago Araújo [SSW] about 2 years ago.See history

For argument's sake, it makes sense to refer to any text pop-up on screen as a 'caption'. It is helpful to the viewers to include still or animated captions (also known as lower thirds) in your videos because they enhance or add extra information that is not fully explained by the speakers. A sub-category of captions is title, term used to identifying text such as the opening film credits, someone's name, a job title, or date/location.

CTA Bad Example 2
Figure: Bad example of captions - Text is too small and hard to read.

CTA Good Example 2
Figure: Good example of captions - Text is clear and legible. Provides extra value to the viewer with content not mentioned in the video

Now you cant really have just one type of caption. Have defined styles for different types of videos.

E.g. Here are the styles SSW use for their videos:

Why Choose SSW
Figure: Example 1: SSW Infomercials - Clear, nice effects and well stylized

Figure: Example 2: General SSW TV videos - Corporate branding, clear, eye catching

SSWRules LowerThirdsExample
Figure: Example 3: SSW Rules Videos - This is a good generic title style and works well for documentary style videos

CaseStudy LowerThirds
Figure: Example 4: SSW Case Studies - This allows us to represent Scrum roles with an icon

Remember to put any links that you've mentioned in the captions underneath your video in it's own section (with a heading such as 'Show Notes' or 'Related Content'). You can also use this section to put in links that are related to what was said in the video as evidence (similar to footnotes or a bibliography in a book). That way, you will gain more Google juice and it will make it easier for the Product Owner to review your captions.

Adam Cogan
Video Recording
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