I am very interested in becoming a captioner. Could you tell me what I would need to do to qualify for this kind of work?

There are two types of captioning services, (1) offline and (2) live (or "realtime').

 

(1) OFFLINE: Offline is customarily performed for taped shows as well as DVD movies and recorded multimedia streamed over the internet. Most companies (including us) train their own offline captioners. The primary prerequisites to be a good offline captioner are: demonstrated
competency in spelling, punctuation, and grammar, excellent typing skills (50 wpm or faster), proficiency with computers, and the ability to work independently. We look for undergraduate degrees in English, Communications, or History. In addition, most of our captioners are passionate about their work and provide extremely high quality services.

Our offline captioners work in either English or Spanish or both. Spanish offline captioners must be native Spanish speakers and have an excellent command of the English language.

(2) REALTIME:Realtime writers attend court reporting schools that also teach captioning, which requires skills in addition tothe base court reporting skills. Learning the steno machine can take up two two years and most writers need at least a few more years to attain the competency required to be an accurate real time writer.

Our realtime writers must have court-reporting skills with a minimum of an A.A. or B.S. in Court and Conference Reporting or satisfactory completion of other 2-year equivalent program. They must be certified as a Registered Professional Report (RPR) or Certified Broadcast Captioner (CBC) and have their own equipment, as each captioner has developed a unique library that best suits their style. We contract some of our realtime work (via satellite or modem uplink), while others work in-house.

Realtime captioners work in the language of their expertise. Realtime translation by captioners is rarely, if ever, performed.

You can learn more about captioning by studying several websites and following up on a variety of books and other print materials. Information is available on:

• www.educaption.net/
• www.robson.org/capfaq/index.html
• www.ncraonline.org/, notably:
• www.ncraonline.org/education/index.shtml
• www.ncraonline.org/students/

and, of course, our site:
www.captionmax.com