Closed Caption Latina makes TV come to life
January 3, 2009
By Jeannette Rivera-lyles
From a small office in Longwood, Maria Victoria Diaz and her staff make Oprah Winfrey talk in Spanish.
They also make Elmo and Cookie Monster come to life for visually impaired children.
Diaz is co-founder of Closed Caption Latina, a burgeoning three-year-old company that specializes in simultaneous dubbing -- a delicate translation process that involves the use of expert linguists and actors. The firm also makes audio-visual material accessible to the blind and the hearing-impaired.
As the name of the company suggests, it also provides closed captioning in several languages for clients, such as the Spanish-language TV network Azteca America.
"Whether it is the visually or hearing-impaired, or the immigrant who doesn't speak English, we're not going to be able to fully participate in this society unless we understand how things work here," said Diaz, a Colombia native. "Television, videos and DVDs are a great way of getting those cultural and social nuances."
Diaz moved to Longwood from Bogota in 2005 with her mother and her then- 8-year-old daughter.
"I have felt the weight of isolation, the absence of friends and family," she said. "We have to become more integrated to the American experience to overcome these things. But if you don't understand what is being said on TV, it becomes that much more difficult."
Diaz, an engineer by trade, had started a small closed-captioning business in Colombia with a college friend before coming to the United States. To her surprise, there were only a handful of companies that were doing it despite the availability of grant money to provide the service to people with disabilities. The same was true for video description for the blind, which involves a narrator explaining the images on the screen. It's a complicated process that requires an understanding of how the blind perceive colors, sizes and other concepts.
"I saw that there was tremendous opportunity for growth in this field, and I said, 'Well, let's do it,' " Diaz said.
Her efforts paid off. Diaz got a grant from the Department of Education to provide video-description services for PBS' Plaza Sesamo, the Spanish version of Sesame Street. Other clients soon followed.
For Ileana Rivera, director of development for TUTV, a PBS-affiliated station in Puerto Rico, Diaz's company has opened a world of possibilities for her viewers.
"It not only benefits the hearing-impaired, it is also an effective tool to combat illiteracy, to teach the proper pronunciation of words and many other things," Rivera said.
The company also does video description for some of the station's programming.
"It blew me away when I first saw it," Rivera said.
"The level of precision is amazing. The trick with video description is to enhance the dialogue without interfering or distracting from it. This is not easy to achieve. They do it perfectly."
For simultaneous dubbing, translators wearing headsets huddle around a table.
On a recent morning, their eyes are fixed on a TV screen showing The Oprah Winfrey Show. With the small luxury of a five-second delay, each of them translates what the host and her guests are saying.
Their translations are instantly fed into earpieces worn by actors in a Colombian studio, whose voices are heard by the viewers.
"Esterilicen y castren sus mascotas," said Adriana Serna, a Colombian actress playing Oprah, who advises viewers to spay and neuter their pets.
"You get into the character and begin to understand her sense of humor and way of thinking," Serna said of the Queen of Talk.
"I sometimes catch myself laughing like her at home."
Later that afternoon, the show is broadcast with the translations wherever simultaneous broadcasting in Spanish is available, known as SAP.
Diaz thinks what her company does goes beyond translating shows for companies like Harpo Productions, the Winfrey-owned production house.
"There's an inherent need for the integration of the cultures," she said.
"Television is a powerful tool to achieve this end."
Source: The Orlando Sentinel
By Jeannette Rivera-lyles
From a small office in Longwood, Maria Victoria Diaz and her staff make Oprah Winfrey talk in Spanish.
They also make Elmo and Cookie Monster come to life for visually impaired children.
Diaz is co-founder of Closed Caption Latina, a burgeoning three-year-old company that specializes in simultaneous dubbing -- a delicate translation process that involves the use of expert linguists and actors. The firm also makes audio-visual material accessible to the blind and the hearing-impaired.
As the name of the company suggests, it also provides closed captioning in several languages for clients, such as the Spanish-language TV network Azteca America.
"Whether it is the visually or hearing-impaired, or the immigrant who doesn't speak English, we're not going to be able to fully participate in this society unless we understand how things work here," said Diaz, a Colombia native. "Television, videos and DVDs are a great way of getting those cultural and social nuances."
Diaz moved to Longwood from Bogota in 2005 with her mother and her then- 8-year-old daughter.
"I have felt the weight of isolation, the absence of friends and family," she said. "We have to become more integrated to the American experience to overcome these things. But if you don't understand what is being said on TV, it becomes that much more difficult."
Diaz, an engineer by trade, had started a small closed-captioning business in Colombia with a college friend before coming to the United States. To her surprise, there were only a handful of companies that were doing it despite the availability of grant money to provide the service to people with disabilities. The same was true for video description for the blind, which involves a narrator explaining the images on the screen. It's a complicated process that requires an understanding of how the blind perceive colors, sizes and other concepts.
"I saw that there was tremendous opportunity for growth in this field, and I said, 'Well, let's do it,' " Diaz said.
Her efforts paid off. Diaz got a grant from the Department of Education to provide video-description services for PBS' Plaza Sesamo, the Spanish version of Sesame Street. Other clients soon followed.
For Ileana Rivera, director of development for TUTV, a PBS-affiliated station in Puerto Rico, Diaz's company has opened a world of possibilities for her viewers.
"It not only benefits the hearing-impaired, it is also an effective tool to combat illiteracy, to teach the proper pronunciation of words and many other things," Rivera said.
The company also does video description for some of the station's programming.
"It blew me away when I first saw it," Rivera said.
"The level of precision is amazing. The trick with video description is to enhance the dialogue without interfering or distracting from it. This is not easy to achieve. They do it perfectly."
For simultaneous dubbing, translators wearing headsets huddle around a table.
On a recent morning, their eyes are fixed on a TV screen showing The Oprah Winfrey Show. With the small luxury of a five-second delay, each of them translates what the host and her guests are saying.
Their translations are instantly fed into earpieces worn by actors in a Colombian studio, whose voices are heard by the viewers.
"Esterilicen y castren sus mascotas," said Adriana Serna, a Colombian actress playing Oprah, who advises viewers to spay and neuter their pets.
"You get into the character and begin to understand her sense of humor and way of thinking," Serna said of the Queen of Talk.
"I sometimes catch myself laughing like her at home."
Later that afternoon, the show is broadcast with the translations wherever simultaneous broadcasting in Spanish is available, known as SAP.
Diaz thinks what her company does goes beyond translating shows for companies like Harpo Productions, the Winfrey-owned production house.
"There's an inherent need for the integration of the cultures," she said.
"Television is a powerful tool to achieve this end."
Source: The Orlando Sentinel
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