ANIMATED CAPTION

An animated caption is a piece of text that appears on screen during a television programme, usually found on sports broadcasts, which provides a brief description of a person who has appeared on screen. For example, if an interview with Roy Hodgson was on air, an animated caption would appear at the bottom of the screen saying something like 'Roy Hodgson, England Manager' at the beginning.

The animated caption I chose to analyse was one from the American wrestling company, WWE.

The text at the beginning is a clear rotating motion graphic accompanied by an image of the wrestling belt. The belt stays still but the WWE logo within the belt spins twice for about 3 seconds each. When the wrestler walks out, the caption appears. There are stars circling the text, symbolising the USA.

There is an example of video compositing. It occurs when the wrestler first steps out from back stage as he walks to the ring with a video being played behind him.

When the video is playing, you notice the dominant colour on show is red and the caption graphic is blue. This is using the technique of contrasting colours so that the caption is clearly legible and stands out. It is also another example of the symbolisation of the USA.

There is a clear rotation on the spinning logo within the belt, as well as the rotating stars around the animated caption. All of the images appear sharp and clear to see, as well as a colour contrast to make it that extra noticeable.

It is played through YouTube so the codec settings are the same as mentioned before.

As it was originally broadcast on American television, the frame rate is 30 FPS for standard definition. From research, it is 24 FPS or 60 FPS for HDTV in the USA. In logic, you would expect HD to have a higher FPS than standard TV so I am going to say 60 FPS