With Profound Respect for “Caption with Intention”

Source: Cannes Lions “The Work”

This is seriously a major breakthrough. For decades, closed captioning on entertainment for the hearing impaired has been exactly the same and exactly static … small little type at the bottom of the screen that runs along with the voice track. But the problem is that the type doesn’t give the reader any sense of emotion or who is actually doing the talking!

It’s hard to believe we have not advanced this craft after all of these years. Why?!?

Until now.

Introducing “Caption with Intention.”

The “Caption with Intention” campaign marks a groundbreaking leap in caption design, born from a collaboration between FCB Chicago, the Chicago Hearing Society, Rakish Entertainment, and endorsed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. This initiative reimagines closed captioning—largely unchanged since the 1970s—as a dynamic and expressive medium. By using animation, color, and variable typography, it conveys not only dialogue, but also emotional subtleties like tone, pacing, and speaker identity that hearing viewers often take for granted.

Literally makes me cry tears of joy. What an advancement! I have such profound respect for the people who identified this as a issue that needed to be addressed, and then figured out a way to fix it! Profound respect!

Thank you to all that made this happen, truly improving the lives of so many, every single day. Taking what so many take for granted, and giving a slice of it to those who don’t have it. Wow!

What’s your experience? JIM