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Academy Awards watchers can thank a local captioner
Saturday, March 25, 2000 By Barbara Vancheri, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
"American Beauty." "American Beauty." "American Beauty."
Missy Macri can practice keying that into her closed-captioning machine right now, it would seem. The 32-year-old Moon resident will be providing real-time captions for tomorrow night's Academy Awards and ABC's pre-show, starting at 8 p.m. Macri and her task at hand are the focus of a story in the March 27 issue of The New Yorker.
Macri works for Vital Access Through Captioning Corp. in Canonsburg. The company secured the contract to provide the captions for Hollywood's biggest night. The captions are often used by the hard of hearing or people who work or live in a place where sound would be intrusive or impossible.
This is the first time that VITAC and not its competitor, the National Captioning Institute, got the golden but high-pressure gig.
While reporters covering the broadcast often sit at computer keyboards and try to type in the acceptance speeches, Macri will be using the sorts of keystrokes that stenographers do. Marty Block, one of the VITAC executives who was the first person to do live captioning for the Oscars in 1982, says Macri is up to the job. Any job. "Missy is about the best captioner in the world. She's incredible," he told the publication.
Real-time captioners are required to transmit 225 words per minute with 98 percent accuracy. VITAC, which has captioned worldwide events such as the Olympics, counts "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," "The Rosie O'Donnell Show," all of the major news programs and CNN's "Headline News" among its clients.
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