Legal use
The CCSL serves as a paper form of the video content. When a production is distributed internationally, the CCSL serves as a guide that provides compliance (censorship) officers the information they need to conform the production to the legal standards of their region. It’s a necessary part of deliverables to networks or a studios and is an invaluable tool with reediting the content if needed for different market sensibilities.
Subtitling and Dubbing
Most helpful with subtitling and dubbing a video into foreign languages. Especially with annotated dialogues. Once the in-timecode and the out-timecode of a dialog have been captured on paper, the duration calculated, the voice-over for the dubber has a precise idea of the time that is available to fit in the dialog in the foreign language.
Why is it so labor intensive? Imagine writing down in great detail everything that you see on the screen, right down to camera angles, camera shots such as extreme close up, close up, mid shot, long shot, extreme long shot (click here to see the shot descriptions). And then also how the camera moves — pan, tilt, zoom-in, zoom-out which is followed with the description of the action on the screen. In short you are actually seeing the video on the paper instead of on the screen.
Luckily this is one of the few jobs that can only be done by a well-trained writer and not by any algorithm. Our writers have had years of experience with describing scenes that no software can do. A good writer can describe only about 5 – 7 minutes of video content in an hour.