Audio Description: What Works? - or - Describer vs. User Point of View

1. By Fred Brack ADP Webmaster and Audio Describer July 12, 2010 Audio Description:What Works?- or -Describer vs. User Point of View Audio Description Project Conference, Phoenix, AZ

2. Introduction • Do describers “get it right”? • Do users of description hear what they want/need? • How do we know? How do we learn? • What description “habits” are annoying? • LET’S TALK ABOUT: • Over- and under-describing • Interpreting vs describing • How to handle race, facial expressions, lighting, and sexual situations • Accommodating congenitally vs adventitiously blind

3. Our Panel • Fred Brack, Describer, Arts Access, Raleigh, NC (Moderator) • Joel Snyder, Describer, Audio Description Associates, Takoma Park, MD • Bernd Benecke, Describer, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Munich, Germany • Dr. Francisco Lima, Associate Professor, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil • Will Grignon, User, Attorney and President/Founder of WikiScribeIt!

4. Congenitally Blind Considerations • A describer may have two audiences: • congenitally blind people, and • low vision or previously sighted people • People who are congenitally blind do not understand some concepts that previously sighted and low vision people understand • They can get annoyed at some description efforts that are meaningless to them – but this is a compromise between serving two audiences

5. Over Describing • Tendency to “fill in the gaps” between spoken lines • Describer tend to overemphasize own role • Describers often “like the sound of their own voices”! • Need to honor “dramatic pauses” • What is important to convey? • What is not important? • “The phone/doorbell rings” • “He stands … he sits … he turns …” • What to do when there is little obvious need for description? (Hint: shut up!)

6. Under Describing • Missing key visual clues • Wordless action on stage with no description • “What’s going on?” • Failure to setup for: • a sight gag • loud noise • bright flashes, squirt guns, heat from fireworks • Describer “drifts off,” fails to engage • Sighted users constantly intermix visual and aural experience, but the AD patron gets only one input and has to try to “weigh” the importance of the AD with what else they hear DISCUSSION

7. Interpreting vs. Describing • Easier to state your interpretation than describe what you see • Not enough time to fully describe what you see, so you “conclude” • Must weigh time available for description and be concise • Choose your words carefully • Interpretations: • “John is ecstatic” vs “John smiles broadly and shakes both fists in the air” • “Mary nearly cries” vs “Mary bites her lip, closes her eyes, and lowers her head” DISCUSSION

8. Addressing Race • How and when to describe an actor’s race? • Simple answer: When it matters to the plot • But is that what users want? • A minority user might care to know if there are members of his or her race in the cast • A black user might care to know the difference in skin tones of African Americans in the cast • Is an actor “black” or multiracial? How do we know? • Is “Asian” good enough? DISCUSSION

9. Describing Sexual Situations • How explicit should description get? • Consider how dominant “sex” is in the production • Consider the audience • Consider the context • “Describe what you see” • Use words consistent with the tone of the production DISCUSSION

10. Lighting • What do we say about lighting? • “Fade to black” • “In a spotlight” • Mood (dim, dark, blue, bright) • Changing lighting in scene • Interpretation of what we say by congenitally blind users DISCUSSION

11. Wrapup • Few hard and fast rules • “Different strokes for different folks” • Must consider time available for description versus the “proper way” to do it • Weigh importance to plot • Don’t allow your users to be scared or wonder “what happened?” • Establish a system for evaluating your description by local users