[Martin]: My name is Martin Wilde, and I am a Chicago-based audio description writer and voicer.
In general, what we're going to go over tonight is kind of a definition of audio description we're going to look at where that is applied, some of the rules for audio description. You'll actually get a fairly in-depth overview of what audio description really is and some of the rules of audio description and how that is applied to media and live performance. And then I have about 3 or 4 videos, a couple of commercials and then a snippet of a film I did that will show audio description in action. I have a list of resources at the end and then I can take any questions you might have after that.
So, what is Audio Description? Well, as I talk about, or gave Dennis in the run up to this meetup, Audio Description makes visual images accessible for people who are blind or have low vision. Using words that are succinct, vivid and imaginative, the description translates the visual image into an aural form that is accessible to these individuals. For the performing arts and media, description inserts this narrative into the natural pauses in the dialog between critical sound events. So ... that's easy enough. But, I'd like to take a little time, to delve a little more deeply into what that really means.
Easy enough, its another way to think about it is to say what you see. We are doing a translation from the visual to the aural. Now, typically, we think of a translation as, oh say, going from French to English or the other way around. I'm getting ahead of myself I'll follow my slides here.
There are many different names for Audio Description. Audio Description is used a lot in the US. They use this logo to identify Audio Descriptions, so it's a square box with a capital block-letter A and D and to the right of the D there are three sound waves emanating from the curve of the D. So that is the symbol for Audio Description in the United States. In Canada, they use Described Video, and that is just a block-letter D, with two sound waves emanating from the right side curve of the D. Some people also call it Video Description. But when you abbreviate that to block letters ... it's rather unfortunate ... um ... element
[Laughter]
[Martin]: so we don't call it Video Description.
The people who use Audio Description are obviously people who are blind or who have low vision.
So who are they, who is this population. According to a report from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey, 20.6 million adults age 18 or older reported experiencing vision loss. So here, the term "vision loss" refers to individuals who reported they had trouble seeing, even when wearing glasses or contact lenses as well as individuals who reported that they are blind or unable to see at all. This estimate pertains to a nationally representative sample of non-institutionalized civilian population 18 years of age or older. Of that population, 12.4 million are women, and 8.2 million are men. 15.3 million are between the ages of 18 and 64 and 5.3 million are 65 years of age or older. And of the 20.1 million people who indicated race on that survey, 16.6 million are white, 2.6 million are black or African-American 2.9 million are hispanic or latino 668,000 are Asian, and 236,000 are American Indian or Alaskan Native. As far as education level is concerned, of the Americans who have vision loss, and are 25 years of age or older, 4 million have less than a high school diploma 5.1 million have a high school diploma or GED, 5.8 million have some college education and 4.1 million have a bachelors degree or higher. So this is not a homogeneous population.
Vision afflictions, whether it's complete blindness or we have retinal neuropathy, or tunnel vision all of these would be rolled into this population. So why do we do this? Well ... the desire in Audio Description is to make the blind or low vision experience as comparable to the sighted experience as possible. So we get into issues of accessibility, we get into issues of independence. If I go into a museum, and I'm blind or have low vision, I'd like to be able to walk around that museum by myself, not necessarily have to have a companion with me. Content equity. I should be able to get as much out of the content that's there as the sighted individual. And overall quality of life, because people who are blind or have low vision tend not to go out as much. They don't participate in social gatherings as much as some other folks. And it's just a real hassle. So, now I've caught up with myself.
Translation. So we typically think of translation again as being across a single sense. So for instance, when I'm translating something from French into English If I'm doing a written version, I write from French, and I write the English equivalent. I can also translate speech in the aural realm from French into English. So that can be modified, that can be codified, and it can be a word for word direct translation. In Audio Description, translation is across the senses. We're translating the visual into the aural. There is no equivalent of a correct or certifiable piece of audio description. Alright, so, you can see that it is more nuanced because it relies on language to step in, and there's no way to define the best sentence to be written, or the best way to say things.
But, just as language has rules about word order and structure, in audio description, those rules are known as standards or best practices, which are a little bit stronger than just recommended guidelines. But for the technically-minded folks like myself, there's got to be some way to do better than just recommended guidelines, right? You can delve into it a bit more, it can be applied to see what some of the challenges are. This title brought up live performance and media.
In the context of audio description, I would put it that audio description, for live performance and media refers solely in the time or temporal domain. In live performance, things are changing, characters are moving, the order in which things are being said can change from one night to the next, from one performance to the next. Whereas in media, I know exactly where all of those gaps are going to be, its a fixed piece of content. And so that makes it a little bit easier.
So it's much easier for me to write a script for a piece of media, knowing how long I have to say and can plan better, and deliver it in that way. So let's look at some of the performance use cases. So for live performance, stuff that moves, there's obviously theater. Now this can be plays. It can be poetry slams. It can be musical acts. It can be an opera. These are all under the heading of theater. I can describe dance. But I'd have to use a different vocabulary to describe tap vs ballet vs modern dance. Corporate functions. Meetings. Social gatherings. Dinner parties and galas. There are conferences. Which can be academic conferences, tradeshows.
Imagine you are walking around an exhibit floor of a conference. Where are the vendor booths? How do I get from one place to the next? Where are the bathrooms? Where are the meeting rooms themselves? Lectures and webinars. I can listen to a TED talk, or a lecture by an academic professor, but if I can't see the material that they are presenting visually, I'm only getting half, if not less of the information that they are describing.
Architectural tours. Now this is kind of a hybrid, in that, if I'm taking a Chicago boat tour the buildings aren't moving, but my path along the river may change, and the speed in which I go through them changes. I just did a couple of animal shows at the Brookfield Zoo this last Sunday as part of the ADA 25 event I described a dolphin show, and I described a free flight bird show. If you weren't able to see it, well, you're missing kind of what they're doing. Are they doing a backward tail walk, are they doing a forward tail walk, what's that bird that just whizzed by my head? Is that a Red-tail Hawk? What does that look like? So all of these things are lost if I can't get that information.
So remember, the purpose of audio description is to provide the same, or as equivalent as possible, the experience to the blind or low vision population, as the sighted audience gets.
So in media we have obviously television shows. If I'm watching a television show, and maybe, sometimes I can't see what the characters are doing. Now often times in the past, people who are blind or low vision, family members or friends would sit next to them and would describe what is going on, to the best of their ability. But, I don't have to rely on that, if I have audio description in the television show itself.
Same thing for movies. If I go to a theater ... one of the first movies I saw that had audio description was ... oh, I'm blanking on it ... it was the ... about the tiger, in the boat, on the ocean ...
[Audience member]: "Life of Pi"
[Martin]: "Life of Pi" There are long stretches in "The Life of Pi" where there is no dialog. He's just hanging out at sea. There are times when he looks over the edge of the boat and he sees the myriad of life underneath him, all different colors and shapes swimming by. But that can go on for long stretches of time, and there's nothing, aurally, in the soundtrack of the film to tell you whats going on. So that would really make that experience a whole lot less inclusive.
There's a listsev that is part of the American Council for the Blind, Audio Description Project there was quite a bit of chatter on that website about Netflix movies. So there is a Marvel superhero named Daredevil. Daredevil is blind. But the series itself initially wasn't audio described. So there's an activist here in Chicago named Robert King who's blind and he has started up the Netflix Accessibility Project and has lobbied them to get description for their Netflix produced content. He succeeded in that, and so more and more shows on Netflix and across the realm of television and movies are being described.
I'll talk a little bit later about the Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010. Essentially, there is some legislation that has come online just in the last few years that mandates how much of the broadcaster's programming needs to be audio described.
Cultural institutions. Imagine going to the Art Institute and trying to experience that as a person who is blind or has low vision. What does that painting look like? How do I move around the space? Same thing with Natural History Museums. Sue, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, what does that look like? What do some of the other dinosaurs look like? Without audio description, I have no idea.
Science museums. Botanical gardens. If I go up to Ravinia and if I walk through the botanical gardens there, those exhibits change, the colors are vivid, the sensory overload is wonderful. But if I can't see it, I'm missing quite a bit of what's going on.
A big part of audio description these days, as far as where the work is coming from are National Park sites. So the National Park service has a mandate to describe and make accessible all of there current sites. So I just did an audio tour of Cape Hatteras National Seashore. It's 80 miles long across three islands. There are 80 different stops across that tour. Now obviously I can't get to those stops simply by myself if I was blind or had low vision. But once I get to those stops, I want to find out what's there. Can I take a ramp out to the beach? What do the dunes look like? What do the panels along the wayside say? So they are doing this not only for these external sites, but they are doing this for just regular visitor center museums. I've done about 15 or 20 National Park sites, anywhere from Carlsbad Caverns to Portsmith Arkansas to the FDR Library in Hyde Park so this is a really ripe site for work in audio description, but the mandate is there from the National Park service.
Local park sites, more and more folks are trying to make their institutions accessible. I know Naperville just put out a RFP for some of their kiosks and their nature center. And so these are some of the places where that can happen. If you go to Millennium Park right now, the ADA 25 Chicago group, which is sponsored by the Chicago Community Trust, has put a series of panels along one of the walkways in Millennium Park that talk about the construction of the park, and some of the structures there and they put up a series of panels that give that information.
So If I'm blind or have low vision, I can take my smartphone out, and scan the QR code that takes me to a website that will audio describe the panels and the park itself. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of people have friends or family who, essentially, function as a personal describer for folks, they will take them around and tell them what's going on. But this is also something that would be interesting for a lot of these areas, whether it's a cultural institution, or a corporate meeting, or a gala.
Last year, back up one step. Every year, the Kennedy Center sponsors a conference called the Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disabilities. L.E.A.D. And they have the conference every year, one year in Washington, the off year in some other U.S. city. Last summer, that conference was here in Chicago. And there was a gentleman who was blind from the Irish Theater that I was his personal describer for those fours days at the conference. So I would take him around to the conference roomsI would tell him what the food is in front of him at the buffet. I would navigate the space for him and describe any of the slides or materials that were presented at conference. So that personal description means he could more fully enjoy the content, that content equity that quality of experience in that particular situation.
Alright, so, let's get a little more into what audio description really is. So this is kind of a quick crash course for y'all in what audio description is. The first rule is describe what you see. One sees physical appearances and actions, one does not see motivations or intentions. So we see that Mary clenches her fists, we do not see that Mary is angry, or worse, that Mary is angry at John. You can't describe that. You include the visual information that is inaccessible to people who are blind or have low vision. These include key plot elements, such as people, places, actions, objects, or unknown sound sources not mentioned in the dialog or made obvious by what one hears.
Now describing everything is impossible. You describe first what is essential in the allowable time. As time permits, you describe further elements, such as the decor, details of the settings, the physical appearance and mannerisms of the characters architecture, clothing style, technology, color, light, texture, all those things if you have time you say them. But, descriptions should not fill every pause. Less is more.
Description is not the running commentary. Listeners should be allowed to hear the emotions in actor's voices and the tension in the silence between the characters. Now, when you are in a play, or even in media, it's important to describe seemingly insignificant things that the sighted audience will observe without knowing their later importance. So for example, you would describe that Mary is toying with a pistol and then places it in a top desk drawer. So later in the show, when John and Mary are having a heated argument, and Mary edges towards the desk, the sighted audience will suspect that she's headed for the gun. But because you've given that information about what she's been doing with the pistol and where she's placed it, by describing both of those actions, we've allowed the listener to join in that suspenseful anticipation.
The second rule of audio description is to describe objectively. Allow listeners to form their own opinions and to draw their own conclusions. You don't editorialize, interpret, explain, analyze or help listeners in any other way. So for instance, if the conclusion is that the character is angry, we describe what led to that conclusion. Jesters, facial expressions of the character, characters moods, motives or reasoning are not visible and thus not subject to description. We only use those adjectives and adverbs that do not offer value judgements and that are not themselves subject to interpretation. So for instance, beautiful says only that something is not ugly. But what exactly makes it beautiful? Instead of saying the person, clothing or object is beautiful, describe the things observed that cause your conclusion so that listeners can draw their own conclusion. We also use the first person when the director of a show or play has created a first-person point of view as a means of including the audience. This sensation is part of the experience of sighted audience members and must be shared with listeners. So when a character turns to address the audience, you say "he turns to us" instead of "he turns to the audience." You're not breaking that fourth wall. "His flashlight shines in our eyes." With film and video description, the same would apply. "The shark swims towards us." Not "The shark swims towards the camera." Or "We moved through the forest." instead of "The camera moves through the forest." Giving them that same experience.
Next, you want to be sure to allow the listeners to hear the dialog. Listeners want to hear the performance first, and the description second. The dialog is telling the story and must be heard. Now this rule is only broken when the confusion by omitting the description is greater than maintaining the integraty of the dialog. So as an example, Deborah is talking nonstop about making a pie but she is quietly taking a gun from the drawer. The describer must speak over her dialog because the audience will hear a gunshot before she stops talking about making the pie. The sounds or dialog from a radio, television or other speaking characters may be important to the story or may be considered background sound. But if it is background noise, it is permissible to describe over it, assuming the description is vital. However, you don't want to talk over a song played on the radio if its recognition by the audience or the audience's hearing its content may be important setting a mood, recalling a hero or making an emotional statement.
We often use short phrases in place of using full sentences. We try to speak at least two or three words so listeners have the opportunity to switch focus to the describers voice. But, unless absolutely necessary, we try not to interrupt with just one word it's all about the timing. When you have plenty of time, you can say things like, "Ken walks across the room, picks up a knife, butters the toast." When time is tighter, "Ken picks up a knife, butters the toast." When it is extremely tight, "Ken picks up knife, butters toast."
Next, you have to trust the listener's ability to comprehend the material. In most instances, listeners have made the choice to attend the performance or watch the show so you have to trust them to grasp the meaning of the material and the description. Don't condescend, patronize or talk down to the listeners. For example, when I describe costumes in a play, where women where bustles I can confirm that everyone knows what a bustle is by tucking the description into a set of pre-show notes, with something like "women's long skirts puff out in back, padded over the hips and under the skirts with bustles." Then, all you have to do is say the word bustle thereafter while the play is happening you convey the costume during the performance. If a play has a complex plot or a confusing set of characters, there's probably information you can share from the playbill. Just as this information is helpful to sighted audience members, sharing this information with listeners during a set of pre-show notes may aid their appreciation for the performance and the description. This can also happen in the form of reading from the playbill. But it's important to make clear that this information comes from the program so that listeners understand that everyone has access to this information that I'm not providing them with special information because they may have verbal bond with the material and they assumed that has happened. I don't want to do that. Now for many diverse reasons, some people prefer minimal description as opposed to longer descriptions, as the time allows. People who are congenially blind or who are born without sight are often comfortable with the level of information that they gleen from what they routinely hear and sometimes they don't realize how much visual information is available. On the other hand, people who are adventitiously blind or born with sight and lost it later know that there is a great amount of visual information and don't want to miss anything. But it's the describers responsibility to find that medium.
Next, censorship is unfair to the material and the listeners. Describers who censor information because of their own discomfort fail their listeners. Describers must say the factual information such as things as nudity, sexual acts and violence. Listeners should know everything that is evident to sighted people. If a describer feels that describing the particular material make him or her feel uncomfortable, he or she should not accept the assignment.
Keep the language consistent. The describer needs to choose language that is consistent with the content or material. You need to use language that is appropriate for the listeners. For instance, children's programs, you use vocabulary suitable for the age group. And remember that they may not have a life experience to know common expressions like "Catch 22." You need to make every effort to pronounce words properly. Actors names, directors, designers, character's names, the names of objects and places. And once you've established the name with the characters and places and such, always use that same name. You have to know that not all listeners will understand slang, colloquialisms or regional terms. Only use those, again, within the context of the performance. And as I said at the beginning with the definition of audio description, we only use vivid verbs and descriptive words. People frequently walk, but they also amble, stagger, shuffle, shounder, stroll, all conveying different amounts of emotion, all different physical characteristics.
You choose the words that best matches that action. Time shifts are another time when it becomes difficult, like flash backs or vision into the future. And in relation to the character, using visual effects may further identify these kind of changes. So for example, I can say "Lighting shifts to pale amber as George sits next to his sister at the family dinner table." That change of lighting, queues the listener in on what's going on on stage. Now, people often say to me, "Well, why do I describe colors for people who are blind or have low vision?" Well describing colors is useful, both to help people with low vision to locate what is being described, because again, its not a homogeneous community but also to share the emotional meaning of the color in the production. People who are blind or have low vision usually share those common attributes we assign to color such as blue and green meaning cool and serene while red and orange are hot and compestuous. Saying the dress is burgundy, rather than the dress is red, more richly describes the dress. However, you want to avoid unusual color words like cyan ... puce.
A corollary to the rule about language consistency concerning vocal tone. The describer should match their vocal delivery to the pace, energy and volume of the material. You want to allow the performance to set your tone and rhythm of the description remembering that the performance, not the describer, should be the focus. So just that the describer should not assume a detach, lecturing or a clinical tone, the describer should not attempt to project him or herself into the performance as another performer. Dramatizing the delivery of the description is distracting, and perhaps insulting, because the listener may feel the describer is telling them how to respond.
Sighted audience members don't see the character's race, ethnicity or nationality. Rather, they see skin color and facial features. Therefore, the describer should simply describe each person's skin color, and if time allows, facial features. In a dramatic work, where character's backgrounds develop over time, the writer, director and actors will help the audience learn where each character fits into the role of the play or show. Socioeconomic level, educational level, relationship to the other characters, so to the extent that some or all of these are important in the storytelling. In a dramatic work or perhaps because of the story or setting, the character's race or ethnicity or nationality is largely apparent to sighted audience members and integral to the plot delineating those differences as part of the description would be helpful.
For example, in West Side Story, the plot is much more understandable if one knows who's a Jet and who's a Shark and that the Jets are Caucasian and the Sharks are Puerto Rican. In A Raisin in the Sun, there would be no story without knowing that the primary focus is an African-American family, and that the antagonist, Karl Lindner, is Caucasian.
And finally, we want to describe from the listener's perspective. Surprises should ideally come at the same time for all audience members. If a character's appearance or actions, hidden identity, costumes, sight-gags, or sound effects happens as a surprise to the sighted audience members, don't spoil the surprise for the blind or low vision audience by describing or reviewing in advance. Every character is in disguise, he becomes 'the man' rather than 'John wears a disguise.' Now, I need to get out of this; I need to quit Powerpoint and show some demos.
So, on my website, which I'll give you at the end, there are a number of videos on the bottom of my AD page that I've described. So this one, is, an old joke, now a beer commercial.
[Commercial Audio Description]: Flying low over the ocean on a foggy night, churning and spraying water. Words, Film Academy Baden Württemberg presents B.O.A.T.S. based on a true story. An advancing aircraft carrier and flotilla. A blue sweep across a radar screen. A radio operator, crewman at computer consoles.
[Commercial Dialog]: "Captain, there's an odd object at 1200"
"Sir, contact established."
"On speaker please."
[Commercial Audio Description]: Two men eating at a table.
[Commercial Dialog]: This is 8853, please change your course by fifteen degrees southwest ... in order to prevent a collision with us.
This is the USS Lincoln, member of the United States Navy.
Change your course by fifteen degrees northwest in order to avert a collision with us. Over.
This is not possible.
You have to avert.
[Commercial Audio Description]: Tight lipped and grey with leathery skin, the captain takes the radio mic from its dock.
[Commercial Dialog]: This is Captain Richard James Howard speaking, commander of USS Lincoln air craft carrier, part of the Navy of the United States of America.
[Commercial Audio Description]: The men by their radio.
[Commercial Dialog]: We are the second largest warship of the American fleet. We are escorted by two cruisers, six destroyers and four submarines. I command you to change your course by fifteen degrees northwest. If you do not comply, we will be forced to take military action. Over.
[Commercial Audio Description]: The captain's hard face, smirking. The men return to their food, glancing at one another.
The crew , motionless, eyes fixed on their faces.
[Commercial Dialog]: We are two person. With us, we have our dog, we have two beer, we have our food and a friend who is making siesta right now. We do not move anywhere. We are a lighthouse, on the coast off of Spain.
[Commercial Audio Description]: The lighthouse beam sweeps over a rocky coastline, foaming over the clouds, over ships.
[Commercial Dialog]: Perfect over a beer bottle, always right.
[Martin]: Okay. This is for Trident Gum.
[Commercial Audio Description]: Chinese characters. In English, Pet Shop. A white skull with headphones and two baby ostrich. Porcelain cats, one waving its arm. A bulldog sleeping on the floor. An old Chinese man with a white beard grooming a Shih Tzu, tuffs falling to the floor. A young man by a tropical fish tank pulls a package of gum from his jeans, Trident, and eats a stick as an orange fish begins to sing, with others in the tank.
[Fish singing]: "I see a little silhouetto of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango? Thunderbolt and lightning, Very, very frightening me. Galileo Galileo Galileo.
[Commercial Audio Description]: He glances at the gum pack.
[Fish singing]: "Galileo Galileo Figaro Magnifico."
[Commercial Audio Description]: All the pets sign along. A bearded dragon, a cat, a canary...
[Singing]: Mama mia mama mia
[Commercial Audio Description]: A spotted fish, a skull and baby birds. Not in sync with the beat, young man surveys the animal chorus, smiles and thrusts his arms into the air.
[Young man singing solo]: "For me!"
[Commercial Audio Description]: The old man looks up, the fish swim away. The young man smiles.
[Martin] Alright now, I'm going to play that again for the sighted audience.
[Audience member]: I kind of like that we got to hear it without the video ... without the visuals.
[Commercial Audio Description]: Chinese characters. In English, Pet Shop. A white skull with headphones and two baby ostrich. Porcelain cats, one waving its arm. A bulldog sleeping on the floor. An old Chinese man with a white beard grooming a Shih Tzu, tuffs falling to the floor. A young man by a tropical fish tank pulls a package of gum from his jeans, Trident, and eats a stick as an orange fish begins to sing, with others in the tank.
[Fish singing]: "I see a little silhouetto of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango? Thunderbolt and lightning, Very, very frightening me. Galileo Galileo Galileo.
[Commercial Audio Description]: He glances at the gum pack.
[Fish singing]: "Galileo Galileo Figaro Magnifico."
[Commercial Audio Description]: All the pets sign along. A bearded dragon, a cat, a canary...
[Singing]: Mama mia mama mia
[Commercial Audio Description]: A spotted fish, a skull and baby birds. Not in sync with the beat, young man surveys the animal chorus, smiles and thrusts his arms into the air.
[Young man singing solo]: "For me!"
[Commercial Audio Description]: The old man looks up, the fish swim away. The young man smiles.
[Martin] So, what's interesting in that, in a couple of instances, I had to say things a little before ... sometimes a little bit after, so the temporal description that I could give did not exactly match the visual information, but it conveyed the story nonetheless. So you have to be very judicious about where in this type of example.
And I have one more piece here, that is more of an educational video.
[Video Audio Description]: Long slender body Shark walks across the sea floor rather than swim by wiggling its body and pushing with its pectoral and pelvic fins. Its features include a general brown coloration and numerous clusters of mainly two to three polygonal spots, widely scattered white spots in the matrix between dark clusters, fewer than ten large dark spots on the inter-orbital snout region, and a pair of larger dark marks on the ventral surface of the head. Clamoring over the rough terrain over the seafloor, similar to a baby crawling on its stomach, the shark forages for food by sticking its snout into the corners, recesses and alcoves of rock and coral formations for any prey which might be hiding there in. Walking sharks, also known as Bamboo sharks, or Long Tail Carpet Sharks, belong to the family Henneselyday, in the shark order Arectalobelforms.
[Martin]: Well, that's pretty much what we'll get out of that video.
So these have different purposes, obviously this one would be for instance, a high school zoology educational video, where they're getting information on not only what the shark looks like, what its behaviors and some additional information about the genus and scientific names of the shark. So it all depends again on your audience, what it is you are trying to convey, whether its entertainment or if its educational, whether its high school, whether its general population so, those are some ideas as far as the context of what you are trying to do.
I have one more video here, see if I can quit out of Safari. And I'm going to first play a video, a few minutes of a video I did that does not have description. So you'll first hear the version without description, I'll play a minute or two of that, and I'll go back and play the described version. This is the movie as I received it.
[Video Audio Description]: We share our lives with people. We think we know them. Do we ever really know anyone?
[Martin]: So, I'm going to pick on you a bit Kelly, what did you get from that? What did you imagine was going on the screen?
[Kelly]: Like in some sort of outdoor place, in maybe a forest or something, but that's about all. Yeah, it was really difficult to tell because there was nothing in the dialog to tell me what was going on.
[Martin]: So now I'm going to bring in the described version of that same clip. So this is now the described version of that movie. It's about ten minutes long.
[Video Audio Description]: Captions: A Shavick/Insight Studios Production. In association with Regent Entertainment.
On an overcast day, a man in black athletic pants, white running shoes, and a white T-shirt, crashes through a dense forest underbrush. He looks back over his shoulder, a character running after him wearing a long black, hooded mackintosh, black gloves and black, lace-up boots. Thick fog swirls through the trees. A sliver necklace dangles from the runner’s neck. ]
The runner trips over a fallen log and lands face first onto the soggy forest floor, thick with leaves. The necklace flies to the ground. The runner rolls onto his back, panting, as the hooded man approaches through the fog and stands over him. The fallen man starts to speak … as the hooded man steps on his chest, crushing his words. The necklace lies in the leaves at the side. The light fades to black. ]
A sunny, cloudless day outside a green, two-story house with a two car garage, tree-lined driveway, white picket fence, and a landscaped front yard. Captions: Eugene, Oregon. Now inside the house. A study with numerous paintings on the walls, another partially draped on an easel.
[Video Dialog]: We share our lives with people. We think we know them. But do we ever really know anyone?
[Video Audio Description]: A masked nude; a man’s face behind the shroud; a woman standing by a man, cutting his tie with a scissors, a doll lying on its back. On a table, a wooden metronome sits next to several framed photographs of a man and woman, in front of the Eiffel Tower; dancing; looking into each other’s eyes.
Additional canvases sit stacked to the side on a window-lined porch where a cat grooms herself while sitting on an end table. A pony-tailed, dark-haired woman in a floppy white sun hat kneels on the ground outside in the back yard next to a flower bed and a multi-tiered birdbath. A line of tall evergreens stand guard along a wooden fence at the back. In the garden, yellow daffodils bloom next to pink peonies. The woman digs in the dirt wearing pink garden gloves with white flowers. She clips a bunch of daffodils, laying them carefully in a wicker basket. She glances toward the house, stands, and picks up her basket. Carrying the basket, she walks into the house. ]
[Knocking at the door]
[Video Audio Description]: She lays her hat on a chair by the front door, pulls aside the lace curtains to see the person knocking, then opens the door.
[Video Dialog]: Hi, I'm looking for Joe Thompson.
Yes?
I'm Mike McCoy, I'd like to speak to you about your late husband, Leonard Thompson. It's about the insurance.
Whatever it is you have to say, I'm not interested.
Mrs. Thompson ...
Good day.
Please ... it'll only take a minute.
[Video Audio Description]: She sighs, then shrugs…
[Video Dialog]: Well, I was just about to make some coffee. Come in.
[Video Audio Description]: Mr. McCoy steps into the study.
He wears a grey suit, white shirt, grey-striped tie and carries a black briefcase.
[Video Dialog]: Did you paint all these?
Yes, I did.
After Leonard died, I never got around to finishing that one. I have a whole storage room downtown, careful, it's hot.
Thank you.
[Video Audio Description]: She hands him a mug.
[Video Dialog]: Ever think of selling them?
You have a strong hand. Confident sense of color.
You're a teacher, right?
Yeah.
A professor of art history at University of Oregon.
[Video Audio Description]: They both sit.
[Video Dialog]: So, what's all this about?
Well, I work for Bremmer and Sharitz, insurer Arthur White. Where your husband used to work.
Uh huh.
You know how I think after all these years, this would stop. You know how long it took to pay off his funeral expenses? I am not a rich woman.
No one is accusing you of anything.
No?
[Video Audio Description]: Her face hardens.
[Video Dialog]: So what are you doing here?
You came all the way over here to engage a lonely widow in some casual chit-chat.
Mrs. Thompson...
You know ...
[Video Audio Description]: She rises.
[Video Dialog]: I have so much work to do, so if you don't have anything to tell me that I haven't already heard, I'd like you to leave now, please.
[Video Audio Description]: He stands.
[Video Dialog]: We believe your husband died a week ago.
[Video Audio Description]: Her brow furrows.
[Video Dialog]: That's impossible. My husband died ten years ago in a fire.
We've always been suspicious over the circumstances surrounding your husband's death, especially after the embezzling charges.
[Video Audio Description]: He hands her a photograph.
[Video Dialog]: _My company received an anonymous tip that, um, Leonard Thompson, your husband was living in Washington under the name of Bill Robbins.
[Video Audio Description]: She stares at the photograph, turning away from Mr. McCoy. She blinks, and shakes her head.
[Video Dialog]: This is impossible.
That photo is, um, only a few months old.
[Video Audio Description]: She turns back toward him.
[Video Dialog]: My husband died in a fire, ten years ago.
I called the Millbrook Police Department to confirm a tip, they told me that they found his body, lying on a path in the woods. Apparently he died of a stroke.
No, I buried his body ten years ago.
We need someone to confirm the identity of the body. We need to make the claim official. It's important.
[Video Audio Description]: She drops the photo on the coffee table, straightens herself.
[Video Dialog]: I'm sorry, I don't believe this.
[Video Audio Description]: She heads toward the door. McCoy gathers his case and follows her.
[Video Dialog]: I know this is painful. I really do need to know.
Look, I can't do this.
If you change your mind...
You just don't take no for an answer, do you?
Here's my card, it's got my cell number on it. Call me anytime. Just take it.
Thanks for the coffee.
[Video Audio Description]: He walks out the door. Mrs. Thompson closes the door, and stares down at McCoy’s card in her hand. ]
Later that night, an interior door bangs gently in the wind next to glass vase filled with daffodils. In candlelight, Mrs. Thompson sits on a couch in her pajamas, hair down. A jazz record plays on a turntable. She leafs through an old scrapbook filled with pictures and mementos of her husband. She turns the page to a picture of Leonard. Her fingers trail across the page. On the facing page, a newspaper clipping reads: “Office Building Burns; Man Dies.” She wipes away something in her eye. She turns the page. Another headline reads, “Widow Cleared of Charges, Money Still Missing.” She starts, twisting around to see the door has knocked over the flower vase. She steps over to the mess, and moves to get a cloth. Stepping carefully around the broken glass, she kneels down and picks up the flowers from the floor, placing them gently in the cloth.
Walking past Leonard’s half-draped portrait, clutching the flowers and cloth in her arms, she stops short. She stares at the painting, breathing deeply, then turns her head, and walks away.
[Martin]: Questions about that?
Actually, it looks like you have one.
[Audience member]: I have a lot of questions. So you had some value judgements to make. Me hear the door close, you chose to say that's the door closing. Are there other times when you say, maybe I don't have to say the door is closing?
[Martin]: Yes.
[Audience member]: It also sounds like there are times where you are recording at one pace, but you were speeding up using words or something ...
[Martin]: Not at all. It's just all in my vocal...
[Audience member]: We just ask that you repeat the question.
[Martin]: Oh, I'm sorry. So there was one question about the choice when to mention that the door was opening or closing. That was a choice on my part as a describer. And then as far as the pacing of my voice, I did not use any pro tools or any other effects.
Yes, Mark.
[Mark]: Do you user test this stuff before you release it to the public, like is it tested on an audience and then they say, well, we're really not getting this part of it?
[Martin]: Generally, that does not happen. It does happen when I do National Park sites. So when I've written a script before its recorded for presentation for a user to carry around they will want to read everything that I have written and that they have the opportunity to comment on whether if this is not clear or I missed that part, those kind of things. In that sense, those things do get tested and then obviously the description comes out that much better when you have audience participation.
Now, that also can bring up some additional variances in people's appreciation or expectation of what the description is since there's no certification for describers, there are trainings. I was trained by the American Council for the Blind and also at the Kennedy Lead Conference, they had a workshop that I participated in.
People's delivery and choices are their own delivery and choices so one describer is not going to describe it the same way like another and there's no way to say there is one true way to make it happen.
[Audience member]: The only thing I wanted to ask is... clearly, this kind of work that you are doing in terms of film and commercials is scripted. But you also do live work. What do you find more challenging, or ... you know what I'm getting at what is your favorite kind of work to do?
[Martin]: Right, so the question is, there's description for video where it is scripted, the television shows, and then there's live description, which do I personally find more appealing?
[Audience member]: Or challenging?
[Martin]: Or challenging? So it's definitely challenging to do things live. So for instance, there are many different live situations. The situation where I was a personal describer for the person at the LEAD conference. I would just say things to him as we walked along or just sat there. I didn't have to worry so much about stepping on people's dialog or a story being told. As a presenter, that situation, that was slides, they would pause, I would describe what was in the slides and so on and so forth. Doing a show, live, like a dolphin show or a bird show, there is a narrator talking as well as the actions of the birds, and so I have a script laid out in front of me with things I can say but, it's really, I'm trying to find that place I can say it. Now, invariably, you step on people's lines in that situation. If I'm doing a play, I also script the play, and I see it two or three times and I often work with a video of the play before I do an actual performance. So in that case, I get a really good sense of where those pauses are, but, from one night to the next, the actors may change their pacing, they may step on each others lines, they may move things around, they may skip a scene entirely. So I actually prefer that live performance because it's a performance for myself as well.
This is much more technical, for a video or TV show, because the gaps and the pauses don't ever change. I can find a video, I have to review it, I know what kinds of things I need to point out. For instance, if the door banging in the wind next to the flower vase, had I not said that it was next to the flower vase, when the flower vase crashed and broke it would be an unfamiliar or unexpected noise for the blind or low vision consumer. So I need to make sure that I, as I was talking about my presentation, I kind of preface that, so when that happens, Ah, the door knocked over the vase. I say that, true, to reinforce it, and then she goes and cleans it up. Those kind of things.
[Audience member]: You're staffing up, and have a thousand resumes, are you looking for a fiction writer, a journalist, someone who has an improve background?
[Martin]: I'm looking for someone who have audio description training. There is no one particular background that, where audio describers excel. It could be architects, it could be writers, painters, but it's important that they get training, because you can you can do a bad job at this kind of thing, even with best intentions but following the guidelines, and these were from the audio description collation, and I have a list of resources from websites and URLs where I got a lot of this material at the end. But there's no one particular profile that would make a great audio describer.
[Audience member]: Except a great set of pipes.
[Laughter]
[Martin]: Sell, so, it's interesting that you mention that. So, I'm a writer and a voicer. I'm a voice actor, but I also write description. Now, the real craft of this, and the real art of it is writing description. And you can get anyone to read it. So that's what often happens on these described tours, I will go to a facility, I will write the described tour but I may not necessarily voice it. They may be subcontracted out to someone else to read. So, it depends on what the situation is. But the real skill is actually in the writing. I just happen to do both.
Kelly, do you have any comments on the description itself? You, being our sole blind or low vision member? How did I do?
[Kelly]: Oh, you did well. Although, I wondered, sort of perhaps, with the describers, including yourself, is, particularly considering yourself a voice actor and performer, the description is so emotionless it almost takes away from the scene itself. Because the audio describer isn't conveying the emotions present in the scene that we are experiencing you know, in the case of a dramatic presentation.
[Martin]: So that's a balance as well, and as I mentioned some of my rules and guidelines of description. Describers are not really supposed to be part of the performance. They are there to describe the performance that's happening but not be another performer in the expression. But, it does happen. When I do plays, and I tried to do that in this last scene too, where she is very contentively leaving through her photo album, but I tried to be a little softer in tone, a little bit more slow in my delivery at times. But obviously, that didn't come across to you.
[Kelly]: It didn't seem to have a lot of empathy to the characters. I guess that's why I was more suggesting as compared to actual conveying the emotions of the experience. But sharing the empathy that's being created in the dramatic work. Obviously, that's not necessary in a thirty or sixty second commercial. But in this longer piece, music and the characters and their emotions and how they're being portrayed it would seem natural the audio describer would be coordinating with that sort of thing as compared to almost sounding like a doctor, like being an operation or procedure.
[Martin]: There's quite a bit of debate about that, and different people have different emotional reactions to audio description. Some people do not like the describers to have any emotion at all. Other people would like a little more matching tone, matching emotion to the scene. So it really ... there's different impressions, and different expectations about what that should be.
[Kelly]: I understand. We're having this question right now in the area of journalism, for example. Different broadcast networks have different directions, so...
[Martin]: I've been in conferences where, there have been a large number of people who are blind or low vision and their impressions and desires for description and their preferences are all over the map. So, I'm not saying this is the only way to do description. This is the way I do it. But it's always a work in progress, so I appreciate your feedback.
Well, you've all been very patient, I appreciate that very much. I have a couple more slides here.
I'm just going to end now. I have another slide here, I was going to talk here about how audio description relates to Universal Design. I'll be happy to talk to anyone about that.
I now have a slide on the screen that are some resource URLs.