Thesis - Ch. 4 section 6.3 Audio Description
Colour code: As indicated on title page of working draft, and revision record
Supervisor comments incorporated into Master Doc
1.1
Audio Description
Although film captions, for those
who are deaf, were emerging in the 1960s, the concepts behind the ‘act’ and
‘art’ of Audio Description (AD) were first developed in San Francisco in the
1970s, by Gregory Frazier and coined as “television for the blind” (Fryer 2016;
Fryer 2020; Snyder 2005). Developed as an assistive aid for those with visual
impairment (Kleege, 2015), Audio Description is an umbrella term for techniques
that make visual media accessible to blind people (Kleege, 2017). Since its inclusion in live theatre in the
1980s, when the blind audience wore headsets and the audio describer was housed
backstage (Kleege, 2017) AD can now be found in diverse fields including sound
science, critical disability studies, immersive technology and both visual and
performing arts (Thompson, 2018) . It is defined as ‘a verbal commentary of
imagery, providing visual material for those unable to perceive it for
themselves’ (Thompson 2018, RNIB 2020, Fryer 2016, Fryer 2020).
The
importance of AD, to convey not only the intended purpose of the director’s creative
vision to the blind beholder but also a visually accurate and poetic
interpretation of the scene or performance, is succinctly illustrated in
Snyder’s (2005) humourous, yet important, following example. As with images
created in the mind’s eye, when reading a book or listening to a radio play,
Snyder posits what better way to discuss the importance of audio description than
to present a verbal version of an image. Snyder asks the reader to imagine
“On a stage at left, a woman in a flowing
gown, her hands clasped in front of her, stands
before
a kneeling man in a doublet and feathered cap. He croons, “Why dost thy heart
turn
away
from mine?” At right, a man at a microphone speaks: “Basically, the guy with
the
goofy
hat is ticked because this babe has been runnin’ around with the dude in the black
tights.” The caption reads: “Many opera companies now provide interpreters for
the culturally impaired.”
Whilst this may be a glib example,
it is argued that unless it is considered a key part of the creative direction
and is delivered with poetic and artistic sensitivity, AD can often misrepresent
what is being seen, or worse, through deliberate omission to describe nuance or
symbolic visual cues, marginalise the blind beholder through the exact
discrimination that AD attempts to avoid (Thompson, 2018).
Thompson further argues, that although
the prevalence of AD has grown in the visual arts, its importance and potential
to bring further creative depth and response to visual source material, for
both sighted and non-sighted audiences, is vastly overlooked. Rather than being
considered merely a neutral act of translation or an accessible after-thought, Thompson
(2018) and Kleege (2015) argue that AD should be repositioned and considered as
a key cinematic feature, with as much importance placed upon its multiple functions,
as its key visual counterparts. Kleege proposes that the inclusion of AD, as an
accessible accommodation, is not so much about fixing best practices but rather
it offers the opportunity to challenge perceptions about the use of AD and its
ability to create various strategies depending upon audience, material,
aesthetic and critical goals (Thompson 2018; Kleege (2015).
Similarly, challenging the
epistemological and perceptual bias of ocularcentrism, meaning ranking vision
above the other senses, the Blind Creations Conference in 2015, elected to screen
the AD version of Across Still Water (2014), denoting it as the definitive
and primary version, above the cinematic version with AD as a supplement.
Privileging the AD version in this way, highlighted the hierarchical
predominance of non-AD cinematic experience over AD and the notion that the
inclusion of a supplement, as is commonly the case with the addition of AD, highlights
a previously unnoticed deficiency in the original (Thompson, 2018).
Furthermore, Dolmage (2014) argues
that “ekphrasis”, meaning describing visual imagery in words, can not only
serve as a method to make visual mediums accessible to those with visual
impairment, but it has the capability to emphasize and highlight the qualities
of visual art forms by adding rhetorical value to images. In addition, Dolmage reasons
for the importance of ekphrasis as an artistic process as it offers a pause
between image and understanding, signalling the difference between sensory
engagements (Thompson, 2018).
The importance of AD, for the
generation of internal visual imagery for a non-sighted audience is significant,
however it is emphasised that it is equally important to consider how and why
AD ought to be incorporated into visual projects at the outset. In terms of the
importance of accessibility for non-sighted viewers, Thompson argues that it is
crucial that blind people have access to films that depict their own
experiences (Thompson, 2018). During the Q & A plenary after the screening
of Across Still Water, Thompson notes, that it became evident that
directorial input, from the outset, is crucial in the creation of AD, as what
is omitted by the describer, for both the sighted and non-sighted audience, is
just as revealing as what is included. Asserting that directors and producers
of film have been slow to acknowledge the creative potential of an AD track,
Thompson further suggests that AD is often added after the completion of a film
to fill gaps in an already finished product (2018).
Ordinarily AD is trimmed to fill
the silence between dialogue, meaning there is scant opportunity for
descriptive detail and even more problematic is the idea that description must
be objective (Kleege, 2017). In 2015 video streaming service, Netflix,
announced that it’s Daredevil (2015) series would be available with audio description which,
as Kleege summises, may have occurred in response to disability activists who
pointed out the irony of a series including a main protagonist who is blind,
would not be accessible to viewers with sight-loss (Kleege, 2017). Since the
days of live theatre performance, the services of AD have expanded and the standardisation
of practices has evolved. However, as Kleege contends that the codification of
guidelines and rules, appears to have been born from assumption about what people
with sight-loss can comprehend and understand about visual phenomena.
The cinematic output of this
research project, namely an immersive animation created and viewed in virtual
reality, observes the argument that AD needs to be repositioned with an
emphasis upon subjective, poetic description of the key visual components for
the blind beholder. Together with the participant’s verbatim dialogue, atmospheric
sound tracks the VR experience incorporates a visually sensitive AD script,
which supports the notion presented by Snyder, that whilst a picture may be said
to be worth 1000 words, for viewers with sight-loss, a few well chosen words
can conjure vivid and lasting images (2005).
Refs in this section (to be uploaded into Endnote and
included in bibliography)
Thompson, Hannah 2018 Audio Description,
Turning Access to film…. https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/6487/5085
(to be found and inserted into Endnote)
Fryer, Louise 2016 An
Introduction to Audio Description: A Practical Guide. Routledge, 2016.
Fryer, L. (2020). Audio describing
Ocean’s Eleven scene 12 out of context: decision points in AD drafting.
Perspectives, Studies in Translatology, 28(6), 896–909.
https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2020.1712442
Kleege 2015 Audio
description as a pedagogical tool https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/4622/3945
Kleege, G. (2017). More than
meets the eye : what blindness brings to art . Ch. Audio Description Described.
Oxford University Press.
Ruth
Grimberg's 2014 short documentary about sight loss, Across
Still Water (acrossstillwater.com/)
Dolmage,
Jay. 2014 Disability Rhetoric.
Syracuse U P, 2014
http://web.b.ebscohost.com.libezproxy.dundee.ac.uk/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=044ac9e3-559d-4767-9763-d8784ff24fee%40pdc-v-sessmgr04&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=714601&db=e000xww
Snyder, J. (2005). Audio
description: The visual made verbal. International Congress Series, 1282,
935–939. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ics.2005.05.215
Daredevil, 2015.
Directed by Goddard, D.: Netflix.
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