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

https://www.rnib.org.uk/information-everyday-living-home-and-leisure-television-radio-and-film/audio-description

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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