Audio Description as a Tool for Equity
January 15, 2019
Audio Description is a creative tool to bring blind and low-vision audiences into the world of a film, but those without visual impairments are usually unaware of the importance of this craft. Here’s how it works. A trained narrator (audio describer) orients audiences by verbally describing visuals on screen when there is no dialogue or competing soundtrack. When done well, an audio description is an art unto itself. At New Day Films, we do not view this task as an act of compliance to laws governing disability access. To us, Audio Description (AD) is one more step toward achieving equitable distribution of documentaries to a larger, more diverse audience.
Creating an AD track is much more than just capturing great audio. Thomas Reid, a blind podcaster, considers the audio describer to be a second director: the describer chooses which visuals to describe by homing in on the film director’s original vision for the film. The script has to be [...]