EASIT - Easy access for social inclusion training
Welcome to Unit 4 - The profession
Element 1 - Personal skills
Interviews with professionals: Audio description - part 2
The video was produced by the University of Trieste
in cooperation with Zavod Risa.
This is the second part of the video
featuring interviews with esteemed experts
in the field of audio description:
Bernd Benecke
Louise Fryer
Joel Snyder
and Christopher Taylor.
The interviews were conducted
by the University of Trieste.
The experts explain how they see the future of their profession
and whether they think that implementing easy to understand
strategies in audio description
would become a part of their profession.
Audio description is going to increase.
We see this already with
all the streaming services coming up.
In this time of pandemic of course
everything gets streamed.
Conferences are streamed
and lectures at the universities
are streamed.
All this is material that should be
audio described.
So, I think audio description is really going up.
How do I see the future?
The need for trained audio describers
is currently increasing,
especially as more and more content
is streamed.
I expect this to continue.
There are moves to introduce
automatic visual recognition.
Progress is slow because AI
can identify static images quite well
but it can't yet link
continuing characters or locations.
It might say there's a woman on a beach
but it won't be able to identify
the same woman on the same beach in the next shot.
Humans are very good at picking up
contextual clues to make a coherent whole.
I expect workflows will be designed
where AI can do some of the work
and a human describes us the rest
but it's still a long way off.
I often talk about two aspects
that are on the horizon for audio description
that I think will be very important.
First is the technical aspect.
Soon enough the use of smartphones,
if it isn't already,
will be ubiquitous.
Everyone will have a smartphone.
It will be like a home telephone
or having a home address.
I think apps now, and there are half a dozen of them
around the world,
apps that you download
and then that app allows you to
pair a downloaded audio description script
with whatever is on your television right then...
Or in the movie theater, it listens
and it automatically syncs the description.
I think this is this significant.
Some of those apps have the capability
of including captions,
including sign interpretation,
enhancing sound for people who are hard of hearing...
not just turning up the volume
but also download of an alternate language track
so that grandma, who only speaks Spanish
can go with the family to see a film
in an American movie theater.
The film is playing in English but she's using that app
and hearing the dub in Spanish.
Or perhaps reading subtitles.
So that's the technical aspect that has already begun to take hold
but it's still in its infancy.
I think it will become huge
within the next 10 years.
That's my prediction.
The other aspect
is more of a programmatic aspect.
I think that sooner or later, to a certain extent...
...not totally by any means...
audio describers are gonna go out of business.
What I mean by that is that
more filmmakers, more videographers,
more people dealing with the arts that are described
will become aware of description and start using it
as an aesthetic innovation,
building it in from the get-go.
Maybe there's a narrator character
who speaks descriptively,
actually describes as the program continues
in a way that is not jarring.
It seems as though it's part of the program.
It is built in from the beginning
so that it's no longer description...
is no longer considered some sort of post-production activity
that we don't need to worry about that we're making a film
and the localization folks will deal with that.
No, it can be used as an aesthetic innovation.
It can be used in ways that
will make for more significant aesthetics in the film production,
production of an idiom.
Firstly, technological.
The personalization revolution
will continue to break new ground
and depending on market demand and awareness of the involved stakeholders
it will bring so far unknown possibilities
for the blind and sight-impaired community.
Secondly, the question of accessibility...
and this movement towards universal design...
This will see a change in attitudes
about how audio description is considered
among the public at large
and among persons with sight loss.
As regards screen AD
the introduction of audio description and the assistance of end-users
at the beginning of the filmmaking process
will turn AD from being
an addition to a film product to
being an integral part.
The same logic applies to the museum
where layout and directionality
will form part of the museum design process.
So as museums change their role in society...
which they have been doing for some time now...
through hands-on exhibits...
attractive layouts, technological enhancement...
the provision of AD will be considered
just a normal part of the plan.
Thirdly, there are some ethical considerations.
A recent publication on diversity
points out how even the most well-meaning describers
fall foul of political incorrectness misuse.
So this manifests itself for example
in the description of characters
in terms of race, gender, age, disability...
This publication refers specifically
to theater AD,
though its recommendations can equally apply
to all kinds of screen products as well.
For example, it was noted that
white as a scheme skin color
was never highlighted
whereas black was.
Women's appearance came
into much more description than men's...
So, we can thus expect
that describers in the future
will be coached on how to handle description
in a non-discriminatory way.
Easy to understand strategies
could be useful for some types of audience
and some types of content.
I'm not ruling it out
but some blind or partially blind people
revel in word pictures
and I wouldn't want to
deprive them of that.
Finally, do you think that implementing
easy to understand strategies in description
will become a part of the profession?
I think so.
You know, listenability...
easy to understand...
that's going to be a plus
for really anybody
listening to description.
And again...
it can be a sighted person
who is experiencing an audio movie.
They love that film they saw last week
and they're going on a long car trip...
they want to experience the film again...
They're not going to have a television playing
or a screen, hopefully,
while they're driving
but if they hear
the original audio track with description
and it's done in a way that is easy to listen to...
I think that makes all the difference in the world
and allows them to vividly
experience the movie once again.
It increases the reach of audio description
and that's going to be good for all of us.
Well, they should...
because the aim is always to provide
the best possible description
to be understandable by most people
and the highest number of people.
If concision and clarity
are the name of the game...
and what you're doing with EASIT...
should definitely become
a part of the logic
behind any other description.
Well i don't know.
What I do not think is that we get
an easy to understand description
additionally to the normal audio description
because that would mean you would need more money
and there is no money in the field.
But if this project can offer us some
some strategies on how to make
audio description easier to understand...
I would be grateful to use this.