EASIT - Easy access for social inclusion training
Welcome to Unit 4 - The profession.
Element 1 - Personal skills
This video brings you interviews with professionals:
Audio description, part 1
It was produced by the University of Trieste
in cooperation with Zavod RISA.
This video includes excerpts from the interviews
with esteemed experts in the field of audio description:
Bernd Benecke,
Louise Fryer,
Joel Snyder
and Christopher Taylor.
The interviews were conducted by University of Trieste.
In the first part of this video,
the experts were asked the following questions:
1. What are the main challenges in your profession?
2. What skills are most needed in the profession?
Here are their answers.
Well, of course, doing audio description means
that you have to put all the information
that is for example
in a scene of a film
into the small gaps in between the dialogues
and therefore you have to observe
and you have to edit
and you have to think where to put your description
and how do you write this.
So this is a question of which words to use
and how to adapt the language maybe
that is used in the film.
These are, I would say,
the main challenges in our profession.
The main challenge in my profession
is the tension between quality
and quantity
meaning the speed at which an AD is created
may not allow sufficient time for the best
AD to be created.
The other challenge is having to produce
a one-size-fits-all description
when we know that the audience is very diverse.
I think the number one challenge right now
with respect to audio description
is visibility.
You should excuse the expression.
We've been around 40 years
but we haven't really made enough
of a mark...
we haven't really penetrated
- let alone the general public -
even the audience of people
that can benefit from audio description,
for whom audio description was intended to begin with...
people who are blind.
We need to do a better job of creating PSAs,
of becoming more visible...
captioning, of course, is dealing with a population of people
who are deaf that are-
twice the size of people who are blind
but captioning, you see...
the general public sees the captions on television.
You can easily turn them on and off.
You see them in a bar on the television screen in a gym...
Description - no.
You have to know how to turn it on
and oftentimes that's a process
which only recently has become
more shaped to be more accessible
to a person who's blind
as opposed to being on a visual menu.
The program has description
but how do you turn it on?
I think we're getting better at that
but that visibility in general
I think will result in increased understanding of description
and advancements for the field.
The main challenge is probably
training enough people,
given the growth in the industry.
The ADLAB-pro project led the way...
in some ways...
in suggesting how this can be achieved.
With media giants like Netflix and Sky
churning out thousands of video products 24 hours a day
and the growing awareness within these companies
of the need for accessibility,
Netflix in particular,
it'll be necessary to find professionals able to deal
with the immense demand
for screen AD.
In terms of museum and art gallery AD
again, you should see a greater increase
in institutions recognizing the need for audio description
and to be delivered in some form.
So, you have trained museum staff,
freelance describers,
service providers, such as VocalEyes in London,
who specialize in museum AD, online ADs...
but again, this can only happen
if reliable describers can be trained and employed.
Of course - good observing.
you have to really have the ability to see things
and to describe things,
find the right words.
You need good writing abilities
to put what you see into words.
You have to work on the time pressure sometimes,
you should be able to do this.
And it helps, when you work for films,
that you have some knowledge of films,
if you work for theater that you have some knowledge in theater
so that you can understand what happens there
and put this into words.
What skills are most needed in this profession?
Depends on the context.
You need a huge general knowledge
or the ability to know when you don't know enough
and need to do research.
Use of language is key,
as is understanding how images, words and sound
work together to convey meaning.
I think the other important thing is passion for doing it well.
When I think of the profession of audio description
I first think of the writers.
They are the describers.
Many people listen to audio description and then
they hear a voice and
they're: Oh yeah, that guy,
That guy is the describer.
Well, probably not.
9 times out of 10 in media
certainly, the person voicing the description
had nothing to do with the writing of it.
Although there is a symbiotic relationship or should be
between the written description
and the voicing of the description.
The voicer can... this goes back to a previous question...
the voicer can do things that
will relate to what happens later in the script,
making meaning with the voice, you know...
So, those kinds of skills on the voicing end,
but on the describing end, the writing end...
it's important to have a solid grasp of the language being used,
a solid vocabulary,
awareness of how similes, vivid verbs,
synonyms can be used to make the description
more listenable and more effective,
more able to create that vivid image in the mind's eye.
I think that's all a part of it
and is much needed in the profession.
Then of course the audio editing is the third realm of things
and there are real key elements there
related to listening
and to the facility with the technical aspects of audio recording
that are absolutely critical.
I hasten to add, too, that people who are blind,
the people for whom
description is principally intended,
can be excellent description consultants.
Perhaps they don't create the description from scratch
which involves obviously looking at an image
but they can be experts in language and can consult
on how the description is structured.
They certainly can be voice talents,
reading from braille, perhaps, or of refreshable braille display
or some other kind of display that allows them
to view the text
and some of the best audio editors I know
are people who are totally blind.
So, I think that's important.
- Nothing about us without us.-
I think that's important to remember.
Well, the usual skills of concision,
knowing exactly what to describe, what not to describe
and if you're the voice talent,
how to say it in the most pleasing and acceptable way.
And working together with other people,
the question of teamwork,
especially in terms of direct inclusion.