Easit - Easy Access for Social Inclusion Training
This is Unit 3B, Easy to understand and audio description.
Element 1: Processes.
Other video: Interview with professionals - listenability.
Hello, this is Annalisa Navetta.
I am a student Hello, this is Annalisa Navetta.
I am a student
of Translation at the University of Trieste.
In this video, "listenability" in audio description
is defined and tackled by professional audio describers and a scholar.
Listenability is a measure of the ease or pleasure
in listening to something like music, or an oral text.
Easy to understand audio descriptions should have this quality
to be received, enjoyed and understood well.
It is hard to list all the features
a listenable AD should show.
These include a slow pace and volume,
the use of a clear and engaging voice,
removing interfering sounds
that might blur the soundtrack.
Do professionals and academics know what listenability is?
What are their suggestions
on making ADs listenable?
We will ask four audio describers.
Bernd Benecke, head of AD
at Bayerischer Rundfunk,
the only German broadcaster
with an AD Editor;
Louise Fryer, a UK experienced describer,
director of Utopian Voices,
and doing research
for media accessibility;
Joel Snyder, president of Audio Description Associates,
Director of Audio Description Project
and American Council of the Blind;
as well as academic and AD expert, Christopher Taylor,
who has worked at the University of Trieste, researching AD.
Let’s hear what they think of listenability!
Have you ever heard the term “listenability”,
especially in relation to AD?
No, but I can guess what it means:
make things easier to listen.
I've never heard this term in relation to AD.
I have, and I have addressed that to a certain extent.
I believe the tone of voice, the pace,
the quality
that suggests that you are speaking
to an individual human being
as opposed to a group, as opposed to being read.
People want to hear a voice that sounds like
they are reading to them in a rote way.
It’s easier to talk to people, with or without a script.
If you have a script, you should make it sound spontaneous.
That is important in listenability,
TTS has yet to be able to provide this.
Yes, together with readability, comprehensibility, etc.
Listenability has become a buzz-word in audio-visual circles.
According to you, how should be an AD that is easier to listen?
First it has to do with the text.
If you write a text that is easy to understand, you have a text that is easy to listen to.
But also how you mix it,
what you do with the description in terms of sound level.
Is your description on the same sound level as the original soundtrack?
Or do you higher the volume so that the description is over the dialogue
which makes it more understandable?
You can do the same with the dialogue if you can,
If you lift up the dialogues compared to the music and to sound effects.
These things make things easier to listen to.
The app I talked about is called Dialogue Plus.
They transmit just the film dialogue,
so people can lift up the volume
and listen easily to the dialogues,
and understand them.
An AD can be made easier to listen to
using a natural rather than a synthesized voice,
so the listener
can rely on appropriate prosody.
When speaking over music or a battle scene,
the volume should be balanced,
so the AD is heard, and emotions get through.
I have covered that.
This idea of tone, of coincidence, of pace,
of vocabulary level, too.
All those aspects apply to people with learning disabilities,
but they apply to whatever audience.
Knowing your audience is important.
Often your audience is gonna be heterogeneous.
At other times you know that this particular description
is intended for an audience with learning disabilities.
Eease of listening - listenability -
needs to be understood and employed more frequently.
A clear voice enunciating slowly with simple sentence structure,
and vivid but understandable lexis.
The technological advances in personalisation
come to one’s assistance here.
The possibility to slow down delivery speed,
adjust type of voice, etc. They all make for better "listenability".
This video was prepared by Elisa Perego and produced by
Angelika De Marchis, Laura Marini, Annalisa Navetta
from University of Trieste
The narrator was Annalisa Navetta.