Audio Description Links - January 2025
Happy New Year! Here's a round up of interesting audio description links from January 2025, with some really great topics we can all learn more about, including blind qc, blind script-writing, TTS and film AD reviews.
Podcasts
- Alex And Leeās Most Anticipated Films Of 2025 (The Dark Room)
As we look ahead to 2025, Alex and Lee share their most anticipated films of the year and some fun life updates.
- Alex And Leeās Top 10 Films Of 2024 (The Dark Room)
Alex and Lee present their top 10 films of 2024.
- Summer Series - An Interview with Fran Mathey (Blind Citizens Australia)
In this, the first in our Summer Series featuring Audio Description, John Simpson speaks with Fran Mathey who has been involved in writing, producing and delivering Audio Description for many years. Listen to Fran on new year's eve, as she describes the Sydney Fireworks.
- Summer Series - AD Quality Control with Francois Jacobs (Blind Citizens Australia)
In this, the second episode in our summer series on Audio Description, John speaks with Francois Jacobs. Francois talks about his experience working on quality control. What is it and why is it important?
- Summer Series - Preparing AD as a blind or vision impaired person with Edwina Gustafson (Blind Citizens Australia)
In this third episode in our Summer Series, John speaks with Edwina Gustafson. Edwina describes her experience writing audio description scripts for SBS television as a vision impaired person. As well, her approach to providing meaningful detail, what must be included and what can be left out.
- Summer Series - An Interview With Ros Walker (Blind Citizens Australia)
This week, for the fourth episode of our summer series on Audio Description, we are joined by Tasmanian film-maker and producer, Ros Walker. Ros was heavily involved with the Grit Film Festival, and joins us to discuss her experience as a sighted person working with a blind person to curate and produce audio description scripts for all of the films in the festival.
- Summer Series - Talk Description To Me with Christine Malec (Blind Citizens Australia)
In episode 5 of our summer series, Graeme speaks with Christine Malec, a Canadian podcast producer. Christine's podcast is called "Talk Description To Me" and focuses on audio describing frequently everyday items, happenings or concepts which most people take for granted but are often poorly understood by Blind and Vision Impaired people.
Articles
- State Operaās āWorld of Balletā to provide audio description for all
The Istanbul State Opera and Ballet (IDOB) will present its "World of Ballet" performance with audio descriptions for art lovers as part of its social responsibility projects carried out in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the General Directorate of State Opera and Ballet.
- Star Wars Outlaws Descriptive Video Works interview: āit makes for a very wonderful experienceā
(An interview) with
Jenna Jennissary ofDescriptive Video Works and audio narrator for Star Wars Outlaws. I was able to ask them about the process of adding audio narration to a video game, Star Wars Outlawsā Innovation in Accessibility nomination, and the future of audio narration in video games.
Audio Description Introductions
- Bad Tidings - AD Introduction (Sky)
In this festive, family-comedy treat, itās late on Christmas Eve and two warring neighbours must unite to boot out a notorious crime family whoāve arrived with the intention of robbing every one of the houses on their street.
- Absolution - AD Introduction (Sky)
Hans Petter Molandās Absolution is about a low-level organized criminal who realizes heās coming to the end of his life and that maybe the younger criminals who call him a ādinosaurā may actually have a point.
Social Media
- Quality Check: Your Monster
A fascinating stream-of-consciousness reaction to the AD for a film. Definitely worth a read.
- Yarn Colours
Brett Oppegaard on LinkedIn shares a story about yarn colours and audio description
Papers
- RNIB Study Report: Synthetic Speech for Audio Description
The synthetic speech for audio description study set out to evaluate the quality of synthetic voices, their suitability for AD and their impact on viewer experiences.
Other Links
- Against Access by John Lee Clark
An excellent essay about accessibility and bias with applications for audio describers.