Audio Description Links - July 2025
Audio description and audio description related links for July 2025, seasoned with some boring personal stuff, and some random other things. Fantastic to have some material about audio description in art, dance and theatre as well as the usual film and television; and two great papers on styles of audio description, a topic I think is still very much in the air.
Boring Personal Stuff
Very excited! I got to go and see the Bangarra Dance Theatre's show Illume this month for my birthday as they visited Kinjarling (labelled on boring maps as “Albany”). Extraordinary show, really superb. I did not request the audio description, as much as I would have been fascinated to do so. It was a suprise, a date with my beautiful wife, not a work excursion, and a headset would have distracted. Some other time.
In other news, I have finished a draft of an auteur audio description script for an iconic 80s horror film. I'd love to also do the Australian film The Proposition in this way as I'm certain Nick Cave's prose would make for evocative and moody audio description for that bleak and violent Western. Alas, a copy of the screenplay is nowhere to be found.
Busy looking for a new day job. There's a saying "Nobody quits a bad job: They quit a bad manager", and that is certainly true in my case. But the business of applying for jobs is burdensome and tedious. Both the job-search and dealing with The Manager is a serious energy drain. I'm certain there's one corner of Hell where your torture is to endlessly address selection criteria. And that's why this round-up is *gasp* a day late.
Podcasts
- Flipping the Script on Audio Description: AD as a Tool For Creation (Reid My Mind Radio)
In this episode of Reid My Mind Radio, we once again flip the script. This time diving deep into the creative possibilities of audio description (AD) with Blind Composer Kemal Gorey.
Hear about: Kemal’s journey as a blind creative in Turkey and his attempt to “blend in”; The impact of his first time on stage as a boy; His personal experience with audio description … and how all of this lead to the opportunity for Kemal to score a silent film entirely based on its audio description.
- Accessibility strategist Erin Lucas (The ADNA Presents)
Accessibility strategist Erin Lucas shares how her career journey took her from art school to government tech, a Chicago startup, and Microsoft, all while shaping a human-centered approach to accessibility.
Erin discusses how familiar voices build trust, and why accessibility is more than compliance. From building relationships with campus disability services to scaling accessibility work at a global tech company, Erin offers honest insights, creative strategies, and stories from behind the scenes.
- Steph McCoy of Bold Blind Beauty (with a call to action) (The ADNA Presents)
Roy Samuelson sits down with the unstoppable Steph McCoy, founder of Bold Blind Beauty, and all-around inclusion trailblazer. Steph opens up about her personal journey from losing her sight to finding her purpose, building a global community along the way.
From the heart of her platform (think AIR: Access, Inclusion, Representation; and EPIC: Equity, Passion, Impact, Courage), Steph shares how Bold Blind Beauty is making a new definition on what blindness and beauty really mean.
We talk real talk: the challenges of running a mission-driven platform solo, the power of storytelling to bust through stigma, and why Steph is ready for more hands (and hearts) to join the Bold Blind Beauty mission.
- Close Up With Ariel Baska, Horror Activist & Disabled Filmmaker (The Dark Room)
In our discussion, Ariel chronicles their journey with disability, getting the horror film festival off the ground, and what attendees can expect this year at the Access: Horror event.
- Synthetic Truths with Tanusree Sharma (The ADNA Presents)
What if audio was your only signal of trust in a digital world saturated with AI?
In this compelling episode of The ADNA Presents, I spoke with Dr. Tanusree Sharma-assistant professor at Penn State and researcher at the intersection of AI, security, and digital authenticity. We explored how audio description (AD)-originally designed to make media accessible to blind and low vision audiences-is evolving into a critical signal of trust for everyone. From anime to e-learning, from synthetic voice to stolen identity, this conversation dives deep into what it means to create ethical, empathetic, and secure systems in an AI-saturated ecosystem.
- Synthetic Truths with Tanusree Sharma Part 2 (The ADNA Presents)
What if your voice could be stolen? In Part Two, Dr. Tanusree Sharma reveals the hidden risks behind voice AI: how the same recordings that powered tools like Siri and Alexa are now being cloned, weaponized, and monetized without consent.
She introduces PRAC3-a bold new framework blending privacy, reputation, and accountability with traditional consent models-and calls AI leaders to rethink how they handle voice data before trust is lost for good. From creative rights to biometric identity, this conversation is a must-listen for anyone shaping the future of synthetic speech.
- Celebrating Disability Pride Month w/ DARUMA Actors Tobias Forrest & John W. Lawson (The Dark Room)
Alex and Lee kick off Disability Pride Month by welcoming disabled actors, Tobias Forrest and John W. Lawson, to the show. They discuss their award-winning film DARUMA and the importance of authentic disability representation in the entertainment industry.
- Flipping the Script on Audio Description 2025: Quick Huddle (Reid My Mind Radio)
In the upcoming episodes we’ll continue to explore AD and in general access to video content all through a Blind Centered approach. Simply put, centering the Blind and low vision AD consumers in the conversation.
I’m excited to be back producing episodes and in conversation with the Reid My Mind Radio Family. Hit play and I’ll drop another episode later in July.
Articles
- Nefertiti Matos Olivares on Access in the Garden (Brooklyn Botanic Garden)
This year, the Fragrance Garden at Brooklyn Botanic Garden celebrates its 70th birthday. Nefertiti Matos Olivares, a cultural access advisor and audio description narrator, has worked with BBG for eight years as a member of the Garden’s Best Practices Working Group, a team of people with disabilities, accessibility advocates, and access professionals from cultural institutions around NYC who advise on BBG’s accessibility initiatives.
- Northeastern’s AI vision language models provide descriptions so blind users can ‘see’ videos by Kate Rix (Northeastern Global News)
Using AI vision language models (VLM), researchers at Northeastern University are making audio descriptions available for user-generated videos as part of a crowdsourced platform called YouDescribe. Like a library, blind and low-vision users can request descriptions for videos, and later rate and contribute to them.
- Voice actors demand regulation on AI voice cloning by "blaffy" (Ecency.com)
From the Monument to the Revolution in downtown Mexico City, dozens of audiovisual professionals held signs, including ones that read: "I don't want to be replaced by AI."
Papers
- Exploring the accessibility creative continuum on streaming platforms: A contrastive multimodal analysis of subjectivity and objectivity in audio description (The International Journal for Translation & Interpreting Research)
The suitability of objective or subjective audio description (AD) is still an ongoing topic with opposite views... In this paper, we explore whether the AD provided by different streaming platforms can be located at the same point along an accessibility creative continuum in terms of objectivity and subjectivity.
- The audio description of sex scenes in Élite (The International Journal for Translation & Interpreting Research)
We chose to analyse and compare the Spanish and English ADs of Season 6 of the Spanish TV series to determine how sex scenes have been handled. The comparative analysis offers insights into the challenges that the AD of this taboo topic poses, and how they are dealt with in different cultures and languages.
- How easy are audio descriptions? Exploring the viability of hybrid access services across English, Spanish and Catalan (The International Journal for Translation & Interpreting Research)
This paper presents a contrastive analysis of a corpus of film AD in English, Catalan and Spanish, to assess the extent to which AD scripts share the principles of E2U language as described in international standards.
- Neutral and emotive styles of audio description: A reception case study (Nature)
This study compares the reception of an objective neutral AD style with an innovative emotive style that includes added emotional details ... These results strongly indicate that emotive AD allows blind audiences to visualize films more effectively than when using the neutral style, akin to the experience of sighted individuals, thereby enhancing their perception of emotions.
Video
- Audio Described Performances at Bangarra by Bangarra Dance Theatre (Youtube)
For a number of years, we've been creating Audio Descriptions for our productions of First Nations storytelling. Hear from company dancer Daniel Mateo as he shares how Audio Description allows the listener to experience the production as fully as possible, and what you can expect during and after the audio described performance.
- Behind-the-Scenes of Alice & the Queen of Hearts: Back to Wonderland in Audio Description (Disneyland Paris)
Step inside the recording studio to learn more about the new audio description available for Alice & the Queen of Hearts: Back to Wonderland, on the show’s current run until August 31 at Walt Disney Studios Park.
In French with English subtitles
Art
- Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights (Wellcome Collection)
Audio highlight tour with transcripts. Explore the profound impact of physical work on health and the enduring fight for workers’ rights through our new major exhibition.
By way of Elaine Lillian Punia-Joseph on LinkedIn.
Social Media
- Unclear use of pronouns by Alison Myer (Facebook)
- AD users, do you trust AD? by Alison Myer (Facebook)
- 10th anniversary of the trial of AD on iview by Alison Myer (Facebook)
- Fight Scenes in AD by Sarah DeVries (Facebook). See also a previous discussion on fight (and sex) scenes on Facebook.
- How long does it take you to record and deliver around 50 minutes by Leslie Knowlton (Facebook)
- When in doubt, THE WHY is my guiding light in choosing what to write in a given moment or scene by Leslie Knowlton (LinkedIn)
Historical
- Augmentative and Alternative Communication Voices and Talking About Audio Description (Pigeonhole Podcast)
From : Today’s episode is about the way people describe synthesized voices. My guest, endever*, isn’t an audio describer, and we don’t get into Audio Description (AD) per se. But AD is what led me to talk to them. It’s less about Audio Description and more about scratching the surface of the complexities of synthesized voices and autistic voices and gendered voices and racialized voices and well, voices.
Other
- Write correctly — Check your spelling, grammar and punctuation (University of New England)