Audio Description Links - November 2024
A thoughtfully curated round up of podcasts, articles and other items of interest to the discerning audio description enthusiast wanting to further their studies into this fascinating topic.
Podcasts
- Up Close with Nefertiti Matos Olivares, Blind AD Narrator and Writer (The Dark Room)
We sit down with Nefertiti Matos Olivares, a blind audio description narrator, writer, and advocate. She has done live audio description for the Academy Awards for the last two years among other notable projects.
Nefertiti was also recently interviewed on the Access Fuckery podcast, and the Audio Pizza podcast.
- Behind the AD: Star Wars - The Mandalorian (The Dark Room)
Alex and Lee sit down with the team behind the world-class audio description of The Mandalorian (and the rest of the Mando-verse), which includes AD writer
Justin Sohl and narratorNicol Zanzarella .Recommended.
Articles
- I'm a blind presenter - and here's why Chris McCausland’s Strictly triumph is so important
Chris McCausland is the first blind celeb to take part in the show
- The art of audio description can turn dance into a moving experience for all (The Guardian)
Six dancers glide across the stage at the Lowry in Salford. As a visually impaired person, I would expect to feel lost watching dance but I know how they link arms and roll their shoulders, how the light captures their sepia costumes.
- Inside the fight to make Audio Description a non-negotiable part of the film industry by
Emma Cieslik (Little White Lies)A crucial tool for visually impaired cinema lovers yet often undervalued by the industry, it's about time that audio description's worth is heard.
- CinemaNext France and UGC Announce an Agreement to Equip 45 Cinemas in France with the GRETA Solution for Hearingimpaired and Visually Impaired Audiences
The GRETA mobile app improves the cinematic experience for people with hearing and visual impairments by offering additional versions (audio description, SDH subtitles and sound amplification) of the films played in cinemas.
Video
Events
- The 2024 Audio Description Awards Gala!
With links to videos in English and Spanish.
- 2024 Languages and the Media Conference
Historical Links
While I work on capturing useful and interesting audio description resources month-by-month, there is a wealth of older material that I routinely chance across, and I like to throw a few in here.
- In With a Bang: audio-describing fireworks (Vocaleyes)
- Yuldea 2023 (Youtube) A fragment of an audio described performance from the Bangarra Dance Theatre. Extraordinary!
- Designing for the Visually Impaired (Roguelike Radio)
Talking this ep are Andrew Doull, Darren Grey, Jonathan Pikalek and Niall Hartnett. How to play a roguelike with a screen reader when blind, especially Niall's experiences with ADOM and DCSS using the Jaws screen reader; Design considerations in both interface and gameplay, including useful features like visible monsters list, auto-pathing, location marking; Colour blindness and how to consider it in design, and Jonathan's experiences with playing games with red/green colour blindness.