Audio Description Links - November 2025
Happy Monday! And if you're like me, you're thinking of Sisyphus at the base of a mountain, shoulder against the boulder, just trying to move it.
Wow. It's all about advertising this month. It's like the bus: you wait for hours and then three turn up all at once. I have mixed feelings about this. I mean: "Inclusivity! Yeah!" But ... "Advertising! Ewww!" I defintely could stand to have a lot less advertising in my life, not more (and indeed, I make mighty efforts to avoid it). Anyway, discussion, articles and examples are all here with us this month, and hopefully you learn more than just where to get that perfect Christmas present.
And now for a word from our sponsor …
Podcasts
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Close Up With Anthony Marciona, Live Audio Describer And Actor (The Dark Room)
Alex and Lee chat with Anthony Marciona, a live audio describer and actor who has been in show business for over 50 years. In our discussion, Anthony discusses the nuanced similarities and differences between being an audio describer and an actor.
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Celebrating Stephen King (The Dark Room)
Alex & Lee celebrate the legacy of the prolific Stephen King by reviewing his four theatrical adaptations from 2025 and some of their personal favorites. They also go into some industry talk about the current and future state of Warner Bros.
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Story Over Sight: Rethinking Audio Description with Alison Eardley (The ADNA Presents)
What happens when we stop treating audio description as an afterthought, and start treating it as storytelling?
In this episode of The ADNA Presents, Roy Samuelson sits down with researcher and accessibility innovator Alison Eardley, whose work reshapes how museums understand inclusion, perception, and the power of narrative.
Allison reveals why audio description guides attention, builds emotional journeys, and creates experiences where everyone belongs. SO much more than visuals. She shares how pan-disabled co-creation transforms design, why “neutrality” is a myth, and how a patch of living moss became one of the most compelling examples of inclusive storytelling you've ever heard.
Whether you're in film, television, museums, or simply obsessed with great narratives, this conversation will expand how you think about sensory experience-and why AD has the potential to enrich everyone's engagement, not just those who rely on it.
It's warm, thoughtful, surprising, and full of perspective shifts you'll carry with you into your next project.
Articles
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Inclusive Advertising: the Next Competitive Edge (Roy Samuelson)
If your advertisement can make someone cry, but leaves a blind viewer guessing who’s even on screen, you’re missing a loyal and unrepresented audience.
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Ask the experts: Inclusive ads for blind and low-vision audiences (MSU Today)
People who experience blindness and visual impairments purchase products just like those who have sight, but advertisers have often overlooked this group in the past. Now, more advertisers are designing inclusive strategies that prioritize accessibility for people with different sensory experiences.
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Universal Children’s Day 2025: Access is a right, not a favour (The Guardian (Trinidad & Tobago))
With Universal Children’s Day, a day meant to celebrate every child’s right to learn, play, and participate, I can’t help but think about how often those rights still depend on who the child is and what the world was built to exclude.
Research Papers
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Audio Description and Homoeroticism in the Miniseries Fellow Travelers
This study analyzes the audio description (AD) of sexual sequences in the television series Fellow Travelers.
A central premise of the study is that contemporary telefiction draws from pornographic aesthetics to explore aspects of queer subjectivity and sexuality that earlier television narratives often neglected. To address this complexity, the study aims to complement the traditional narrative approach in AD with two additional approaches: the reflective and affect approaches.
Social Media
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Audio Describing Frankenstein in Italian (LinkedIn)
Francesca describes the minutae of detail that goes into describing.
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Amazing Comittment to Visual Access! (Inclusive Advertising) (LinkedIn)
Articles celebrating described campaigns — like the one below about the Matalan "It's Showtime" ad — demonstrate a huge oversight: they credit dozens of team members but omit the audio description writer and narrator.
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Writing Audio Description for a Children's Series (LinkedIn)
Writing audio description (AD) for a children’s series is both exciting and challenging. It’s not only because of the lively motion pictures in every shot and scene, but also because the show is full of expressive dialogues, cheerful voices, and funny sound effects that are truly delightful to listen to.
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Digital Accessibility Ethics (LinkedIn)
I am deeply honored — and genuinely thrilled — to share that I’ve contributed to a groundbreaking new book, Digital Accessibility Ethics: Disability Inclusion in All Things Tech, an edited global collection featuring thirty-two chapters by thirty-six authors from ten countries and one commonwealth.
Video
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2025 Audio Description Awards Gala (American Council of the Blind)
Created in 2021 to recognize outstanding achievement in audio description in entertainment and educational media, the Awards Gala features celebrity guests, film clips, and awards. The broadcast of the show includes captions, audio description, and ASL interpretation. A Spanish broadcast is also available on ACB’s YouTube channel.
Join hosts Alie B. Gorrie and Ashley J. Hicks as they welcome guests from the arts, entertainment, and sports worlds to celebrate accessible films, series, video games, and more.
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“Where Love Lives” John Lewis & Partners Christmas Advert (YouTube)
Looking anxious, a teenage boy leaves the living room while his dad discovers an unopened present amongst wrapping paper beneath the Christmas tree. There's a sticky note on the front with "Dad" written on it and a smiley face.
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“The Perfect Gift” Waitrose & Partners Christmas Advert (YouTube)
“The Perfect Gift” a Christmas romcom we never knew we needed. A Christmas advertisement for Waitrose, a British supermarket chain.
When Phil, an ordinary guy with a quiet life, runs into the film star of his dreams at the cheese counter he can’t believe his luck — or his nerves. What begins as a mutual love of cheese turns into an unexpected connection.
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Matalan “It's Showtime” Ad (YouTube)
“It's Showtime!” A Christmas advertisement for Matalan Retail, a British clothing and homewares retailer.
Audio Description Introductions
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Tinsel Town - AD Introduction (Sky)
The film follows an aging washed up Hollywood actor, Bradley Mack who is played by Kiefer Sutherland. He stars in a run of action movies, but his career is dwindling, and his agent suggests he should go to England to be the star in a theatre show. His daughter also lives in London with his ex-wife.
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The Iris Affair - AD Introduction (Sky)
The Iris Affair is a six-part thriller where puzzles, power and morality collide. The story unfolds across bustling Italian cities, quiet coastal towns in Sardinia and the barren mountain landscape surrounding an isolated research bunker in Slovenia.
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The Death of Bunny Munro - AD Introduction (Sky)
The death of Bunny Munro is a Clerkenwell Films production in association with Sky Studios and based on a novel by Nick Cave. It’s darkly twisted protagonist, Bunny Munro (Matt Smith), is a swaggeringly handsome lothario with rampant sex addiction. His son, Bunny Junior (Rafael Mattie) idolises him.