What Is Audio Description?
Versión en español: https://csnmediatv.wordpress.com/2016/03/27/que-es-la-audiodescripcion/
Audio Description: «A practice that consists of the adaptation of audiovisual content for the blind and visually impaired through descriptions of images, which are narrated during periods in which there is no dialogue and whose sole purpose is to allow the public to enjoy any television, film or theatrical content without barriers.”
Audio description is like a book: everyone will imagine their own characters and settings by relating them to their own experiences and their bank of sense perceptions – what they have lived, in other words. No audio description is universal, nor will it have the same scope or meaning for all audiences.
How Is It Done?
Through descriptions of images during times in which there is no dialogue between the characters.
Example:
Audio Description: It’s a sunny day in a café, where Francisco and a young blonde woman are conversing at their table. Outside, a group of people dressed in red are protesting against a company. The waiter approaches and gives them the menu.
(Waiter)
“Good afternoon. Today’s special is steak in mango sauce, with a side of steamed vegetables.”
Audio Description: Francisco thinks for a moment while the blonde woman points to a photo on the menu…
The blind and visually impaired, just like us, enjoy television, film, theater and culture in general. Audio description is an intersemiotic translation and adaptation practice that allows them to enjoy a movie or TV show, just as a sighted person would.
Audio description is a narrative voice that explains and describes the images onscreen to the blind and visually impaired so that they can comprehend the product as a harmonic whole, facilitating their understanding of the audiovisual product through descriptions of shots, camera movements, scenery and changes of place, time and action.
Audio description, like closed captioning for the deaf and hearing impaired, is an accessibility practice for audiovisual media that promotes inclusivity through the right of people with disabilities to access information and entertainment.
One could assume that it is easy to describe images, but writing an audio description script is not simply a question of registering what sighted people would perceive. One needs to understand and involve oneself in the world of people with visual disabilities (the audience) and to have knowledge of cinematic language and intersemiotic translation to provide good results. This is therefore a practice that must be in the hands of those who have comprehensive knowledge of these subjects.
Fortunately, VOD platforms have slowly begun to incorporate audio description for their content, above all in English, but very little Spanish-language audio description has been done until now. Nevertheless, we are confident that it will become a necessary practice for film, television, VOD platforms, theater and cultural environments such as museums and sporting events.
We invite you to visit the following link, where you can learn more about the scope of Audio description in Mexico, in which we all have the right to fully enjoy entertainment and information.
If you are interested in a quote for Audio description services, you can write to us at contacto@csnmedia.tv or via instant messaging. We have extensive experience in AD scripts and postproduction.
All opinions and information are the responsibility and authorship of CSN MEDIA, with the exception of those images used in a didactic fashion. Video: Cine para Imaginar.
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