We’re Off to Hear the Wizard (Redux)

I thought I’d share an article I wrote for the ACB Ohio’s newsletter last summer:

Last week, as I was preparing to provide live audio description for the CAPA Summer Movie Series presentation of “The Wizard of Oz” I was reminded of an episode from my childhood. Back in the dark ages, before we had streaming video, DVDs or even video cassettes, the annual broadcast of perennial favorites such as “The Wizard of Oz” was a very big deal. There were two nights a year our family ate on tray tables in front of the TV and one of those nights was when “The Wizard of Oz” was on.

One year I was being punished for some childhood transgression or other and I was not allowed to see “The Wizard of Oz”, which — for the sake of this tale — you should know I had seen several times before. However by the night of the broadcast, my mother was feeling sorry for me and allowed me to sit beside the closed door to the den, where my sister and father were watching the movie with the sound turned way up — on eleven, as the lads from Spinal Tap might say — while my mother kept me company in the kitchen. With the music, sound effects and dialogue as my cues I proceeded, from memory, to regale my mother with details of all the visuals I was missing. And so, upon reflection, I suppose that’s when my career as a nascent audio describer began…

Now to those of you familiar with audio description, this tale actually is a bit backwards with regards to how an audio describer works and for those of you who are not, allow me to explain. An audio describer creates a supplemental narrative by describing the visual details and actions in a movie or performance that would otherwise be inaccessible to audience members who are blind, low vision or otherwise visually impaired. Audio describers also describe art work and other types of exhibits in museums, parks, landmarks, educational materials, sporting events — pretty much any visual content you can think of. Audio description is just that: description. A good audio describer provides the imagery using language but does not interpret the material being described. It is our job to allow you, the audience, to have the story unfold with all of its nuances as the director intended and to experience art and exhibits so that you can draw your own conclusions.

So, what’s actually involved in creating audio description for a performance? The first thing that is necessary is to preview the performance or movie. Ideally I like to see something three times. The first time just to see it and understand the flow of the story and action. The second time is to make notes on the action and visual details and the third time, at least when I’m working on a film, is to work out the audio description in the context of the action. There’s a lot of stopping and starting when I work on a movie. Unfortunately when I work on a theatrical performance, my time line is very compressed. I generally preview the show one time, maybe four or five days prior to the performance I’ll be describing, before I begin writing the audio description and pre-show program notes. By getting a copy of the script in advance, I’m able to acquaint myself with the characters and the flow of the show before previewing. The night I’m in the theater I keep one eye on the stage and the other on my notebook as I scribble details about the costumes and sets. I supplement my notes with photos from the production’s website.

Unlike the pre-taped audio description you might hear on TV, at a live performance (or in the case of something like a movie festival where the audio description may be provided live) we have the luxury of spending the half hour prior to the show to give more detailed descriptions of the characters, costumes, scenery and sets as well as pertinent information from the printed program. These notes generally run less than half an hour and are repeated as time allows until the curtain goes up.

Between previewing, reading and writing my description, I generally spend at least 16 hours to prepare for a show. So when a venue requires that patrons make accommodation requests a certain length of time before a performance, please understand that they need time to locate an audio describer and the audio describer, once booked, needs time to prepare so that you can have the best possible experience.

Many venues provide audio description upon request as opposed to having a set performance time that will have audio description. You can always request audio description for a performance by calling the box office. If the box office cannot handle your request simply ask to whom you should speak and ask for the best way to contact that person. Many museums have audio descriptions of select items from their collections on their websites. The Audio Description Project has many resources listed on their website http://acb.org/adp/.

Don’t be afraid to request access. If you are already an audio description consumer, please be sure to give feedback to the theater (or museum or television station, etc) so that they understand what it means to you to have this access. You can do this either by posting on social media, making a phone call, sending an email or going old-school and sending a note via snail mail. If possible, try to get some feedback to the audio describer. We can provide better description when we have a better understanding of what our audience wants. Not everyone is the same, so not everyone may want the same level of detail and you may like some audio describers better than others. But, hey, that’s a horse of a different color!

Belated Happy Birthday, Helen Keller!

Happy Birthday Helen Keller: June 27, 1880

image001

Photo courtesy of the American Foundation for the Blind Helen Keller Archives

This 1955 black and white photograph shows Helen Keller, on her 75th birthday, assisted by Polly Thomson (secretary and companion) serving birthday cake.
In this black and white photograph, two older women stand shoulder to shoulder behind a lace covered table. On the table is a three-tiered cake decorated with icing flowers and swags and a single small slender lit candle. A stack of small plates with dark patterned rims sits to the left of the cake.

The woman on the left, Helen Keller, is a few inches taller than the woman on the right. Her face is cast slightly downwards. Her eyes are open yet her gaze is not fixed upon anything within the picture frame. Her is mouth opened in a smile. Helen’s dark wavy hair is parted on the left and pulled back from her face. Short waves of whiter hair flanking the part frame her face. Her light-colored damask, short-sleeved dress has a V-shaped neckline that is both wide and deep. It covers her shoulders and dips down to just above her breasts. She wears a triple strand of round white pearls around the base of her neck. Her right arm, bent at the elbow, reaches forward slightly as the broad bladed cake knife in her right hand poises between icing flowers atop the cake, its tip just behind the lone birthday candle. The knife obscures the writing on the far side of the candle but two words, one above the other, are visible on the near side: Birthday Helen.

The woman on the right, Polly Thomson, is wearing a darker dress of the same style and similar fabric except for the sleeves on which are fuller and pouf out at the banded cuff just above the elbow. Her hair is darker than Helen’s and is also worn in waves pulled off the face and parted on the left. With her chin tucked in, Polly’s head tips down toward the cake. Her downcast eyes direct our attention to the cake and the four hands of the women.

Both of Polly’s arms are held in towards her body and are bent at the elbows. Her right arm crosses in front of Helen’s left arm, seen just between the two women’s bodies and below Polly’s right elbow. Polly’s right hand reaches across Helen’s waist as she holds, her fingers gently grasping, the top of Helen’s right hand as Helen cuts the cake. Polly’s lower left arm crosses her body as she loosely holds Helen’s left hand in hers.

The touching right hands and forearms of the women create a V shape at Helen’s waistline, above and to the left of the cake. Their touching left hands and forearms create a smaller V shape, echoing the first, at Polly’s waistline. The down-turned heads and points of the V that are created by the hands direct our attention to the cake.

In the background on the left, behind Helen’s right shoulder, is a candle in a wall sconce. To the right of the sconce, we see the top left corner of the narrow black frame of a picture or document, the glare from the flash bulb obscuring its contents. In the lower left, below Helen’s right elbow the upper left of the dark wooden frame of a shield-backed chair is seen. Between the women and behind Polly on the right, are indistinct dark shadowy shapes resulting from the photographer’s flash.

 

 

 

eyeDESCRIBE a portfolio of images in words

Today is Helen Keller’s birthday.  She would be 137 years old today.  And I am thinking that she would be amazed at the technological advances we all take for granted today.  Things too myriad to mention although I will mention one:  screen readers.  Screen readers that enable people who cannot see to use the Internet, read books, magazines and documents and to share more fully in our common culture.   Screen readers that I hope will be making this blog accessible.  So I am also thinking that this is a good day to launch this blog.

In this space, I will be sharing as some of the descriptions of people, places and things that I have written as well as some of my experiences an audio describer.  For now, it is my intent to post on a weekly basis.  A description of the photograph at the top of this page is below.

The photograph at the top of this post shows the back of a seated woman, seen from the waist up.  She sits, in the center of the photograph, within a darkened rectangle beneath a red swag with gold fringe and above a gently curved railing high above rows of red velvet seats.  A light from above highlights her white hair, bare shoulder and back of her dark blue top.  The white glow of the corner of a small screen is seen to her left, below her shoulder and above the railing.  The rectangular opening fills the right half of the space beneath the swag with its five ruched or gathered sections.  Red panels fill the left half.  There are two square columns to the right of the darkened rectangle where the woman sits.  They have gilding on their framework as well as the scrolling details at their capitals and their square bases.  Gracing the arched frame over the scalloped red swag above the box where the woman sits is more gilding. Another smaller swag arches over the narrow opening between the two columns.

Below the booth where the woman sits, a curved railing with vertical lozenge shaped cutouts.  The lozenge-shaped cutouts are surrounded by more gilding and resemble block Os.  The railing is divided wider, plainer panels into sections of three Os.  There are three full sections visible.

Below the railing, a wedge of steep rows of empty red velvet theater seats rises from the lower left corner to fill most of the lower half of the picture.  A small triangular area of gold fills the lower left from the corner up to the horizontal line of the bottom of the railing.

The walls, panels and swagging all have a busy scrolling pattern of gold on a red background.  It is barely discernible on the swags with their series of shallow U-shaped folds or the wall beneath the railing where a trick of the light and the proximity of the solid red seat make it appear more gold than red but can be clearly seen in the wash of light in the narrow passageway between the square columns in the upper right.