Shane 0:00 – Continuing the live panel

What's going on my name is Shane Lowe, producer of "Scene Change" and I would like to welcome you to part two of our audio description live panel recorded last July at the 2021, National Federation of the Blind national convention. We hope you enjoy it, and don't forget to check out the other episodes of "Scene Change" available as well, we put one out the 15th of every month. So stay tuned to our YouTube, our anchor and anywhere else to get your podcasts for more episodes of "Scene Change".

0:41 – Intro

Welcome to "Scene Change", a podcast by the National Federation of the Blind Performing Arts division. All about equality, opportunity, accessibility, and the arts. Here, you'll learn about the techniques from performers in the know. We are changing what it means to be blind at one stage at a time. Thank you for joining us today.

Lizzy 1:11 – Theaters starting out with audio description

So Joel, when a theater is starting out with something like audio description, would they sort of contact you and take one of your classes or—

Joel

Right 

Lizzy

or your online resources? Sort of like enough for them to be able to?

Joel

That's one component, certainly, everything ever said is right on, but yes, you need to be sure that the people to do the description are well trained. There's a big, big difference between description that distracts and description that enhances, and you need to have people who know how to do that description, I often times think the best way is to do it in person. That's where much of my travel comes from by providing that training, but that's another reason why the book is out there the visual made verbal, and then yes, there are more online training opportunities now, given the COVID crisis and such. So yeah, they need to know, and if they haven't invested already in eliciting equipment, they need to have that equipment. Often times that same equipment can be used for audio description if it's a dual channel, and you know, there is expense, but it's a matter of priorities. Do you want to be inclusive? Are you open to the public, meaning everybody in the public? Well, you need to be inclusive than you need to be accommodations. Grants are available, private from private companies, individuals, foundations, and government money as well. That will help jump start a program. It's readily available, and I would encourage folks to explore that.

Lizzy

This is awesome, and I did not forget about my other question for you Joel. I still have that here, but I would like to check in and see if there are any more questions from the audience

Katelyn

So I have have a few and I thought I would kind of combine do you want me to ask all three of them right now or just one at a time

Lizzy

Just ask one, we have time

Katelyn 3:00 – Where do you sign up for the class

So real quick, Ryder was wondering where you sign up for the class that was mentioned earlier?

Joel

Oh

Katelyn

For blind people

Joel

Yeah. The, she's referring perhaps, to my class,-- Absolutely. August 2nd through 6th will be five half day, and I would simply go to the audio description project website. There's a big article there about it, and it'll give you a link to sign up for the class. It'll be virtual. This time, of course, acb.org, slash ADP Roy to provide your information about doing the voicing?

Roy

Sure. So right now I'm using a an email address, just to get things going. It's my name at Hey, hey.com, that's RoySamuelson at H-E-Y dot com.

Shane 3:55 – Giving the email address

Hi, this is Shane, the producer of "scene change", and I wanted to pause that just for a second because there were a couple of internet breaks that we weren't able to fix. That email address is Roy samuelson@hey.com.

Roy

And I'd also like to say how important that this is just for the voicing. It's taking those scripts that that Joel and his team have crafted and bringing those to life in a way that doesn't get in the way. It's a it's a nuanced performance. It's a lot to do with when writing is done. So great. You can imagine going to a Shakespeare play, and at the end of the the first act, when intermission comes you could be crying because you're so moved by the performances. Or you could be crying because you do not want to enter this theater again, for the second half.

Joel

That’s true

Roy

The writing is the same the writing is Shakespearean and it's the same writing but a bad performance can make it horrible, and in the same way, I think that that's a fair comparison to when it comes to to voicing and obviously that that's my focus, but beyond my own efforts, it's making sure that blind people are included in this and not just, hey, I've got a good voice. The the work that goes into performance, specifically in voice is not just having a good voice in the same way that a concert pianist is not going to be said, Oh, that was such a great concerto. Where did you get your manicure? It doesn't make sense. So like, there's a lot of work that goes into it, and I think that with this pandemic that we're coming out of, there's so many opportunities for virtual training, whether it's taking an improv class, I know that the actors access Academy that is a part of NFB does train blind people and that's all about intention. It's all about what that performance is and audio description is not less of performance, it's more wire act, it's that sort of thing, and when it comes to ensure that blind professionals are in this work, that's incredibly important, and making sure that they're paid their value that as audio description grows, beyond the mandate, that absolutely necessary mandate that the FCC has given us that was for all the content that we have. Beyond the mandate, there are technological advances and cultural shifts that allow this work to not how cheap can we make it but how great can we make it and to see it as the opportunity that it is to make it as great as it can parody decided audiences so that's--, I'm sorry, how many soap boxes am I allowed?

Lizzy

You are allowed all the boxes today. So we've thrown all the soap boxes, actually, when you're standing on them. So um, so Katelyn

Katelyn

Next question?

Lizzy

Yes

Katelyn

Okay, I actually have a few more. So all right, so I'm going to kind of combine a few into one here because—

Lizzy

Honestly, honestly you’re good

Katelyn 6:46 – How do you decide what audio description to use

I think they work together. There are a few questions about how do you decide what audio description to use? What words to use for the script, especially in certain situations, such as an animated movie where there's a ton of action happened all really fast, and all kinds of stuff doesn't have to be animated any kind of action movie where there's tons of stuff happening. Or the commercials that were mentioned earlier where it's all words, how do you fit that in? Or something like Hamilton, that has, you know, song after song after song? Where do you fit in the audio description? And how do you decide what to say and what to use?

Lizzy

You know what, Katelyn, I love that question, because that fits right into the question that I wanted to ask Joel and the way that I look at it was how do you write so much in such a short amount of time.

Joel

But you know, it's not a matter of so much as in quantity, it's really is about the quality of the words that you choose. The great 17th century, French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote a long letter to a friend and ended it with, 'I've only made this letter longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.' Audio describers must know how to edit how to get the bang buck. Rather than we say, walk in the time that it takes to say walk you can tell somebody what they're doing and how they're doing it. If you say prance, stroll, or whatever. So it's about language to a great extent, and, you know, some questions then about, well, how do you decide what to describe? Well, that's really important. That's second fundamental, and what I tell people is to ask themselves, what is most critical to an understanding, he points to his head, and an appreciation, his hand is on his heart of the visual image, zero in on that, let everything else go. Just like Everette said, you know, you don't, you can't, you simply can't get everything in there. Explain everything that's happening visually. So you have to be selective. A picture's worth 1000 words, aha, maybe? I have not. I've yet to meet a blind person who wants to hear somebody describe a picture with 1000 words, you know. So I think the describer would say that a few well chosen words will be most effective at creating an image in the mind's eye.

Lizzy

That's very true. I don't even know if I want a picture described in 100 words, I'm very much up to the point. You know what I mean? Like, all right, all right. Let's-- do you have any more?

Katelyn

Yes. So I'm kind of similarly on that. I don't know if there's anything more to be said, but how do you you know, strike the balance during music performances?

Lizzy
About Hamilton specifically

Katelyn

How do you strike that balance of talking when there is singing or other talking going on

Joel

Yeah, it's a similar kind of thing. You're right, Katelyn, the the often times you will let a chorus be sung for a musical in particular, obviously, and, and when the chorus is repeated, you use that time to provide precious words of description, you know, there are going to be choruses and then refrains, and there often times is space, within or between, where you can provide description. People go to a musical people go to an opera, to hear the music. So you want you don't want to get in the way, less is more you want to enhance, not distract.

Lizzy

I totally agree with that.

Katelyn

I just have to say, Pittsburgh opera, they provided audio description, and it was fabulous. I was the first time I'd ever been to an opera with audio description, and I loved it. So it can be done, and it can be done well. Yes, a couple more. So—

Lizzy

How many?

Katelyn

Two more for now

Lizzy 10:53 – Society of Voice Arts and Sciences

Okay, so I'm gonna jump in with a question, then we'll turn it back to Katelyn, and then we'll see these raised hands. Thank you guys for being so patient. Um so both Joel and Roy, are familiar with the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences. They do grant awards, and they've recently created a new category, which includes audio description, which Roy was nominated for in 2019. So first of all, start with Joel, because I believe this is this will be your first year attending is that right Joel?

Joel

First year with audio description, recognizing audio describers, and, in fact, I'll be doing a session on YouTube about that, this evening. You can look it up under sovas. S-O-V-A-S dot com. I believe that I might be wrong about that it might be dot org, but that's the neat thing. Rudy Gaskins runs, some of us, has just been amazingly wonderful at being inclusive, and understanding that audio description is a critical part of the media production, and we need that kind of visibility, forgive the expression, if you will, to get to get it understood more, and to get more of it. So sovas s-o-v-a-s Roy, you can add to that I'm sure.

Roy

About three years ago, I submitted for a sovas award for an audio description track for a narration cat in the narration category for that exact purpose, it was to outreach into the entertainment, I noticed that there was that connection, that means so much when it comes to our audiences and the entertainment industry, and there were a lot of companies that were doing it super well, but what about those other opportunities they might not be aware. So as of, I think a few years ago, maybe last year, there were more submissions, and beginning this year, and beyond just a phone call Rudy and I have had countless hours of conversations and advice and, and consulting and advising, and you know, with Joel's help, he's also created the audio description for a promo piece that came out within the last few weeks, but these are the sorts of things that make such a difference that these connections with the entertainment industry, I believe, does help, it makes something a little more aware, I mean, the audio description Awareness Day, we're going to, in 10 months celebrate our third year of the audio description Awareness Day, and these are the kinds of connections that we can continue to forge, and as Joel said, Rudy has been emblematic and like modeling how this how this connection can can make a difference. He's including all text, he's making sure to capitalize the first letter of every hashtag. He's making sure that the videos do have audio description, we went through his website for submissions, we talked about, if there's going to be judges for these new categories, the three new categories to make sure that there's blind judges that are included in it. It's not just a bunch of sighted people. So these are the sorts of conversations that are now happening, and I think with the technology opportunities, as well as the cultural shifts when it comes to performance with disabilities, that these are the kinds of things that I just get so excited about.

Lizzy 14:10 – The benefits of having audio description awards

Everette what do you think the benefits are of having such an event of including the category of audio description, in awards, such as this?

Everette

Roy said it so well, Roy actually helped me become a judge for an upcoming sovas award. So I'm, I'm now listed at that, and it's exactly what Roy said, inclusion. We need to be included in these especially we're the consumers, getting this content consuming this content. So why shouldn't we have a say in what we like and what we dislike, and I think it's important for us to have that opportunity and have that voice out there. So that's, I'm excited about that and excited about the future of awards like this. I think it's very beneficial, very needed, and overdue.

Lizzy 15:01 – Do awards already exist?

Long overdue. Now I'm not familiar do they already have, for example, audio description awards for things? Like, I don't even know if this would be like, appropriate for things like the Emmys or the Oscars? Like, if there was a company who described, you know, a certain movie, like would would they sort of have a, you know, describer versus describers sort of kind of a thing?

Joel

Well, from, from your lips to God's ears, Lizzie, we, the only description crutch was working hard on that we've been in touch with the motion picture Academy to plant the seed for recognition of audio description is and I think, I think will bear fruit sooner than later. Even I'm not sure I'm not counting my chickens, but I will say that about. I'm gonna say 20 years ago, 25 years ago, the Emmys did acknowledge at least the creation of audio description and its promulgation on television, and they awarded four honorary Emmys to the narrative television network to W GBH to the Washington Ear, and I'm forgetting the fourth ouch, but there were four Emmys. Maybe it was those three, and and that was, that was the beginning of some recognition, but it's long overdue to really have it become more mainstream.

Lizzy

Wow. Well, maybe one of my last questions is what do you think the future of audio description is? And that very well could be it, especially if everyone collaborates? And we really push for it? You know? And Katelyn, questions from the audience your questions

Katelyn 16:50 – Audio description for music videos and youtube

Yeah, sure, yeah. So one question about sort of two aspects two things people are wondering, what about audio description for music videos? Is there anything for that? And also, how do you get if you can get audio description on YouTube?

Joel

The end all and be all up description for music video, is really again, from a blind person, Stevie Wonder created 'So what the fuss' was first, or maybe the second I've got a good friend, Jeff Moyer, also blind who did a description for one of his videos, but Stevie's gets a good bit of play. Music Video, 'so what the fuss' was written by W GBH under Stevie's supervision, and then, you know, it's like what we call integrated description. You can't watch the music video without it, the music video and the description are of a piece, and Stevie even had the rapper, Busta Rhymes, voice the description, because it just made sense. To do that it I recommended highly, just put that in the Google. 'So what the fuss' Stevie Wonder, and if you have trouble finding with, I'm not sure you can even find it without description, but if you can't, I will send it to you. I put my email address in the in the chat music video. It begins and ends with with Stevie. I think with YouTube, it's a little trickier. Our friends at the Smith Kettlewell Institute in San Francisco, developed something called you describe, which allows folks to upload to the cloud, something like a YouTube, any YouTube video, and anybody can hopefully with some training, go to that individual video, write description, and then download them and pair them together. That that's otherwise, you know, there are so many what billions of YouTube videos, they're not going to get described commercially. So that's one thing. The other thing that I would ask you all to lobby for is that YouTube, Facebook, all of those streaming services need to use video players that allow you to toggle on and off audio description. They exist. They're out there, and all of them have a toggle switch for captions for audio description, and that future of audio description all those video players should have that it should be just a matter of course.

Everette

Yeah, that's the thing. We've we've been working on hard with Google, whom owns Youtube we we've been lobbying hard with them about that, and I think we're going to see something about that very, very soon from what I'm hearing from Google, then and Joel exactly right. Youdescribe.org is that website. So it's it's all spelled out y o u? The full word describe.org. So and it's it's it's a lot of fun. I do agree with Joel. I think it's better if a describer is trained before they just go ahead and write whatever description it helps a lot, because I don't think like my if my dad tried to describe something, it wouldn't work. You know, you definitely need someone to have a little bit of training.

Lizzy

Wow, that's, that's when I think about I'm still stuck on the Busta Rhymes, Stevie Wonder, because I hadn't heard about that one before, but I'm just picturing it in my head, and I just been like, I'm picturing Busta's voice with Stevie's like, you know, soulful singing, and Busta's very raw, and it's just interesting. So I honestly, I'm enjoying talking to you all, but I can't wait to go look at them.

Katelyn 20:43 – So what is being done?

So let me get my head back in the game. This one takes a similar direction, but a little bit different. What, if anything, is being done? Since the fact that the FCC only mandates 60 or 70? You know, top markets have audio description? What do you do that so much of the rest of the country is being left out?

Lizzy

Everette you want to take it?

Everette

Sure you, you need to lobby, you've got you, if you're in a market that's not getting audio description, you've got to, you've got to get your voice heard you say you've got to talk with the FCC. Will Schell is the person you want to talk to he handles any kind of complaints coming from the FCC. I'm happy to give you his email, I don't have it right off the top of my head, but I'll send it out to you. His name is Will Schell, though, and I know you can find his email his contact info@fcc.org, but he will take those complaints. There is official forms that you can fill out in the FCC, but I like to go right to will, and the more complaints that Will get the more he can start doing things with that, and I I also think it's going to be Congress, we're going to have to lobby Congress to do this because the FCC can only do so much, and your Congress has to do the rest for us, and that's that's what we pay them or we vote them in to do that job, and they get paid to do that job for us, and we just need to remind them that that on a consistent basis.

Joel

I want to tag on to that. That's so critical. Everything Everette said was right on point, but you know, the reason we have audio description on television at all, is because the FCC promulgated a rule in the year 2000 that mandated it. Well, that rule was not sanctioned by Congress. So it was struck down in the courts, but in 2010, President Obama signed the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, great, you know, it put those rules back in there, but the rules require, even now, you know, some some years later, even now, it's only it's seven hours per week, for the top nine broadcasters at only in 60 metropolitan areas, and the law doesn't allow for increases beyond that. So whatever it said about Congress is critical. We make no progress really, in the last four years, I think in this new administration. Now not to get political with y'all. It's just it's just reality, I think now is the time to join with the NFB, the ACB, AFB to push for a CVAA 2.0, that not only will mandate war jurisdictions, they will mandate more hours and they'll put in as they did with captioning 40 years ago, they'll put in a requirement that the level must increase every year by a certain percentage, seven, that's what captioning does, and, and that's what the law did, and we are now at 100% of programs have captioning. Seven hours per week, nine broadcasters does not even equal 1% of all broadcasts out there. The UK is mandated at 10% and they do 20% of all broadcasts have audio description, and if I may, one other point, you know, because there was some talk yet one of there was some talk about you know the expense and such, oh my goodness, the expense to produce description is miniscule compared to just the catering budget of a film. I it that is an absolute fact, and the reason I stress that is because there is a movement that will bring more and more use of text to speech to the audio description production process. Ultimately, that puts out of business. Every blind person out there, who has been trained and does wonderful work as a voice talent. It puts Roy out of business. It puts me out of business to a certain extent, you know, text to speech has its place, and people are buying use it all the time. Used to be, of course, Jaws or Window Eyes or whatever, but for feature films for dramas for narratives, whether they were produced years ago, when they're produced now, you require the nuance that a human voice talent brings to description, and that synergy between the writer and the voice talent. There's no text to speech program out there that does that, and we need to be aware of that, because, you know, it may be that it's coming, and it is already here. For many of Amazon's past videos. We don't want to see it expand further. That's my true belief.

Lizzy

Yeah, I mean, that's, that's fair. Um, let's see, Katelyn, was that all of your—

Katelyn 25:59 – Is Joel’s class mainly for people wanting to write or voice audio descriptions

Quick question for Joel was the class, mainly for people wanting to write the audio descriptions or voice the audio descriptions.

Joel

It's primarily for folks who want to write, but that includes people who are blind, who work as audio description consultants. As I mentioned before we touch on the voicing, but if someone is really strictly interested in in voicing, I send them to Roy, but Roy knows, of course, that the best voice talents, understand what goes into the crafting of audio description. So Roy might send it back to me after he's, I don't know, but you know, so it really we cover all of it, but if it for advanced work, let's put it this way. In vocal skills. Roy Samuelson's the man.

Lizzy

You see, what I'm picking up from this entire episod