Disability and Progress- February 12, 2026-The Visual Made Verbal!

[00:00:00] Speaker A: KPI.org. [00:00:59] Speaker B: Greetings and thank you for joining Disability and Progress, where we bring you insights into ideas about and discussions on disability topics. My name is Sam. I'm the host of this show. Charlene Dahl is my research PR person is feeling a little under the weather today. We are here to remind you that we are podcasted and are on archives for two weeks. But if you want to hear our podcasts or want to hear this show after, just tell your big brother speaker to play the latest episode of Disability in progress. Tonight we speak with Joel Snyder. Joel's a PhD and author of the Visual Made Verbal, A Comprehensive Training Manual and Guide to the History and Applications of Audio description. Joel, how are you? All right. Thank you so much. Can you hear me? [00:02:03] Speaker A: Wasn't sure if you could hear me. [00:02:05] Speaker B: I can hear you. [00:02:06] Speaker A: Wonderful. [00:02:07] Speaker B: Thank you so much. [00:02:08] Speaker A: Thank you for having me. [00:02:09] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. So I want to start out by having you give us a little bit of history about you before you got into Audio Description. And leading up to that, just like. [00:02:23] Speaker A: A. Oh, sure, sure. Well, my background is principally in professional theater and media. Ever since I was little, I wanted to be on the stage. And part of that is just using. Using my voice, obviously. And when I was. Golly, when I was an undergraduate in. In college, I had the opportunity to read books for a blind college student, University of Maryland. Yeah. And that led to doing some recording talking books for the Library of Congress. [00:03:03] Speaker B: Okay. [00:03:03] Speaker A: Here in the Washington, D.C. area. And that led to my learning about the Washington Ear, which is a radio reading service. Sam, you probably know all about those reading. Radio reading services. [00:03:18] Speaker B: Yes. [00:03:19] Speaker A: And it allows, of course, people who are blind or otherwise, where print is inaccessible, they can hear the newspaper being read to them or magazines and such. And I auditioned and was thrilled to be accepted as a reader. My assignment, my principal assignment was the Washington Post on Sunday. And I remember even back then in the 70s, when we got to a picture, a photograph or a illustration, a graphic, gee, what do we do there? You can't read that. And we would just describe it, obviously, but there was no such thing as audio description, a formal kind of way of describing images. We just sort of did it off the cuff. And I was there at the Washington ear. And around 1980, the founder of the ear, Dr. Margaret Fansteel, a blind woman, was on a committee at Areta Stage, the main regional theater here in the D.C. area. She was on an accessibility committee. And that was rarely done in those days especially. But there was one meeting where the theater introduced assisted listening. Wow. This is a new thing. Of course, it's ubiquitous now. But assisted listening, the sounds more accessible to people with hearing loss. And Margaret figured, well, if it's just a microphone on the stage, why couldn't you have a second channel and have a microphone off the stage where a person could describe what's going on using the pauses between bits and pieces of dialogue? And Arena Stage said, well, we've never heard of that. And Margaret said, I've never heard of anything. It didn't exist. But she came back to the arena, was willing to give it a shot. She came back to the studio, she grabbed me. I had a background in theater, an English teacher and such, and a couple of others. And we hammered this out. What would we do? What would we call it? Audio Description. And in 1981, in the summer, the world's first ongoing audio description service was born, describing a production of Major Barbara at Arena Stage. So it began in performing art. Sam. [00:05:43] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. 81. Wow. And so then, if for all those who kind of now have the idea of audio description, so talk a little bit about how the audio description is different from closed captioning. [00:06:00] Speaker A: Oh, sure. Well, of course, they're kind of mirror images, in a sense, closed captioning. And of course, the general public knows about closed captions because they see them on television for when maybe they're in a bar or they're at the gym. And those closed captions allow sounds to be rendered in a form that's accessible to people who are deaf. So closed captions are not just the words that you hear, but sounds. And they're rendered into text that a deaf person can. Can see. A blind person, of course, or someone with low vision. The captions are not going to help so much. They might to extent, but description is really a separate audio track that's added into a program, once again, using traditional audio description, using the pauses between bits and pieces of dialogue. So it's, it's a, an audio thing, whereas closed captions are. Are visual. [00:07:07] Speaker B: Can you talk a little bit about what you know now that there's audio descriptions and movies and theater and shows and what are some of the challenges that come with describing live theater as opposed to film or tv? [00:07:25] Speaker A: Oh, my. Yeah, you're. This a great question because, you know, I've been doing this since the beginning, so about 45 years now. And I've. I've been active in all of those areas, including museums. Again, it began in performing arts. And the challenge there is to know the play as thoroughly as possible, take notes Even develop a script in the early days, you know, maybe we saw the show two, three times, took notes, and then based on those notes, we would insert verbiage in those pauses between bits and pieces of dialogue or. Or critical sound elements and. And do it sort of off the cuff. Nowadays, it's. It probably most audio description in theater is still done that way. I've been researching and hoping that we can find a way to make audio description available at every single performance in a theatrical run. Part of the way we did it back in the beginning, it was all volunteers. And so really you saw the production two or three times, and then you did the description only at one or two performances out of a. [00:08:42] Speaker B: That's often still how it happens. [00:08:44] Speaker A: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. So my. My thought is, what if you hired a describer, like a cast member in a way. But they would go to some rehearsals, they would see the production developing, they would talk to the director, the scenic designer, the actors, and develop a script for the audio description. So no more of this totally off the cuff kind of thing. But it would be then available opening night. And at every single performance, the. The describer could go home. Unlike a cast member, the describer could go home if there's no way, nobody there to listen to him or her. So that's something that we're experimenting more and more with. Another answer to that problem is recorded audio description, but I'm not a big fan. [00:09:38] Speaker B: Get really tricky if anything. [00:09:40] Speaker A: Yeah, for live events, anything can happen on stage, you know, and the technical side of it is much trickier to work out. It's timed to light cues or sound cues, and that can have. There can be difficulties there. Plus the recordings are generally not available until two or three weeks into the run of a show. A lot of shows are closed by then, and. And of course, a blind person could never go to an opening night. So that's the. The theater scene, if you will. And it was only, oh, golly, about three or four years after we started doing description for theater in Washington, that Barry Cronin, who used to work at WGBH in Boston, he heard about us and he thought, wow, this would be great for television, for VHS tapes, even that sort of thing. And he knew how to sync the audio description sound with the sound of the television program, which is something we didn't know about really, but he knew that there was a secondary audio program channel, a separate audio channel that was there for Spanish translation but wasn't being used much. And he thought, well, we could use that for audio Description. And so we did a pilot for them. In fact, I wrote and voiced three of the very first television programs ever with audio description. They were broadcast in this pilot. And it worked. People got the hang of it. It made sense, and WGBH ran with it. They, they started developing their own program for broadcast television. They started doing description for VHS videotapes. Remember those? Sam? [00:11:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't like to admit that, but I do. [00:11:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Then later DVDs and such. So they were really the first major producer of description for television and then for the occasional film. We're lucky that now just about every film produced in the United States has an audio description track, largely due to awareness of the Americans with Disabilities Act. You know, what good is a movie theater to somebody who's deaf if there are no captions on the screen? What good is a movie theater to somebody who's blind if there's no audio description? So the, the movie theaters realized that, and moreover, the, the movie producers realized that. And now, as I say, just about every film coming out has an audio description track with it. And, and in fact, getting closer up to the, the present, even the streaming services have embraced audio description so that it's, it's available worldwide. And in fact, they, they, they produce audio description, oftentimes in 12 or 15 languages. So that, that's a great thing. We've come a long way over four and a half decades. [00:12:57] Speaker B: I have seen several kids movies that I've recently seen that has it sadly, though, I can still find some stuff on TV or Netflix even that's not audio described. And it really, I'm like this, it kind of saddens me because this should just be something that's built into the system, no question. Be a problem with that. [00:13:20] Speaker A: And I don't, no, I'm with you. 100. The problem is, when we're talking about commercial development of, of films and such, you know, the filmmakers and the, the broadcasters, basically, they choose what will end up with description. And if it's a new film, sure. But a lot of those producers have thousands of films in their archives in their libraries. Is it worth it to them to develop description for things that, for things like that that are in the public domain where there isn't much demand for it. And that's why a lot of those programs won't have descriptions. So, and you've bumped into that, Sam we're working on that too, trying to raise money to get one idea is to get all of the films on the Library of Congress Registry of films, get all of them available with description and captions, because these are supposed to be, you know, the, the finest films ever produced. And we're working on raising some money to try and make that happen. [00:14:28] Speaker B: Joel, what made you want, what inspired you to write this? [00:14:34] Speaker A: Well, you know, having worked with it from the very beginning and developing throughout the time, in the first couple of decades, doing training of describers, developing fundamentals of audio description, concepts that I think any good audio describer has to master. For instance, observation. When you're looking at a movie, when you're at a play, a museum exhibit, noticing everything that's there, everything really. Look, most sighted people, you know, they see, but they don't see, observe. Well, a describer can't do that, and a describer must really notice what's there. And then the second element is to edit from what you see, select the most salient visual images. There's no way you can describe everything, and you don't want to either. You need to really find the essence of what that visual image is, select those items, and those are the things you'll want to describe. So the third fundamental is language. This is all about words, spoken word, but it's about language. It's about folks who have a rich vocabulary, folks who can write in ways that are lively and innovative and really can conjure images in the mind's eye for people who are listening. That's where we spend the most time, is developing the words, really. And then finally, the fourth fundamental that I teach is vocal skills because it, you know, 99 of audio description is heard. It's, it's done, allowed. And so the, the vocal end of things now, you know, back in the theater days, that was almost always the same person, the person who's observing the person that's developing the description and then delivering the description. Nowadays with media, it's, it's separated. There are describers who write description, and then there are voice talents who voice the description. And there are special techniques, vocal skills for, for doing that, certainly. So after a while I thought to myself, I've got a. I'm gonna start writing this down. And that led to the book, really. The book is actually kind of a popularized or cleaned up, if you will, version of my PhD dissertation, which was for the Universitad Autonomous Barcelona is where I, I was worked. I worked with them for and, and other graduate programs throughout Europe because they started developing courses in audio description. They had been doing courses in, in what's overall called audio visual translation. And that just simply means subtitles and dubbing and they heard about Audio Description, they brought me out there to train the leaders of those programs. And now people get master's degrees and PhDs in audio description. So I thought to myself, wow, I helped get that program started in Barcelona. So I enrolled and over five years developed my dissertation and that became the book the Visual made Verbal, which I'm proud to say is available in braille, in two audiobooks and in print in seven languages. Languages now because I've, I've been all around the world training describers, golly in over 60 countries and developed partnerships with places like the Hong Kong Society for the Blind. So that my book is in Mandarin Chinese, etc. So in Spanish I did with the World Blind Union. All of their work is in English, French and Spanish. So it, it, it's grown a great deal. [00:18:38] Speaker B: Who did you all write the book for? Is it just, well, trainers or. [00:18:44] Speaker A: That's. That's good. Really. It's. I'm not sure that the gen. The general public that has an interest in how things are translated from one format to another, they'll pick up on it. Students of audiovisual translation certainly pick up on it. But I really bought it. Bought it. People buy it and I wrote it for folks that are, are interested in doing description as volunteers in live theater, as professionals for media, as people developing audio described tours in museums and. And another part of this too is, is that it's, it's really, I think a. An important book for folks who are blind, folks who have low vision. Listen, this all started with Margaret Van Steel who was blind. And so it's, it's not just for blind people. It's, it's really by blind people. And the book goes into that. Blind people make some of the best quality control consultants on audio description scripts for media. They even develop scripts as well. They're the best audio editors and they have some of the best voice talents for audio description. So primarily the blind community and people interested in description I think are the main targets for, for the book. [00:20:14] Speaker B: What is the biggest misconception would you say people have about audio description? [00:20:22] Speaker A: You know, that people. Audio description is, is woefully under known. You know, if you say audio description to the person on the street, they'll go, what's that? What, what do you mean? You know, and if you start talking about it, they say, oh, I know what you're doing. Yeah, those are the words on the screen captions. You know, there are twice as many deaf people or people with people with hearing loss than there are People who are blind or have low vision. So the deaf community, it's. And, and they. Closed captioning has been available for calling 50 years. Long, long time. [00:21:05] Speaker B: Yes. [00:21:06] Speaker A: Now 60 years, even. So people know about that and they, they. If you, you're talking about a, an assistive technology for folks with disabilities, communication technique, they think about deaf people, they think about captions. So clearing that up, as you mentioned earlier, is, is, is that's probably the biggest misconception or misunderstanding. [00:21:33] Speaker B: You know, I, I know what you say is true because especially a handful of years ago when I would go to the movie theater more, they were constantly handing me the wrong device to constantly. And I have to say, no, this isn't it. [00:21:53] Speaker A: No. And in fact, that, that's funny. I know people who are blind who have stacks of free passes to go to the movie theater because they went. They got given the wrong headset. And, and so the manager says, I'm so sorry, here's a pass to come back to the movie theater, where it will most likely happen again. Part of the problem is because movie theater personnel is a lot of trained. [00:22:20] Speaker B: Right. [00:22:20] Speaker A: Yeah. You have to constantly train people on which headset is what. Or it may be, it may be one headset, but it has to be set for either boosting sound. [00:22:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:31] Speaker A: For people with hearing loss or audio description. And if it's not set correctly, you're going to get, you know, you'll hear things a little more clearly, but you won't get the description right. And that's just so, so annoying nowadays. You know, something that's, that's percolating around the United States to some extent, probably more so in Europe, is using your own smartphone to hear description. You can actually download an app. And the app, the app can actually listen to what the soundtrack is in a movie. You download to the app the audio description track or that movie. So then when you go into the movie theater, or this works at home, the movie starts, you press a button and that app automatically syncs the audio description track to the audio track of the movie. Anywhere in the movie. It can pick up wherever in the movie. It's really kind of amazing. [00:23:30] Speaker B: Press at a certain time. If you pressed it. [00:23:33] Speaker A: No, just started at the beginning. But if you. Yeah, you can start it in the middle of the film too, and it'll pick up, which is just great. It's just not very available these days, and that's a shame. [00:23:47] Speaker B: You know, I have noticed, I have, you know, when I get the right device at the movie theater, I've had pretty good luck with it working, but have noticed a lot of times at. In plays, if I go to the theater live with a play, the audio description equipment sometimes is less than desirable. Can you talk a little bit about how that works? Who's in charge of that and why? Sometimes in some parts of the theater it works, in others it doesn't. [00:24:21] Speaker A: Yeah, that's tricky. It's a whole different transmission system than is done for television or film. Of course, in a movie theater. I'm sorry, in a movie, in a quote, unquote, legitimate theater with live plays, typically the transmission is from a booth. If they're lucky, there's a booth. But it may be somebody in the back of the house who has a headset microphone attached to a very small portable FM transmitter, FM radio. And you go into the theater, someone who wants to hear the description. You, you are issued an FM receiver tuned to the particular frequency that the describer is using. And, you know, there's a. There are problems there because sometimes you're just too far away. If that, that portable transmitter only has a reach of maybe 100ft, 200ft, something like that, that can be a problem. Sometimes there's interference with other FM signals which could be used in the theater by the stage manager, perhaps to communicate to the lighting people or whatever. So that's a problem. But FM is not the only way. It's, it's, it's attractive because they're, they're portable and theater can share them with another theater and such. But another way to do it is via an infrared system. You know, people may be familiar with, you know, go to a live theater setting or even in a movie. And many of those spaces are equipped with an infrared transmission system. Up at the top of the proscenium is usually a box that looks like a speaker and little lights on it. And what that does is the sound from the stage. Microphones on the stage go that. That sound is transmitted to those boxes, those infrared boxes. It's. It's transformed into an infrared light beam. And that goes to a special infrared receiver. It's got a little glass ball on it, and it transfers the sound, the light beam, rather, to sound. And it's used primarily. The reason they're all over the place is because it's used to boost sound. Just like the FM signal. It could be used to boost sound, but most theaters have this built in and, and it's an infrared signal. The problem there. So it can be used for audio description as well. The problem is that it's A line of sight system. And if, in other words, if you happen to raise your hand between that little glass bulb on the receiver, you know, if you get in the way of that light beam, that infrared light beam, you get static, you get, you know, nothing comes through. [00:27:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:30] Speaker A: And so it's, it's called line of sight. FM is, doesn't have that problem because it's radio. It goes through walls. But if the signal's not strong enough, then you can have problems with the fm. So you know, there are. Mick. People have different feelings about, oh, infrared is better or FM is better, that sort of thing. I've used FM systems mostly throughout my career working with description. And, and those FM systems are, are portable. They can be used for instance for audio description in a, in a museum perhaps, or, or there could be other kinds of ways to transmit the sound for an audio described tour. [00:28:17] Speaker B: Could you tell us like the most common mistakes new describers make? [00:28:24] Speaker A: Well, what do you mean? The comments. We don't make any mistakes. Oh, you're talking about other describers. [00:28:32] Speaker B: Okay, right. Other describers. [00:28:35] Speaker A: I'm being silly. Well, I'll tell you, I think people in, in live theater, let's, let's separate this in live theater sometimes are so eager to communicate what's on stage that it gets in the way of what the people are there for. The people are there in the theater to experience a play and our job is to enhance that experience, in my humble opinion, to do so as minimally as possible. Enhance, don't distract and using too many words, covering the dialogue from the stage. That's a problem. That's a real problem with movies and films. You don't have that same kind of problem usually because it's all produced and recorded and timed to the movie track and, and hopefully the levels are adjusted so that, that can be a problem sometimes, but hopefully they're adjusted so that you don't have interference with the dialogue or, or critical sound elements or even Sam. Silence. Sometimes you want silence to just be there, let people digest what they've heard. So I think going just doing too much. I just think less is more with most audio description. And if, if you ask a blind person who's never experienced description, you know, well, well, what do you want to know about, in this movie? What visual elements? Well, of course they're going to say, well, everything. I want to know everything that a sighted person can see. Well, I understand that, but that's almost impossible. That's not possible. Right, that's right. Your, your traditional audio description, you're using the pauses between bits and pieces of dialogue or critical sound elements. There isn't time, you know. Now we get around that a little bit with. In live theater with pre show notes that are recorded and you can access them through the same system. It tells you about the stage setting and costumes and material that's in the printed program. [00:30:55] Speaker B: Right. [00:30:56] Speaker A: There can even intermission notes as well. You don't have that quite so much in media. You should in a way because now people are accessing media via the Internet there. There could be hyperlinks to a website or a page that gives you all kinds of background and gives you more information about what is in the movie visually. [00:31:21] Speaker B: Right. [00:31:21] Speaker A: That you're not going to be able to get during the movie. [00:31:25] Speaker B: Right. Joel, you know, you talk about really having to kind of pick what you describe. How do you balance being objective with being engaging? Do you need to be engaging or what? What's the secret here? [00:31:44] Speaker A: Well, that. Boy, that's a wonderful question. And before addressing it, I want to just note that Minneapolis is the home for some excellent audio describ. I've done trainings there a couple of times at least over the years and live theater is covered really quite well in Minneapolis. So bravo to you. I'm sure you have a lot of listeners who have experienced audio description because it's readily available for live theater throughout the Twin Cities. Yeah. This question of subjectivity or objectivity is an important one. And from the very beginnings, Margaret Van Steele emphasized the need for objectivity. Again, kind of echoing the thought I mentioned earlier. Nobody goes to the movies to experience the audio description. They go to the movies to experience the movie. [00:32:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:45] Speaker A: You know, and, and we don't want to get in the way of the movie. We want a moviegoer to experience the movie, the all moviegoers, as. As close to the same way as possible. So that to give you an example, if I see, I see Sam up on the movie screen there, right. You're an actress and you're on the movie screen and you're crying. You're, you know. Well, you're playing a character, of course, who's. Who's crying. Tears are streaming down your face. You are distraught, you're sad, you're depressed. Now that was a little bit of description. Was that an appropriate description? I would maintain that the first few words were appropriate. You're crying, tears are streaming down your cheeks. But for me to call you sad opinion that involves a subjective interpretation on my part. [00:33:50] Speaker B: Right. [00:33:51] Speaker A: That means I've looked at something and in My brain in half a second, I've decided, well, that means she's sad. And yet that character on the screen, Sam. Right. Maybe won the Minneapolis, the Minnesota lottery that morning, you know, she's not sad at all. She's the tears are tears of joy. [00:34:13] Speaker B: Thinking where I'm going to escape. [00:34:16] Speaker A: There you go. Exactly. You're gonna buy an island somewhere or something too cold in Minneapolis. Right. But so that. That's a kind of obvious example of the difference between subjectivity and objectivity. And. And that's still debated sometimes, you know, some people will say, oh, come on, it's clear that she's sad. Say sad, you know. Well, I think that robs the listener of the opportunity to perceive what's going on and make their own decision based on the context. Is the person sad? Is the person happy? You know, and that's the beauty of the arts, is really, it allows you as an individual to experience it your own way. The subjectivity happens in you. It shouldn't happen with the audio describer. [00:35:10] Speaker B: Do you know, it's funny because I heard almost the exact same thing from somebody a handful of years ago, and it made me evaluate every audio description thing where they said, for instance, you know, you shouldn't be saying a beautiful woman walks on the screen because that's interpretation of what you think you should say. [00:35:31] Speaker A: What's beautiful? [00:35:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:32] Speaker A: What does that mean? [00:35:33] Speaker B: That's right. That's right. You would say a woman with long blonde hair. You know, whatever. Whatever you're describing that person. I find that even good audio describers, which I count generally good, mess that up. And I always find myself thinking about that. [00:35:55] Speaker A: That's right. And well, you should. It's a shortcut. When time is at such a premium, it's quicker to say beautiful than it is to say long blonde hair, wearing a dress, whatever. Whatever. Whatever. [00:36:08] Speaker B: What they could picture, you know, maybe I don't think long blonde hair is beautiful. Maybe to me, you know what I mean? [00:36:16] Speaker A: That's right. [00:36:17] Speaker B: So. [00:36:18] Speaker A: That's right. [00:36:18] Speaker B: It totally challenges your concept and makes. Puts that in your brain. And maybe that's not what you think. I'm just saying. [00:36:28] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:36:28] Speaker B: So then where does that leave audio description? Is it an art or a science? [00:36:34] Speaker A: It's both. I think of it about 60% art and 40% science. There are rules to follow. There really are guidelines and best practices. That's what most of my book is about. I ask describers if they're tempted to say beautiful or sad or what have you. I ask them, what is it that you see, that makes you think the person is sad. Say those things. Say those things and let the listener decide. She's sad or she's beautiful or what have you, that kind of thing. It's, it's tricky, it's tricky to do that. But I think it, it makes for a better overall experience. And it's, I think, avoids any sort of sense of patronizing or condescending to the listener like, oh, I've got to hold your hand orally and, and tell you what's happening, tell you about everything that's up there on the stage because you're, you won't get it otherwise. Well, that's just not true. You're missing the visual elements and then give them that and then you can figure out the rest along with everybody else. [00:37:48] Speaker B: Do you feel like audio description has changed throughout the years? [00:37:54] Speaker A: It has, it has. Well, it's grown significantly, you know, so that now it's. With all the films and, and streaming services, I think it's gotten more professional. I mean, again, it was strictly volunteer based for live theater and dance and opera, by the way, other performing arts forms. But now with the advent of description for television broadcasts, for films, for streaming services, it's, it's a, it's very much a profession. There are people make full time livings as audio describers and, and with media that's mostly going to be the writers of the description and then freelance voice talents will provide the voicing. But it, it, it has grown to a point and gotten a bit more professional. There, my book is out there. There are other books and people write scholarly papers about audio description. It really has grown as a topic for research as, as an activity that you can pursue professionally, you know, even in live theater. Sam, you know, sometimes, and usually it's only two performances out of a whole run that will be sign interpreted. [00:39:13] Speaker B: Right. [00:39:13] Speaker A: For people in the audience who are deaf, but they know sign language. Right, right. Listen, those sign interpreters are paid and they're paid well. Nobody would imagine hiring, bringing a sign interpreter on and say, listen, this is a volunteer gig, you know, and they say, oh, is that right? Well, I'm sorry, but I'm a professional and I provide the service and I make my living as a sign language interpreter. I think we're going to get to the point and we should, where audio describers are paid just like sign in. Sign language interpreters are paid to provide a service that's every bit as professional as the sign language interpreter. As the actor on stage takes us here they're getting Paid, you know, unless it's a community theater or something like that. I think we've, we have outgrown our infancy for sure, and maybe we're in late adolescence now, something like that, because there's, there's still room for lots of new developments and, and even more professionalism. [00:40:21] Speaker B: Does audio description benefit people without disabilities? [00:40:26] Speaker A: Oh, that's great. It. Well, yes, yes, yes. I oftentimes say that audio description is great on a television program for someone who's blind, but it's also good for a sighted person who's in the kitchen making a sandwich while the TV is on in the living room. Yes, they don't miss a beat, you know, because they can hear everything. They can't see, not because they're blind. They're just in the wrong room. You know, in fact, I think here's another development that's a long time coming and, and hopefully will happen. I can't wait for film producers to release just the audio track of a movie, pair it with the audio description. [00:41:13] Speaker B: Ah, yes. [00:41:14] Speaker A: And then you have an audio film. Sighted people can listen to their favorite film while they're on a long drive or they're in the gym or what have you, that kind of thing. That would do wonders for the audio description field because people in the general public would know more about it. So that's, that's one. But I should emphasize, though, there have been studies that show the effectiveness of audio description for folks with all manner of learning disabilities. People with autism, people with adhd, people are simply learning a new language. You know, it's long been known that captions help people learn English. You know, if they're watching a program, their native language is something else. They're watching a program, they hear the English and they see it well. In the same way, audio description helps folks learn subtleties and the complexities of language because they hear synonyms, they hear innovative word choice, they hear different uses of vocabulary. It helps build literacy. Is. Is what I. Has been shown in, in a number of papers. [00:42:37] Speaker B: How do you train somebody to become a good audio describer? Are there natural ones and not so much, or can anyone be trained? [00:42:48] Speaker A: Yeah, well, let me come to that. But I, I just wanted to add in one little piece regarding audio description and literacy. We showed this happening some years back. I led a team of describers who for the first time ever provided description for Sesame Street. Oh, yes, and, and, and we got all kinds of wonderful feedback from blind adults who could follow the program along with their kids, you know, that kind of thing. So really, audio description can appeal to so many, so many different parts of the population. Now, your question was. I've made myself forget the question. I'm sorry. [00:43:29] Speaker B: A good audio describer. How can one be trained to be a good audio describer? And are there, of course, there must be people who kind of have a more natural knack than others? [00:43:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I think first and foremost, a good command of language, a great vocabulary, the ability to translate what you see into words. And that really is, it's an art form. It's a kind of, as I say, translation. Can you use words effectively, innovatively, in ways that help conjure that image in the mind's eye? A lot of, you know, I teach well all around the world and throughout the United States, and sometimes we actually audition people to be a part of the training. So we actually have them try a little bit of audio description, and I can get a sense of their ability to be objective, their ability to use language. And we, we pick and choose the people that seem to have that capability to go through the training. But even then, I honestly, I have found that If I have 15 people in a class over five days or over a whole semester in a college, I would say maybe 5 to 10% of them have what it takes, can really run with it and, and develop a good description, whether it's live for a theater event or, or live for a broadcast event, like I, I, I personally voiced and wrote, if that's the right word for it, the description for three different presidential inaugurals on ABC Television. And obviously it's live, so there's no rehearsal, really. I had a lot of research that I did, but that's another kind of trick or knack that comes with experience. Being able to not only see and speak almost simultaneously, but also to find a way to interject those comments, those descriptions around the soundtrack of the film or the event or whatever it is that's happening live. And that's tricky. You have to have a good sense of the pauses that happen in an, in an opera, in a musical, in a play, anything like that. So, you know, I think those kinds of capabilities are what we look for. Good command of language, vocabulary and just a sense of what is most important to describe. [00:46:24] Speaker B: I have just a couple quick things I want to get. I'm hoping to play the, the end track that maybe we can get too, if. [00:46:31] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I can play. [00:46:32] Speaker B: I have some, Yeah, I, I have it on my thing too, and, but it's a little longer than I thought, but I'll try to do it I, I want to. [00:46:43] Speaker A: Just a minute of the first one. [00:46:45] Speaker B: I want to just ask real quick, though. [00:46:47] Speaker A: Sure. [00:46:48] Speaker B: Please tell us how people can get your book. [00:46:50] Speaker A: Oh my goodness. Well, Amazon is Amazon.com it's on Amazon and sometimes it'll come up and say, oh, it's unavailable or it's sold out or something like that shouldn't happen. So I think the best thing to do if you can't get it through Amazon is simply send me a note at J. Snyder J S N Y d e r audiodiodescribe.com and I'll make sure you get a copy. I'll make sure you get a signed copy, as a matter of fact. And that might be the most direct way to do it. But it is available on Amazon. [00:47:30] Speaker B: I'm wondering, are you on Bard? [00:47:33] Speaker A: Yes, yes. So if you're a member of Bard, then absolutely. You can simply listen to it for free. [00:47:40] Speaker B: Cool. [00:47:41] Speaker A: Absolutely. An audio version of it. Yeah. [00:47:45] Speaker B: There's two things I, I just want to put my two cents out there on all those people who are thinking of becoming audio describers. My pet peeve, please do not eat and chew gum while you're describing. Yes, I have had it. Somebody was eating during their. [00:48:01] Speaker A: Oh my God. [00:48:02] Speaker B: And I was appall. [00:48:04] Speaker A: That's as well you should be. [00:48:06] Speaker B: But real quick too, for you. Now this whole AI is just bursting to the scene with technology here. How do you think AI is going to affect the audio description today? [00:48:22] Speaker A: Well, it already has. In fact, there are description producers or film producers who hire description producers and say, listen, we want to save some money here, so we're going to have AI do the voicing. Which is it AI or it's speech synthesis, basically. [00:48:41] Speaker B: Right. [00:48:41] Speaker A: It's. Any computer can do that pretty much these days. It, it you. You kind of put a script into the computer and it will voice it for you. Will they voice it? Well, with the same kind of subtlety and nuance? Maybe, or maybe voice talent can. Probably not even today they can produce voices that sound human. But do they have that same kind of subtlety and nuance that a human voice talent brings? And I say not, not only that, they, they make errors. I remember I, I do, I do a presentation on AI and audio description and I, I play a short clip of a video that I voiced the description for and then I play it with the same words being voiced artificially, if you will, with speech synthesis. The, the first, the first line of the description is, he throws the grenade over the fence, right? The. The AI did. He throws the Grenade over the fence. [00:49:51] Speaker B: Yes, I've heard that. And I'm like, well, this is so silly. [00:49:55] Speaker A: And, you know, they're, they're starting to look at description, how the description, the words could be written by AI and that's far more complicated, and there are real problems with that, too. [00:50:09] Speaker B: Well, I want to play a little bit. I'll see if I can get to the part. I asked people to bear with me because it was. I couldn't. I couldn't splice as much. [00:50:18] Speaker A: If you have the one that's labeled number one. Yes, Sammy, just play for 30 seconds maybe. [00:50:24] Speaker B: Okay. And. But it's, but it won't have the audio description. [00:50:28] Speaker A: No, it will not. And that's, that's, that's kind of what I want to make a point of. [00:50:33] Speaker B: So here we go. [00:50:49] Speaker A: It. A feature film. This is a professional film. It was made about 25 years ago called the Color of Paradise. But I play an excerpt that. If you just listen to this excerpt, all you hear are birds. [00:51:29] Speaker B: And, and you can hear the boy in the background. [00:51:31] Speaker A: You can hear just. You could hear the sounds of, you know, rustling or something like that. But after 30 seconds, if I was blind, I'd be out of the movie theater. I'd be, I. I don't get it. There's a lot of birds. Or I'd be. I'd be punching the guy next to me with my elbow. What's going on? What's going on? [00:51:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:50] Speaker A: So then I play the same clip with the audio description that I wrote and voiced when the movie was broadcast on ABC about 20 years ago or something. And it's a world of difference because what we do is we try to weave the descriptive language around the sound elements. There's no words, there's no dialogue. But it doesn't mean you talk all the time with the description. [00:52:15] Speaker B: It's. [00:52:16] Speaker A: It's being sensitive to what's happening, and it becomes very clear, oh, that's what's happening. Okay. You, you, you can understand the movie when you get to a. A portion that. That's just all sound. You're going to be lost if there is no audio description. [00:52:32] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. [00:52:34] Speaker A: So that's really what I try to. And then I, Then sometimes I show it with the, the visual, the video, and, and we kind of analyze, gee, why did I choose that to describe? And what kind of words did I use to. To describe that? So it's a great learning tool to, to kind of demonstrate description that way. [00:52:54] Speaker B: Yeah, and it really is, you know, you hear the birds, you Hear the boy sort of, but you really don't know what he's doing. And when you talk to the audit description talks, it tells his gestures and what happens and what he's doing with the bird and yeah, things like that. [00:53:13] Speaker A: And you know, not to give away the ending or something, but what you find out when you see the images is that the boy is blind. And if you listen to the description closely, you hear him picking up a bird, you hear him climbing a tree. The description talks about how his fingers feel the branches, his arm runs down the, the trunk of the tree. There's all these images of touching. And it's not because I wanted to do that. It's. That's what the filmmaker did. The images show him touching. And I think like that, that's the point is that this, this 10 year old boy can do anything a sighted 10 year old boy can do. Climb a tree, return a little nestling to the nest. Really is a. It's a great movie. I recommend it to you. The Color of Paradise. [00:54:13] Speaker B: Let's see if we got to the description part. [00:54:17] Speaker A: He latches onto a tangle of thin upper branches. His legs flail for a foothold. Muhammad stretches an arm between a fork in the trunk of the tree and wedges in his head and shoulder. His shoes slip on the rough bark. [00:54:33] Speaker B: So that's just a little piece of. [00:54:34] Speaker A: Yes, yeah, exactly. [00:54:36] Speaker B: A great piece, Joel. Thank you so much for your time. [00:54:42] Speaker A: Oh my goodness, this is fun. [00:54:43] Speaker B: It's been a lot of fun and I will, I would like to read the book. So I will make sure I download the book. But it's been really a pleasure having you on. [00:54:54] Speaker A: Oh, Sam, this is wonderful. Chance to meet you and meet your listeners in the Minneapolis St. Paul area. [00:55:02] Speaker B: Well, good luck with more. You know, my wish is that your book reaches a lot of people and that audio description just becomes wider and wider and more naturally used. [00:55:14] Speaker A: Oh yeah, absolutely. I'll mention quickly, the website for my company is simply audiodescribe.com. my email address is J Snyder J S N Y-E [email protected] and it might be good to listen to contact the American Council of the Blinds Audio Description Project, a project I started 15 years ago with ACB. That website is simply ADP. Lots of information about audio description. [00:55:48] Speaker B: Joel, it's been fun. Thank you. [00:55:50] Speaker A: Thanks so much, Sam. [00:55:51] Speaker B: The views expressed on the show are not necessarily those of KFAI or its board of directors. My name is Sam. I'm the host of this show. Charlene Dahl is my PR research person, Aaron is my podcaster. Thank you so much everyone for listening. We were listening and speaking with Joel Snyder, who wrote the book the Visual made verbal KPI.org.