By: Dr. Markus Wolf, President, Austrian Federation of the Blind and Partially Sighted (BSVÖ)
Cicero said, “A picture paints a thousand words.” My wife recently watched a film on television in which there was a scene in which a forest was searched for a missing person. For minutes there was no dialog at all. All that was shown, I was told, were people searching and the anxious looks of the father of the missing person, who was part of the search team. Had this film had audio description, I would have been able to follow the scenes exactly. The scenes of the film would probably have required quite a lot of words to give an accurate description.
Yes, blind people enjoy “watching” films too. Unfortunately, only a very small percentage of films is adequately adapted for blind and severely partially sighted people.
If you are a sighted person you might now be asking, what is audio description exactly? Audio description is the description of films and live events, such as sports events, for blind and partially sighted people, so that they can adequately follow the actions or proceedings. The gaps in the dialogs are used to describe the visual scenes to those people who cannot see them. For this purpose a second channel is normally used, so that persons following the film can choose whether or not to listen to the audio description. These dialog gaps are very often quite short, so short, precise descriptions must be inserted that describe the main elements of visual information.
Some films have a lot of dialog. Those films I as a blind person can follow to some extent because the story can be followed through what the characters say to one another. Situation comedies generally have a lot of dialog. Some other genres have much less. Some typical Western movies build up suspense through a lack of dialog and an exchange of glances between characters. These are almost impossible to follow as a blind person. Needless to say, however, all films can be more enjoyably listened to by blind people if the scenes are adequately described. This does not only apply to films. Nature documentaries general have good commentators, but even here commentaries are limited, the picture presented is seldom described and this is where audio description can fill the important gaps.
Sports events are important too. A football match with audio description is just as gripping for me as it might be to you. This is similar to the old-fashioned radio commentary of football in which detailed descriptions of the players’ positions, the gesticulations between the coach and the players as well as individual scenes of individual members of the audience are verbally communicated. All this paints the big picture. This type of description has become very popular in Austria and I have been told on more than one occasion by sighted people that they enjoy listening to the audio description too.
The problem is that audio description has been around since the 90s of the last century, yet it is still only available in a small proportion of films and events. Audio description is a form of information and blind and partially sighted people have an equal right to information as sighted people do (the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities makes that very clear).