scholarly journals Seeing films through sound: Sound design, spatial audio, and accessibility for visually impaired audiences

2020 ◽  
pp. 026461962093593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariana Lopez ◽  
Gavin Kearney ◽  
Krisztián Hofstädter
Keyword(s):  
Creative Process ◽  
Visually Impaired ◽  
End Users ◽  
Short Film ◽  
First Person ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Spatial Audio ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Audio Description

Enhancing Audio Description is a research project that explores how sound design, first-person narration, and binaural audio could be utilised to provide accessible versions of films for visually impaired audiences, presenting an alternative to current audio description (AD) practices. This article explores such techniques in the context of the redesign of the short film ‘Pearl’, by discussing the creative process as well as evaluating the feedback supplied by visually impaired audiences. The research presented in this article demonstrates that the methods proposed were as successful as traditional AD in terms of providing information, enjoyment, and accessibility to audiences, demonstrating that both practices can coexist and, as a result, cater for the different stylistic preferences of end users.

Audio Description with Audio Subtitling for Dutch Multilingual Films: Manipulating Textual Cohesion on Different Levels

2013 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 385-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aline Remael
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Current Practice ◽  
Target Audience ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Blind And Visually Impaired ◽  
Strong Trend ◽  
Audio Description ◽  
Sound Engineer ◽  
Different Levels

There is a strong trend towards multilingualism in Flemish and Dutch films today. In order to make such films accessible for a blind and visually impaired audience, the audio description (AD), which supplies the information from the visuals that cannot be accessed by this target audience, must be combined with audio subtitling (AST), for the translation of the dialogue. Today, a wide variety of strategies is used to accomplish this form of textual manipulation, but current practice is largely based on intuition. The present paper reports on the first phase of a research project carried out on four films, in collaboration with the AD scriptwriter and the sound engineer responsible for the recordings of the Dutch films with AD and AST, two of which will be considered here: Oorlogswinter (Winter in Wartime 2008) and Tirza (2010). The project makes use of four films, but due to limits of space we focus on two only, aiming to reply to three questions. First, we look at how the AST is inserted and whether it interacts with the films’ foreign language dialogue exchanges. Then we consider whether intonation contributes to the coherence of the text. To conclude, the audio and written subtitles are compared. Finally, suggestions for further research are provided.

scholarly journals Enhancing Audio Description: Inclusive Cinematic Experiences Through Sound Design

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariana Lopez ◽  
Gavin Kearney ◽  
Krisztian Hofstadter
Keyword(s):  
Focus Groups ◽  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
3D Audio ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Sound Effects ◽  
Audio Description ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Aesthetic Preferences

This paper explores the creation of an alternative to traditional Audio Description for visually impaired film and television audiences. The Enhanced Audio Description (EAD) methods utilise sound design as the main vehicle for accessibility and advocate for the integration of accessibility practices to filmmaking workflows.  Moreover, this integrated strategy results in an organic form of accessibility that can cater for both visually impaired and sighted audiences, championing inclusive cinematic experiences.  The present article reflects on the discussions held during focus groups in which mixed audiences of visually impaired and sighted people watched the same film, with the same EAD soundtrack over headphones.  The discussions highlight the potential of the format as an example of universal design and accessible filmmaking, which can be enjoyed regardless of audience’s sight condition and can be offered alongside traditional Audio Description (AD) in order to cater for different aesthetic preferences. Lay summary Audio Description (AD) is a third person commentary added to film and television productions to make them accessible for visually impaired audiences.  Traditionally, AD is added to productions after they have been completed, meaning that the creative and accessibility teams do not work together to produce the accessible version of the production.  This paper explores an alternative to traditional AD, called Enhanced Audio Description (EAD), whose methods are integrated to filmmaking workflows.  EAD moves away from a focus on verbal descriptions and instead focuses on sound design strategies.  In EAD the traditional third person commentary is replaced by the combination of three techniques.  The first is the addition of sound effects to provide information on actions, convey abstract scenes as well as indicate time, place, and the presence of characters. The second is the use of binaural audio (3D audio over headphones) to convey the position of characters and objects portrayed on the screen. Finally, first-person narration is used to portray feelings, gestures, colours as well as certain actions. The application of EAD methods results in a form of accessibility that can cater for both visually impaired and sighted audiences, championing inclusive cinematic experiences. Focus groups with audiences of visually impaired and sighted people demonstrated the potential of the format to be widely enjoyed, and to be offered alongside traditional Audio Description (AD) in order to provide accessible experiences which cater for different aesthetic preferences.

scholarly journals Creating an Authentic Experience

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Sarah Osolen ◽  
Leah Brochu
Keyword(s):  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Comic Books ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Library Service ◽  
National Network ◽  
Narrative Story ◽  
The Walking Dead ◽  
Audio Description ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Walking Dead

While working as production assistants for the National Network of Equitable Library Service (NNELS), an organization that creates and shares accessible versions of books to people with print disabilities, we were tasked with a challenging request from a user: Could we make an accessible version of the comic book The Walking Dead? Audio description services are available to the visually impaired in a few different venues such as television, movies, and live theatre. Guidelines for the creation of these descriptive texts are available to potential creators, but in our case, we could find nothing that would help guide us to create a described comic book. While some people and organizations have created prose novelizations of comic books, these simply tell the story, and do not include the unique visual aspects of reading a comic book. We have found that it is possible to create a balanced description that combines the visual grammar of a comic with the narrative story. In addition to creating a described comic book, we are developing guiding documentation that will be a necessary tool to ensure that visually impaired readers have a comic book experience (CBE) that (a) closely matches the CBE of a sighted reader, and (b) is standardized across producers, so that the onus of understanding the approach to comic book description (CBD) is not put on the visually impaired reader. At this point in our work, we need more feedback from users with print disabilities to ensure we are meeting the highest standards.

scholarly journals Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design: The Soma Design Case

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Kristina Höök ◽  
Steve Benford ◽  
Paul Tennent ◽  
Vasiliki Tsaknaki ◽  
Miquel Alfaras ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Creative Process ◽  
The Body ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
First Person ◽  
Embodied Interaction ◽  
Analytical Work ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Design Workshop ◽  
Design Case ◽  
Design Stance

We report on a somaesthetic design workshop and the subsequent analytical work aiming to demystify what is entailed in a non-dualistic design stance on embodied interaction and why a first-person engagement is crucial to its unfoldings. However, as we will uncover through a detailed account of our process, these first-person engagements are deeply entangled with second- and third-person perspectives, sometimes even overlapping. The analysis furthermore reveals some strategies for bridging the body-mind divide by attending to our inner universe and dissolving or traversing dichotomies between inside and outside ; individual and social ; body and technology . By detailing the creative process, we show how soma design becomes a process of designing with and through kinesthetic experience, in turn letting us confront several dualisms that run like fault lines through HCI’s engagement with embodied interaction.

Quality Assessment in Audio Description

2019 ◽  
pp. 155-177
Author(s):  
Louise Fryer
Keyword(s):  
Quality Assessment ◽  
Rating Scales ◽  
European Research ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Research Project ◽  
European Research Project ◽  
Audio Description ◽  
Training Materials ◽  
Professional Profile ◽  
Partially Sighted

Audio description (AD) is one of the younger modes of translation. It shares many similarities with interpreting, although AD users have specific needs because they are blind or partially sighted. As quality is of concern in both fields, this chapter explores the overlaps to see what can be learned for AD from research already carried out in interpreting. Macro and micro criteria suggested for each discipline are compared, and describer competencies are discussed in the context of AdlabPRO, a European research project that seeks to define the professional profile of an audio describer and develop training materials and courses. The chapter concludes that assessment protocols and rating scales developed for interpreting might be adopted for AD, after appropriate adaptation to accommodate areas where the fit is incomplete. These include synchrony and the need for the AD to be considered, not in isolation, but in relation to the existing audio elements of the source text (ST).

Foundation of Productions: Scripts and Playwriting

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xing Fan
Keyword(s):  
Creative Process ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Traditional Practices ◽  
First Person ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Dramatic Characters ◽  
Insight Into

Chapter 5 examines the textual foundation for model jingju productions from five perspectives. It begins with the ten plays’ synopses, followed by a discussion of the roles and functions of three categories of dramatic characters. The author then analyzes a singular overarching theme and three major supporting messages in model jingju. To provide insight into the delivery of these important motifs, the author offers further analysis on a general plotting pattern and three scene types that contribute significantly to model jingju theatricality. The last section focuses on an especially noteworthy aspect—literary construction—examining the narrative structure and use of language in model jingju in the context of their connections to traditional practices. This chapter features Wang Zengqi’s first-person narrative of the creative process resulting in Shajiabang and a close analysis of rhymed vernacular speech with primary examples from Azalea Mountain.

scholarly journals Current Use and Future Perspectives of Spatial Audio Technologies in Electronic Travel Aids

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Spagnol ◽  
György Wersényi ◽  
Michał Bujacz ◽  
Oana Bălan ◽  
Marcelo Herrera Martínez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visually Impaired ◽  
User Requirements ◽  
Spatial Audio ◽  
Audio Cues ◽  
Current State ◽  
Spatial Sound ◽  
Auditory Representation ◽  
Visually Impaired Persons ◽  
Electronic Travel Aids ◽  
Audio Technologies

Electronic travel aids (ETAs) have been in focus since technology allowed designing relatively small, light, and mobile devices for assisting the visually impaired. Since visually impaired persons rely on spatial audio cues as their primary sense of orientation, providing an accurate virtual auditory representation of the environment is essential. This paper gives an overview of the current state of spatial audio technologies that can be incorporated in ETAs, with a focus on user requirements. Most currently available ETAs either fail to address user requirements or underestimate the potential of spatial sound itself, which may explain, among other reasons, why no single ETA has gained a widespread acceptance in the blind community. We believe there is ample space for applying the technologies presented in this paper, with the aim of progressively bridging the gap between accessibility and accuracy of spatial audio in ETAs.

scholarly journals A Review of Rufus Stone: The Promise of Arts-Based Research

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Leavy
Keyword(s):  
Short Film ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Arts Based Research ◽  
Funded Research ◽  
Public Scholarship ◽  
The People ◽  
Village People ◽  
Rural England ◽  
Funded Research Project

In this essay I review the research-informed short film Rufus Stone. Rufus Stone is the result of a 3-year funded research project led by Kip Jones. The film tells the story of a young man in rural England who, while developing an attraction to another young man, is viciously outed by small-minded village people. He flees to London and returns home 50 years later and is forced confront the people from his past and larger issues of identity and time. This essay considers Rufus Stone as both a film and as a work of arts-based research. I suggest Rufus Stone is not only a terrific film but it also represents the best of arts-based research and public scholarship more broadly.

scholarly journals Creative Process of "Bulikan" The Movie

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 214-228
Author(s):  
Olivia O Nursalim
Keyword(s):  
Creative Process ◽  
Alternative Solution ◽  
Short Film ◽  
New Order ◽  
The Past ◽  
Interview Process ◽  
History Of ◽  
Younger Generation ◽  
Post Production

Nowadays, as time goes by, many younger generations lack in knowing the history of Indonesian Chinese (Tionghoa) life in the past. As an alternative solution to respond to this problem, a short film was made with one of the main objectives as a means of information and education to broaden the horizons of the wider community, including the younger generation in Indonesia. "Bulikan" which means, "going home" in Banjar Samarinda language is a short film that tells about the discrimination felt by a Chinese - Hokchia ethnic family in Samarinda, during the New Order.  This film was inspired by the author's father family.  Therefore, the process of collecting data for making this film is mostly obtained from the interview process and archives of old photographs of the author's family.  The process of making the “Bulikan" film which takes about eight months (pre-production - production - post-production), produced a 20-minute film with the drama genre. From the process of making this film, although not easy, the writer as a director learns to direct all the crew and players to be able to achieve the expected vision regardless of the various obstacles faced.

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