Dr Mariana Lopez explains how enhancing audio description improves access to film and TV
Contributor 2 hours ago
Dr Mariana Lopez explains how enhancing audio description improves access to film and TV
target=_blank title=Share on LinkedIn class=share-linkedin> Dr Mariana Lopez explains how enhancing audio description improves access to film and TV
https://www.tvbeurope.com/features/hearing-the-difference-the-importance-of-audio-description title=Share via Email class=share-email>
Access to film and television for visually impaired audiences is provided mainly through a feature called Audio Description' often referred to as AD'. AD is a verbal commentary that is, generally, added after a production has been completed, and scripted and recorded by an audio description provider. In the vast majority of cases this is done without any input from the creative team. The AD track describes aspects linked to the visual-channel of a production, for example, actions, gestures, costumes and sets, among others. It can sometimes explain sounds deemed difficult to interpret without the visuals.
A survey conducted in 2016, by myself and colleagues, indicated that 78 per cent of surveyed visually impaired participants used AD at home and that the greater the sight loss, the more they depended on access services. Moreover, issues with lack of accessibility resulted in a high percentage of visually impaired people not going to the cinema, with 34 per cent not having attended in the last year.
If you are working in film/TV sound, it's worth considering how people with sight loss are accessing the film soundtrack once it's had an AD track layered over it. That AD track is usually timed so that it will fit between the dialogue lines, but it will overlap with other sounds, such as sound effects, ambiences and music. Moreover, the level of the original mix is often ducked so as to allow audiences to hear the AD. The overall mix will be different as a consequence.
In 2016 I started working on the Enhancing Audio Description' project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, together with Dr Gavin Kearney (University of York) and Krisztian Hofst dter (Anglia Ruskin University). The project explored an alternative to AD through sound design and spatialisation strategies that reduced the number of verbal descriptions needed, while integrating accessibility to current production and post production workflows, and making sure accessible versions retained the creative intentions of the team.
So, what are the creative and technical methods used in Enhancing Audio Description?
The first is additional sound effects. Say your film has the following sequence:
A young girl runs along the beach looking distressed, she's getting closer and closer to the shore. Her mother runs onto the beach trying to find her. It's daytime and windy. She collapses.
The original soundtrack has music only.
It's a lovely scene but when you play it, as we did, to a group of visually impaired consultants, the predictable happens: the scene cannot be followed, because music does not convey actions or the presence of characters, and emotions are down to individual interpretation. The result is a frustrated audience.
We thus redesigned this scene and remixed its audio. In this accessible version, we can now hear the footsteps of the characters, their heavy breathing, and the calls of the mother as she searches for her daughter. We can also hear ambience tracks: wind, seagulls etc. We now convey emotions, actions and space much more clearly to audiences with sight loss.
The second method we used in our project concerned the use of binaural audio. We decided to break away from mixing conventions and free the dialogue from the centre channel. In its place, we panned the dialogue lines to match the position of the characters on screen and, as a result, try to indicate their position in relation to one another. The same applied to any sonic objects present in the mix, for their position also helps recreate the set through sound. For example, we might indicate there's a fireplace with a burning fire on the left, a door being opened on the right surround and a character moving from the back to the front.
The third and final method we employed in our project is first-person narration: an internal monologue that provides information that is difficult to convey through the first two methods, eg. feelings, gestures and certain actions. This narration is differentiated from the main dialogue through the addition of reverb and that it does not change in terms of spatialisation.
The result is a film version that has been deemed by visually impaired consultants to be as accessible, informative and engaging as traditional AD, demonstrating that a more creative and sonically focused approach to accessibility to film and television is possible.
The consideration of both traditional and innovative modes of accessibility requires the film and television industries and audio professionals to take an interest, and acknowledge all audiences.
Find out more about the Enhancing Audio Description project as well as information on other projects.
SubscribeFor more stories like this, and to keep up to date with all our market leading news, features and analysis, sign up to our newsletter here.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Dr Mariana Lopez explains how enhancing audio description improves access to film and TV
