大象传媒

A day in the life of an audio describer

• By Paul Crichton
• 18 Jun 07, 09:00 PM

Audio description is an extra narrative voice that can be added to TV shows to help explain the action on-screen for visually impaired viewers. If you aren鈥檛 familiar with audio description, you can listen to this short example from Eastenders on the Ouch! site.

I caught up with Martin Davies, a Senior Producer at to get an insight into writing audio description. Martin has been involved with audio description from the very earliest days, when it was first tested out in the UK with a handful of special boxes. Red Bee Media provide access services in digital media, and work with the 大象传媒, and to name a few.

Question: Do you work with a programme writer to produce audio description scripts?

Martin: Audio description is done in post-production. Ideally, the scriptwriter for an audio description narrative would be able to work with the programme writers, but the reality is that this is rarely possible. Typically, the decision to add audio description to a programme is made after filming, so it just isn鈥檛 practical to work together.

That means there is a certain amount of interpretation. You might mention a tap dripping, because it is important to later events in the show. But then you might get an email from someone saying, 鈥渨hy didn鈥檛 you mention that the girl was wearing a red hat?鈥�

Question: What are the biggest challenges for an audio describer?

Martin: The two scenarios that are most problematic are when you have a programme with loads of dialogue, and, conversely, where you have very little.

If you take a show like 鈥�Eastenders鈥�, that is very dialogue driven, then you don鈥檛 have much time to play with. Suppose that there is a confrontation in The Old Vic, and one of the characters goes out into the square. Is the key element to convey that the character looks upset or that they have entered the square? If you only have time to convey one thing before the next conversation starts, which would it be?

On the other hand, with something like a wildlife documentary, there can be very little dialogue. There may be a short burst of David Attenbrough describing lions hunting a zebra, followed by 50 seconds of relative silence as the lions eat the zebra! The temptation is to fill the silence, but the key thing is to provide enough narration to meet expectations, but not drown out all the sound effects or incidental music.

Question: What are some of the trickier things you have had to work on?

Martin: I remember having a sense of trepidation when I found out we would be doing 鈥樷�� because of the subject matter!

Recently when working on 鈥�Neighbours鈥� there was a plot line involving twins, one good twin and one evil twin called Robert and Cameron. The programme played on the ambiguity, and the other characters often didn't realise that one twin was impersonating the other. So when Robert was greeted by shouts of "Hey, Cameron!", the describer had a dilemma.

At some times, a description along the lines of "Robert, pretending to be Cameron, enters the room" would be appropriate. But at others, "One of the twins enters the room" would be more appropriate as it prolongs the suspense for the viewer.

Sometimes working on science fiction is a challenge as well. If you take something like Dr Who, which is fast-paced, you don鈥檛 have much time, either. It can be tricky as well, because you don鈥檛 want to describe a monster that is visually scary in a way that might sound comical.

Question: How do you see audio description services developing in the future?

Martin: Well, we鈥檙e always looking at innovative ways to improve the processes involved in providing audio description, to try and be more efficient. We know there is a demand for it from the audience, and groups like the RNIB will be pushing for an increase in the number of programmes with audio description. But in the end, providing more audio described content is largely down to the broadcasters.

The 大象传媒 is currently committed to offer audio description on around 8% of its programmes broadcast every week, rising to around 10% by 2010.

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