Arts Access For People Who Are Blind

Description is a literary art form. It’s a type of poetry — a haiku. It provides a verbal version of the visual: the visual is made verbal, aural, and oral. Using succinct, vivid, and imaginative describers, you can convey the visual image that is not fully accessible to a significant segment of the population and not fully realized by the rest of us — the rest of us being sighted folks who see, but who may not observe. Audio describers provide services in various multimedia settings, including theater, dance, opera, television, video, film, exhibits, museums, and educational venues — but also at circuses, rodeos, ice skating exhibitions, and at a myriad of sports events.

For broadcast television, on film, videotape, and on DVDs, Audio Description (AD) enhances the regular program audio, precisely timed to occur only during the lapses between dialogue. On televised programs in the United States, it is accessed via a separate digital audio stream; in certain other countries, a set-top box provides access to the signal.

This unique course will introduce participants to the principles of Audio Description, how to produce quality description, and the importance of close communication with the “end users” — people who are blind or have low vision and all people who support this innovative use of technology to provide greater media access.

This course should take about 3-6 hours to complete, but you are free to start and stop as you wish!

Course Instructor: Joel Snyder is the current president of Audio Description Associates and the director of the Audio Description Project of the American Council of the Blind. One of the first audio describers, Joel began describing theater events and media in 1981. In addition to his ongoing work in these genres (for Sesame Street, DVDs, and feature films), each year he develops audio-described tours for major museums throughout the United States, including the Smithsonian Institution, The Getty, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the National Aquarium, and several state museums and a myriad of National Park and Forest Service exhibit centers. He has introduced and/or conducted audio description workshops in 30 states and D.C. and in over 25 countries. In 2008, Joel presented workshops in Montpelier, Shanghai, Beijing and provided description for the World Blind Union in Geneva. Most recently, he trained describers in Brazil and presented papers on description in Italy at the International Conference on the Arts & Society and in Spain at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. jsnyder@audiodescribe.com