Reid My Mind

— Sound of water running from a sink, filling up an electric teapot.

TR:
One day, earlier this year, I’m in the middle of doing my thing… Whichever one of those things,
when I wanted a cup of tea.
As I waited for it to boil, I took out my phone.
This is one of the times when I’ll occasionally launch Twitter.
I don’t really spend much time on that platform like I used to.
And yes, I’m still calling it Twitter.

With a few minutes to spare, it’s a convenient distraction.
Swipe, swipe, swipe through the nonsense and then
I came across a tweet.
[Record Roz’s tweet]

Hmm! A young Blind person narrating AD?

That’s a story for Flipping the Script on Audio Description, right here on this podcast.

I’m Thomas Reid, your host and producer…. this is Reid My Mind Radio.
— Sound of teapot boiling

It’s tea time!

— Reid My Mind Radio Intro

Music: A calming ambient melody

TR
Act One

Why not?

TR:
After reading the tweet about Eleanor, the 12 year old Blind describer, I immediately reached out to the author of the tweet, Roz Charmer.

Roz:
I come from the UK. My pronouns are she her? I’m in my 60’s, I’ve got silver hair, and I’m wearing pink glasses. And I’m sitting in front of a microphone in a very tiny little booth at the moment.

TR:
Roz is an audio description professional.

Roz:
I started years ago at the National Theatre in London. And since then, I’ve sort of broadened my field to do things like circus and ballet and contemporary dance and opera. And I’m now really concentrating on working with small organizations where it seems that people don’t get the opportunity to hear about the new writing and the new performances.

My main focus is theater. I do do film and TV, but it tends to be for independents rather than for the big guys.

TR in Conversation with Roz:
And you write as well as narrate. Correct?

Roz:
Yes.

TR in Conversation with Roz:
So, tell me a little bit about how you met Eleanor.

Roz:
I work in a theater called the Old Vic, which is I think about the oldest Theatre in London at over years old.
The Old Vic does a Christmas show. It’s Charles Dickens Christmas Carol. And there is a character in it called Tiny Tim who is disabled in the story and in actual life. And they use three or four disabled children to play Tiny Tim. And Eleanor is one of those and has been I think she did three years running.

I met her at touch tours. And she is also a very ardent audio description consumer. So, she comes to a lot of shows that I’ve described. So, I got to know her through that.

Eleanor:
Hi, I’m Eleanor Stollery. My pronouns are she her, and I am 13 years old.

TR:
They grow so quickly! When I read the tweet, she was only!

First, a little background on Eleanor’s history with AD from a consumer point of view.

Eleanor:
So, when I listen to TV, there’s audio description on all the time. Mummy and daddy try and take me to as many theater shows as we can.
That are available and we can afford.

It’s a vital, vital thing for me, if there’s something that’s not audio described on TV, we will change over that. It’s, it’s sort of part of my lives now.

TR in conversation with Eleanor:
Do you by any chance, remember your first experience with audio description?

Eleanor:
Oh, gosh. I think my first experience was a Disney film. I lost my sight when I was about three or four. So, it was probably a year and a half into my sight loss.
So, it was a big change. But it’s a normal thing for me now.

I talked to my friends about it. And they say, Oh, Don’t you find it annoying. And I’m like, no, because it helps me so much.

TR in conversation with Eleanor:
You remember when you were three? You’re closer to three than I am.

Elanor laughs.

TR:
Eleanor wasn’t only interested in taking in film and theater.
By eight years old, she was performing in school plays and local drama clubs.

Eleanor:
I’ve always loved singing and acting and mimicking people’s voices and that kind of thing.

But there was an open audition for Christmas Carol, and I’d recently finished a regime of chemotherapy. And we had a quite a tough time. And my Mommy and Daddy were like, Why don’t we just do it?

TR in conversation with Eleanor and Tim:
Tim, dad, was that you who was like, Hey, let’s just go try it?

Tim
Yep, pretty much. Obviously, I can’t do anything without the approval of the other half Kelly. But we wanted to do something Just as a distraction from all that our daughter was going through and having to put up with.

I think we knew that Eleanor liked performing. We could get her even as a very young child to repeat words, which a child of her age wouldn’t necessarily know.
She would take direction very well. So perhaps it stemmed from that, we thought that she’d enjoy the experience.

So, we thought why not? Let’s go and see how an audition for a West End Show works.

To our complete amazement, she ended up getting the part and at such a prestigious theater.

Eleanor:
And I got a second audition.
It was an amazing experience, like you’d imagine it to be. And I got the part which was amazing.

I’ve done that for three years consecutively. And then after my first year, I got an agent. And she put me forward for some roles. And then I got a voice part in a cartoon called Milo, which is on Channel Five in the UK.

— Opening theme for “Milo”

Eleanor:
That kind of got me into the voiceover part of acting. Which then led to more auditions and just the crazy world of acting and performing.

— Scene from Milo:
Lark” (Voiced by Eleanor)
Then we saw how Lofty and Farmer tilly work as a team. So, we started to play together. And we won!

Music: A calming ambient melody

TR:
Act Two
Nothing About Us Without Us

TR:
Performing in the role of Tiny Tim for three years, professionally voice acting and auditioning, without even considering it consciously, Eleanor was perfectly positioning herself for an opportunity.

Roz:
We were doing a show called The witches. It’s based on a book by Roald Dahl. It’s a big musical and its child based. It’s a family show. And a lot of the people in it are children.

I was describing it with Andrew Holland, who is my colleague and who actually taught me everything I know.

We were going to do three performances of it. And one was going to be a school performance. So it was thought that we could use a child’s voice for the school’s performance.
I didn’t want to do a school performance without having the input of a blind child.

TR:
The importance of authentic casting can never be understated.
When it comes to audio description that not only applies to the voice of the narrator,
it also means Blind quality control or having a member of the target audience review the script.

David:
We’d had a production at the globe of a retelling of Cymbeline. It was in present day dress and the young people in the audience who are visually impaired are very keen to know what footwear the different characters were wearing.

So back to the fact that a different sort of Crillon, or father Gail gave a sense of status and Elizabethan times, it was evident that for these teenagers, the different trainers that were being worn gave a sense of status in the modern time. And that hadn’t been mentioned because it wasn’t a consideration of us to describe it.

We weren’t viewing the world through that sense of what was important in the costume to a young person.

TR:
That’s David Bellwood.

David:
My pronouns are he him. I’m something year old. Sis, white man, non-disabled. I think that’s an important thing to point out.

I am the head of access at the National Theatre, so I am responsible for the experience of Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people who have contact with the National Theatre on any level. So that might be as members of staff, it might be as scholars or students. It might be visitors to our theaters, it might be actors, it might be people who watch our work online or in the cinema, it might be people who have popped into the foyer for a coffee or gone into our bookshop, or when to hire costumes. So there’s quite a range of points of contact. But the fundamental piece is try to make sure that we deliver something like equity to deaf, disabled neurodivergent people in all the work that we do.

Roz:
And I knew Eleanor and I knew she was a theater goer.

Eleanor:
And she said, Hey, I’m working on the witches. It’s a kids play, would you like to consult on the script? And I was like, oh, yeah, that’ll be great to help other kids. You can sit there as an adult and go, oh, a child might not understand that word. But you’ll never get as good as a child who sort of remembers not understanding those words? Or, you know, still doesn’t? There were a few words in that script, where I was like, what does that word mean? Even as a 12, 13 year old. And the youngest children there were eight. So you can imagine, there were a few words in there that I thought they wouldn’t understand. But to begin with, it was just a consulting role. And I was just going to help edit the script and work out what would make sense and what wouldn’t.

TR:
In 2020, Warner Brother’s released the film adaptation of The Witches starring Ann Hathaway.
Response from the disability community quickly followed due to the portrayal of the witches
as having split hands, or a limb difference having fewer than five fingers or toes.
Fortunately, the National Theater was taking a different approach.

David:
We had the script of the witches leant away from anything that could or potentially resemble disability, the audio description needed to parallel that care, and that attention to detail.

We have a young person, which provides us with a prism of what’s important. We have a young person who’s an incredibly talented actor and deliver operation. And we have a young person who understands best practice and audio description. So sort of notes from Roz going ;

Roz:
Well, why don’t we use Eleanor?

David:
So we did.

Eleanor and her father was like, Yes, we can do this gonna be great. It’s scary, but it’s exciting.

Roz:
So then it was really a question of…
Roz and David in time:
how are we going to do this?

David:
How would we do it?

— Music begins: A creschendoing swoosh culminates to … “Stop” Q-Tip “Breathe & Stop” followed by a fun, upbeat, high energy Hip Hop groove.

TR:
Hey! Many of you have been asking how you can support the podcast!

Here’s two ways to do that …

Reid My Mind Radio Merch!

T-Shirts, hoodies, Coffee Mugs and more….

All With Reid My Mind Radio inspired themes:

— Sample: “Check this Out”
— Sample: “One”

For those of us who are serious about our AD, say it with your chest!

An Audio Description icon with the letters AD, is accompanied by the phrase “Snob Squad” in capital letters.
Beneath in quotes is the text: Quality First.

— Sample: “Two”

If you want humans creating all aspects of your AD.
Say it with your chest!

In a black-and-white nutrition label, the text reads:
100% ORGANIC
Text below reads: Audio Description is for Humans
Underneath, in all caps, it says, “GET THE AI OUT OF HERE!!

no artificial intelligence added.
On the bottom center is a QR Code.

— Sci Fi data transmission
— Keyboard typing
— R E I D M Y M I N D dot C O M

Guess where the QR Code leads you!

— Sample: “Three”

. Of course, there’s the classic.

Audio Description is More than entertainment

— Sample: “Four”

. And just to represent for the podcast…
Official!!!
Reid My Mind Radio Family!

— Sounds of a digital camera taking pictures

Consider posting a picture in your shirt.
Don’t forget the image description.

— Sounds of a digital camera taking pictures

Get as creative as you like with it!
Tag @ReidMyMindRadio on FB or IG.
@tsreid on Twitter.

And!

If you want to buy me a coffee or a tea, , you can do that too.

To support!

Visit ReidMyMind.com/Support

And with all sincerity, your support is greatly appreciated.

Now let’s
— Sample: “Stop” Q-Tip
here and get back to the episode!
Music Ends
—
Music: A calming ambient melody

TR:
Act Three
Break it down!

TR:
Let’s break the narration process down into small manageable chunks.

— “Sample: Break”
Music begins: An exciting, upbeat electronic dance tune.

TR:
First, accessing the information or reading the script.

Eleanor:
I didn’t want to use one hand to read Braille, because that would take ages. Some parts in that show are very fast. And I had to read the line quite quickly. It had to be super speedy.

I used paper script of Braille, just so that I could be more fluent, and, faster and not knowing no other sort of sounds from the audio description box

So we did a couple practice runs before the actual show, where just a couple of people from the National Theatre and my mummy sat in the audience and just listened to it.
And they said, there was one point where the line went over an actor speaking maybe we need to cut that one down. So we cut the script down a lot, but there was still just over lines for me to read during that whole show.

TR:
Practice makes perfect. Eleanor did the first half in one sitting. Then the second and eventually did the entire performance once or twice on her own before the big day.

Eleanor:
Very, very stressful. But at the same time I was so happy that it all went well.

TR:
It’s live theater, stress comes with the job.

Roz:
When you’re doing live theater, it’s a very fluid piece of work, because you might get a very enthusiastic audience one night, and they’ll be clapping for a long time. And then you might get one that only claps for a short time. And then the actors on stage come in a bit quicker. We had children, and they were absolutely going wild. They were laughing, they were really having a great time. So sometimes, the actors had to sort of do a bit of filler work before they could actually say their line because it just wouldn’t be heard. And in that case, I had to give Eleanor some ad libs to do, so people wouldn’t feel that they were being left behind. And they knew what The rest of the audience were laughing at at the same time as they did.

TR:
You might think the way to handle these situations would be for Roz to serve as a secondary narrator covering the spontaneous description.

Roz:
no, no, I would just give her the words.

We talked about it beforehand. And I said there will be these pinch points. We knew where they were likely to be. And I said, I may just come in. And if I come in, I’m going to give you just a couple of words. And I’d like you to deliver it in the way I give it to you.

So if I said something like, his head drops off, she would do his head drops off. So it was exactly the same kind of delivery.

TR:
Timing changes may not always require new description, but rather a prompt to read a particular line.

Roz:
each line of description was given a letter. So the first line was A, the second line was B.

Because it’s live theater, somebody didn’t do something. . We just don’t say that line. But I had to give her the next line and tell her to jump D. Next one E

she had to react really quickly.

Music Ends
— Sample: “Break”

TR:
Imagine for a moment, you’re enjoying a live performance at a theater with audio description.
You’re really into this performance when all of a sudden, after the narrator provides a bit of description and the actors continue with their dialog, you hear;
— Newspaper paper rustling
— A person coughing
— sniffling and someone blowing their nose

TR:
Or Worse!

— Silly fart sound

TR:
You just can’t over state the importance of assuring the narrator closes the microphone in between their narration. I’m just saying! Silly Mischievous giggle)

Eleanor:
We worked out a way that I could read the script, and go out to the audience, because in a normal audio description scenario, the audio describer would have a fader, which would mean they would need another hand to move the switches and press buttons and stuff. But obviously, I needed to read Braille.

The amazing sound people at the National Theatre came up with a system where I used a foot pedal to Cue my voice and go out to the audience.

David:
See, this is the technical wizardry of the sound department.

They could make sure that the audience didn’t hear any click on click off, which often happens when mics are switched. So it did perform the same purpose as the fader

The pedal was vital, because Eleanor was receiving vocal cues from Roz , so if the fader was up, at any point, the audience would have heard Roz give a vocal cue. So the technical accuracy of Eleanor’s delivery, relied on the two of them working in tandem, to make sure that the audience never heard that vocal cue. But did hear the complete line of audio description. They actually nailed it. Absolutely. Nailed it. But it wasn’t no easy task.

Eleanor:
It was a great idea. And it really, really worked.

There were a lot of people helping us work out how to do this, which was great. We got a lot of support.

TR in conversation with David:
Yeh, I’d be curious to see if others adapt to the foot pedal approach. That’d be interesting. Because that’s what usually happens with access. Right? It becomes something that works for everyone.

David
yeah, I think that’s right.

You’ve made a good point. I will actually tomorrow make sure that they’re aware of it.

Music: A calming ambient melody

TR:
Act Four
The bigger picture!

TR:
Act Four – The Bigger Picture

TR:
Audio description is more than entertainment!

Meaning, there’s a bigger picture.

For example, Roz wasn’t just concerned about the performance,
she understood the importance in making sure that Eleanor wouldn’t become discouraged by the process.

That’s real support.

Roz:
She was so excited. And she was so enthusiastic and she was so enjoying the process. And she was very concentrated while we were working.

Eleanor:
The first half was the very upbeat, very fast half, and the second half it calmed down a little bit. So once I got through that first half, I was like, I’m okay, now. I’ve got this.

Roz:
She knows her abilities. And she knows how to communicate those abilities to people. She knew what she was doing.

I mean, she wants to do it again. And I would have absolutely no hesitation in working with her again, she was all smiles most of the time.

TR:
Focusing on the bigger picture helps you recognize the blurred line between who is giving and receiving support.

Roz:
It was a very much two way process, because she was learning from me, but I was learning from her. And we were both new to this. Neither of us had done it before.

I’ve worked with disabled describers. But I hadn’t worked with anybody who was blind before, as a describer. So we were feeling our way all the time.

I think what she was teaching me was, how she negotiated something for the first time and how she negotiated it herself. And what I was trying to do was to just listen, and find out where her fears were.

TR in Conversation with Roz:
why is this important? In general and to you?

Roz:
I do believe that we’ve a long way to go before we have authentic voices. People who actually represent the piece that is out there.

It’s important for me to be able to say this is something that is missing within the audio description field.

It was important to get a child because I think in the witches, I would have been the witch. I’m the old woman who is talking into your ear. And we wanted to actually represent the fact that it was a child story.
And it was told through a child’s mind. So even an adult I think listening would have had a different perspective.

It means now we’ve worked through a lot of the issues, we’ve solved a lot of the problems.

I’d like to be able to share it with people and let them know that this is possible. Anything is possible if you’ve got the will.

TR:
Of course, there’s no one solution for every situation.

We’re talking about creating an environment for success. That’s the blue print.

Roz:
Somebody’s got to be first, somebody’s got to trust. Somebody who is running a theater group has got to trust the fact that this is possible. And it’s going to give a good experience to the audience.

#TR
Again, the bigger picture.

Tim
With live theater, we very rarely get audio described performances. They are few and far between. Which is a sad reality.

TR:
And while she’s just getting started bringing some of that access to the community, as far as we can tell,
Eleanor is the first Blind person to narrate a live theatrical performance in the UK.

Roz:
It’s a small community. And I think we would have heard whether somebody had done it live. to actually sit in a box, and do that description and deliver it in the more traditional way, really, which is people with headsets sitting in an audience, and you in a box somewhere, overlooking the stage, with your script in front of you and delivering at that moment. I haven’t heard anybody who had done that, let alone a 12 year old

TR in conversation with David:
Have you, yourself, or anyone there at the theater get any direct feedback?

David:
Really important in this sort of role is not to expect gratitude. Access is a civil right. And if we ask of disabled people to be grateful, I feel that there’s a power dynamic in there, which is really quite unhealthy. It’s important, we don’t go looking for praise.

So the feedback came in over time, it was overwhelmingly positive, which is absolutely fantastic. And just proved to us the validity of it, but also meant that we could speak directly to Eleanor and say, Look at what you succeeded, which is really important. And we’re still talking about that feedback and the response from those young people today.

TR in conversation with Eleanor:
What does that mean to you? The fact that there are other blind students who get to hear a blind Narrator doing that? Does that mean anything to you?

Eleanor:
It means so much to me, because I know that if that was me experiencing a visually impaired audio describer describing that show, it would be amazing.

I just hope, maybe I brought a nice first experience of the theater to some of those children.

TR in conversation with Eleanor:
When you say it would have been amazing for you to experience, what would that have meant for you?

Eleanor:
I find it quite relatable, maybe there was some kids that will be like, oh, gosh, I wouldn’t be able to do that. But I like that kind of thing. So if I’d been in that situation sitting there listening to it, I could think, Hey, I could do that, maybe I could do that one day. It’s possible.

TR in conversation with Eleanor:
Absolutely prove it’s more than possible. It is a thing.

Do you have any Blind or visually impaired mentors ? Whether you know them personally or not? Are there people that you can look to that you say, Okay, this is a path for me.

Eleanor:
There aren’t that many out there that sort of make themselves known that they’re just kind of in the background, which is great, really, because it’s amazing to me In a visually impaired actress or actor, but at the same time, maybe you don’t want all that fame.

Tim:
There was a film we watched recently on Netflix.

Eleanor:
it was a series, All the Light We Cannot See. That was amazing.

Tim
Aria Libertti

Eleanor:
That was really good!

TR:
The mini series which debuted on Netflix, received wide recognition for authentic casting for the role of
Marie Laure LeBlanc played by Aria Mia Loberti and Nell Sutton both of whom are Blind.

And y’all know there’s a strong Reid My Mind Radio Family connection here right?

Our brother Joe Strechay was one of the producers for the Netflix project.
In general, Joe’s doing that work increasing disability representation in front and behind screen.

The Audio Description was produced by the folks from IDC with narration
by Fern Lulham, a Blind narrator.

P.S. I believe she’s in the UK.

(Whispering….) You should reach out to Eleanor…. I’m just saying.

Music begins: A bright, synth intro leading into a hopeful inspirational beat.

TR in conversation with Eleanor:
Maybe like you said, some of the younger folks will be able to see you guys and say, hey, yeah, this is possible.

Eleanor:
Yeah, I really hope so. That’s what was kind of powering me through when I got to those harder parts of the show. I thought I hope this is helping others.

TR:
There it is, the big picture!

While I recognize the importance of connecting the dots to the bigger picture and have a lot more to say about that, I’ll save that for another time.

Let’s celebrate Eleanor’s success and all of the love and support that was poured into this young lady.
Imagine what we can do if that was the standard approach to access.

Access is for consumers and creators!

Big shout out to Roz Charmer, David Bellwood, Tim and the youngest to do it… Eleanor Stolery. You are all official members of the Reid My Mind Radio family!

— Airhorn

TR:
If you’re interested in following Eleanor, her social media manager and security has the details

Tim:
Eleanors Voice on Facebook
@ERStollery on Twitter and Instagram

TR:
And you can chat more with Roz.

Roz
@ELSIEBIADS I will spell that for you E L S I E B I A DS
But also it’s ross.charmers@gmail.com.

TR:
You know, it’s a lot of work producing this podcast. But it means a lot to me and I hope to you too.

I appreciate you all and hope you continue rocking with Reid My Mind Radio, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcripts and more are over at ReidMyMind.com.

There’s only one way to get there no matter who you are.
King or Queen, Duke or Dutchess, you have to spell it right!
That’s R to the E, I… D!
— “D, and that’s me in the place to be!”, Slick Rick

Like my last name.

— Reid My Mind Radio Outro

Peace.

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