Reid My Mind

Music begins
THOMAS: Welcome to the Blind-Centered Audio Description Chats. These are the edited recordings of the Blind-Centered Audio Description Live Chats!
CHERYL: The live is the most fun part! We get together, we start with a question, and then we invite up anybody from the audience who wants to come and chat with us, agree, disagree, shed light on something that we hadn’t thought about before, which is Nefertiti’s favorite. [electric whoosh]
NEFERTITI: I’m Nefertiti Matos Olivares, and I’m a bilingual professional voiceover artist who specializes in audio description narration! I’m also a fervent cultural access advocate and a community organizer.
CHERYL: I’m Cheryl Green, an access artist, audio describer and captioner.
THOMAS: And I’m Thomas Reid, host and producer Reid My Mind Radio, voice artist, audio description narrator, consultant, and advocate.
[smartphone selection beeps]
CHERYL: Recording now!

NEFERTITI: Well, hello. This is Nefertiti Matos Olivares, and this is our first time that we’re doing a bit of a hybrid session and the first time we are presenting some content, sort of cross-pollinating, some work that we do with the Blind-Centered Audio Description Chat series that Cheryl Green, Thomas Reid, and I have been collectively working on for a while now, and also, the work that we do by way of the Social Audio Description Collective, or SADC, where we actually create and carefully craft, from the writing to the blind QC, the narration, the sound design, all of it, some culturally competent audio description in English and Spanish and other languages. So, if you don’t know about SADC, check us out. We are the Social Audio Description Collective. And if you don’t know about our previous offerings at the Blind-Centered Audio Description Chat series, you can check that out too by way of Thomas Reid’s Reid My Mind Radio. That’s all R to the E I D, like his last name, y’all!
THOMAS: [chuckles]
NEFERTITI: On his podcast feed as well. Wow. I am here, and I am happy to be here. And we have Thomas with us. We have Cheryl with us. We have Oliver Baker, the writer of the audio description for the two films that we will be watching and listening to today. And we have Carmen, Carmen Papalia with us.
THOMAS: So, we’re gonna show two films, and then we’re gonna talk to Carmen about the films, talk a little bit about what led into creating the films, talk a little bit about the AD, and we wanna hear from y’all too. So if there’s questions about the films that you wanna ask Carmen, you’ll have an opportunity to do that, or if you wanna ask or make a comment on the audio description, you can do that too.

Editors Note:
THOMAS: Quick note, we’re not including the audio of the film in this episode, however, you can go on over to this episode’s blog post on ReidMyMind.com and I’ll link you there.
Then come back and enjoy the conversation with both film maker and AD production team.

Ok, here we go, back to the episode!!

THOMAS: So, I think it’s time to welcome Carmen Papalia to the Zoom room.
NEFERTITI: [imitates air horn]
CARMEN: [chuckles]
THOMAS: And maybe Carmen, if you wanna introduce yourself, tell folks who you are, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.
CARMEN: Yeah, for sure. It’s Carmen speaking. I’m calling in from the stolen land of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh people, colonially known as Vancouver. I’m in my room right now. I’m, yeah, I’m wearing maybe one of the same caps as in the film, a brown sort of wool cap, and a colorful button shirt with short sleeves today. I’m not sure which colors, unfortunately!
THOMAS: [chuckles]
CARMEN: Sorry. But know that they are vibrant and festive, I call myself a non-visual artist. I make mostly participatory projects. I do performance, installation. I do curating as well. And this project, Impaired, is a co-production and collaboration with my brother Antonio. And he’s not able to be here today ‘cause he’s sick, unfortunately. But yeah, it’s been a joy to work with him on this project. He’s also a macro photographer, too. So, I can talk a little bit about the work that we did with the Social Audio Description Collective around the macro photos as well. But this film series is something that we got some COVID-era grant funding for by the Canada Council. And the films were recently just in an exhibition in Zurich. It was an exhibition called Interdependencies about various forms of care. And these films were shown in a functional grow room that my brother designed and built. Well, he had help building it. The production team at the museum was amazing and was able to put everything together to our specs. It was like a replica of the grow room that we have here in Vancouver, but it was made to be wheelchair accessible for the exhibition. And it was like a presentation space for these videos and as well as my brother’s macro photos of the cannabis life cycle.
THOMAS: Very cool. Very cool. Could you talk a little bit about what led to the creation of this film?
CARMEN: Yeah, I think it was this kind of deep collaboration that me and my brother had developed just around my pain management and the growing of medicinal cannabis through Access to Cannabis Program through Health Canada. And I think it was just interesting as we were digging into this project of like, how do we set up a grow so my brother, who is low vision, can manage it? We were just doing this, I guess, problem solving, as you do when you just jump into something. How is this gonna work? And I think we wanted to show that process a bit.
But there was also this wonderful thing that happened when my brother started growing cannabis for me, too, is that we got to talk a lot more about disability and my brother’s vision loss, too. And as you saw in the film, he just recently sort of picked up a cane, and he’s still kind of like in that space of when to use it, if he should use it. And I just felt like this experience really brought us together. My family is very much involved, too, in the processing of the cannabis. So we have these trimming parties, and we’ll listen to some of the same tunes that you played today, [laughing] Thomas.
THOMAS: [laughs]
CARMEN: And order some pizza and trim cannabis together. And it just became this space for us to explore all these things that we were excited about and maybe wanted to explore, like tactility, like, how does that play into this process of growing cannabis, and yeah. My brother, he developed a photo series out of this process, too. And it was really a space for him to, you know, come back to his photo practice and make photos that he was really proud of that he could include in the show. I just think it’s just been a generative space for us that we wanted to show to others.
There was some reference to hallucinations in those videos. One of the longer-term goals is for my brother to actually breed a variety of cannabis that activates my visual hallucinations. So, I have quite vibrant and active hallucinations connected to my visual condition. Thomas hosted myself and a few artists on Reid My Mind talking about them With certain kinds of cannabis, these hallucinations are even more amplified, and they take on different characteristics! Through our research, my brother’s found there are a handful of cannabis varieties that are known hallucinogenic strains. And so, we’ve got our hands on a few of those, and we’ve grown a few. And we’ve made concentrates out of them, and I’ve kind of tested on myself. And they’re usually, you know, the ones that I really love are varieties that have a sort of psychedelic effect but also are good pain relievers.
I mentioned my pain condition. I have sickle cell anemia. So, yeah, I have a lot of pain that cannabis actually is really helpful for. And prior to transitioning onto cannabis, I was on Dilaudid. It was just a very different experience. My life was a lot different before I transitioned to cannabis. And, now for the most part, I mean, I still use Dilaudid, you know, when I’m having an intense crisis that might bring me to hospital or debilitating. But for the most part, I use cannabis and yeah, and some psilocybin as well, so, yeah.
THOMAS: Very good. You know, it’s interesting you mentioned the music at the beginning because I was looking for medicinal cannibal songs, cannabis songs. [laughs]
CARMEN: Mmhmm.
THOMAS: And I didn’t find any!
THOMAS and CARMEN: [delighted laughter]
CARMEN: I know. You don’t really hear people talking about getting medicated, do you?
THOMAS: No, you don’t!
THOMAS and CARMEN: [laugh again]
CARMEN: But yeah. I mean, there should be. Maybe there’s some awesome crip hip-hop artists that maybe can get into that.
THOMAS: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It’s a market.
NEFERTITI: Yeah, maybe a participant today might have something for us, maybe.
THOMAS: [chuckles] Yeah. I want you to go back a little bit because you mentioned the macro photography. Can you describe it? I have a feeling many people might not be familiar with what that is.
CARMEN: Yeah. Totally. And I’ll describe it as much as I know through the process. It’s a very technical way of capturing, well, an image. And so, what you’re doing is you’re using some lenses that give you a super zoomed-up view of what you’re taking a photo of, and it kind of turns into something else altogether at that such a zoomed-in sort of view. And so, my understanding is that you take hundreds of photos that kind of get pulled together on the computer into like a composite, basically, that is a super close view of the subject. And my brother was taking photos of the cannabis lifecycle from seed to flower.
And so, some of these, like, if you can imagine a cannabis bud, and you know that the medicinal part is the oil or resin on the bud, if you take a photo, a macro photo of that, these little blobs of oil or resin, you can see them. They’re called trichomes. And they kind of look like, and I think this was the magic of Oliver described them as like a mushroom kingdom or something. They just look like this world unto itself. So, I think my brother really wants to bring people into this subject matter, medicinal plants and mushrooms and the subjects that he’s drawn to. And he said he doesn’t want people to pressure people to see something in his images. Like, you know this pressure to see. I felt that, too, as my vision has changed over the years, especially when I’m in a medical setting. Like, “can you see this?” Like, we’re testing what you can see. My brother really wants people to have a space where they can see what they want and really make their own stories about what they’re seeing as well in his images.
THOMAS: Mm.
CARMEN: Which was, yeah, which was really lovely when we were able to collaborate with you all on the description. Because it was a very involved process where, which not involved in that it was too involved. I think it was appropriately involved because we got to have conversation, me and Antonio, about what he saw and how he would describe it. So, I’m using a screen reader. I heard Oliver’s note coming through.
THOMAS: Oh. [laughs]
CARMEN: Which was that Cheryl, it was Cheryl’s magic who, Cheryl described the trichomes as the mushrooms and the mushroom kingdom. So, just clarifying there.
THOMAS: Why did you come to SADC? Like, was there something specific? Yeah.
CARMEN: [delighted laugh] I mean, you are the superstars of audio description all in one place. So, I mean, it’s kind of hard to go anywhere else. [laughs]
NEFERTITI: High praise! Thank you.
CARMEN: I mean, I’ve known Cheryl since probably 2010 or 2011, too. And I’ve been a lover of Thomas’s work for a while. And yeah, I just thought for this production to really explore what that collaborating with you might turn into. And I thought we had a really great experience. So yeah. Thank you.
THOMAS: Cool. Cool. I didn’t mean that to sound like a softball pitch there, but.
THOMAS and CARMEN: [laugh]
NEFERTITI: No, but please take it, because it’s very true. It’s very true.
THOMAS: I will take it, but also just curious, because you and Cheryl, you all sort of met, if I’m correct, let me know, around audio description. Is that correct?
CHERYL: Carmen is the person who introduced me to audio description. One of my short films was playing. I was so proud of the captions. “Yay, I have a captioned film.” And I heard somebody whispering through my whole film. I’m very distractible, and I was like, oh, rude! What is going on here? And afterward I asked somebody who were the rude people talking through my whole film? Oh, I’m the center of the universe. Why are people whispering? That’s not the literal words I said.
CARMEN: [laughs]
CHERYL: But somebody explained to me that, well, the film didn’t have any audio description, and so somebody was whispering and describing the visuals to Carmen. And it was a face, face plant, face palm, whatever you call it. I planted my palm on my face. So that was my introduction to audio description. And then Carmen, I don’t know where you lived then, but we apparently lived on the same bus route.
CARMEN: Yeah.
CHERYL: And somebody encouraged me to walk with you to the bus stop ‘cause maybe you weren’t familiar with that neighborhood.
CARMEN: Oh, you were my way to get home. I wouldn’t know how to get home otherwise! [laughs]
CHERYL: Except that we got so lost! Even though I’d been riding that bus for ten years at that point. I get so confused sometimes. And anyway, we had a lot of laughs about getting lost. But you were so gentle and encouraging in talking about, you know, there’s a thousand points of entry to access. Pick one and start there. You were not judgmental. You enjoyed my film, I think, even though it wasn’t described.
CARMEN: Yeah, yeah. For sure.
CHERYL: So, that’s how I got started. And many years later when you started asking me to do audio description for your stuff, I was pretty blown away.
CARMEN: Aw.
THOMAS: I love that story. Cheryl, do you wanna talk a little bit about the process of describing images? The idea that Carmen and Antonio laid out about wanting folks to be able to see whatever it is they see, just real quick, I think that’s the way I think about our hallucinations as well, Carmen.
CARMEN: Mmhmm, mmhmm.
THOMAS: Just it’s really interesting. So, Cheryl, yeah. Talk about that.
CHERYL: Carmen has a wonderful technique that was developed in the Simon Fraser University Pandemic Is a Portal project, which is the phone call. So, the phone call came from this idea that, you know, if you’re trying to write an image description, imagine you’re on the phone with somebody and telling them what it is. And Carmen took that ten levels higher when we were working on that project and literally did a phone call [laughs] with, I think it was Heather.
CARMEN: Mmhmm.
CHERYL: And the two of you recorded your phone call, and you talked about not only literally what was in the picture, but your concepts and your feelings and your emotions. And you gave me that, and I transcribed it, and I used it to build the image description.
So, for the macro photo series, you and Antonio did the same thing. You recorded these calls for me, which was amazing because I didn’t know what a trichome was before. So, y’all used technical terms. And then very beautifully, you would ask Antonio a lot of questions. That’s one of the things that is so exciting to the collaboration. You would ask him to share some details, and then I did research online, learned a lot more about cannabis. And I used your phone call transcript as the basis for writing the description, so that I knew I was getting what was important to y’all, but that you let me build also whatever else I wanted to.
THOMAS: That’s pretty cool. When you think about describing an image, you would just see, oh, like the only context you have is the image. But no, you build off of other things as well. So, that’s cool. Oliver, what about you, sir? What kind of research did you have to do to get into describing cannabis? [laughs]
CHERYL: [chuckles]
OLIVER: Ah, research! I think it was just here and there. Sometimes it was just a question like, that hat that Carmen’s wearing, whether it was fleece or wool or whether I could call it a beanie or something else. And sometimes it was after the fact. Like, I guessed that in one of the opening scenes that a bud was being rolled, and the leaves were being pressed against it just to narrow it up. But it was really just some leaves and I guess some b-roll, in effect. And so, I had to change that. Not research beforehand. ‘Cause Carmen, you were doing a lot of traveling during that time, so I couldn’t be in real-time contact about any question I had necessarily.
CARMEN: Yeah, but it was that back-and-forth process that I think we fine-tuned a couple things. I really loved your all’s process, too, for getting the scripts to where they could, to narration, too.
OLIVER: Yeah, I think this was probably an unusual project in my experience in the amount of and the level of evolution that happened after I submitted my draft. One thing was that the animator, Heather Kai Smith, came into the discussion pretty late. And so, some important points that she made reached me late, and so I was making changes, I guess, mainly to the pre-show, but a little bit during the show based on that.
CARMEN: It’s not the ideal way to go about developing an audio described piece. Like, some, the footage was shot before we looped you in. The animation has to be done after the video is firmed up and complete. And, yeah, it’s just, it’s a wacky timeline, I guess, that we were working on. And we were also trying to meet the deadline of the exhibition opening and the delivery date for that exhibition in Zurich. I’m continuously apologizing ‘cause I feel like I, you need, like, double the amount of time to do this well. And I mean, it’s done amazingly, and super—
OLIVER: I think some applause is due, too, because we had a conversation with Eric that led to something that never happens, which was, he introduced a little bit of a gap. He changed the editing a little bit to accommodate just a very brief line of audio description that we wouldn’t have been able to include otherwise, to make sure that blind and low vision audience members would understand what was happening during the important scene down the steps. And if things had gone the way they usually do, and with another filmmaker, with other filmmakers, that adaptation wouldn’t have happened.
THOMAS: How much of a change was it actually, Oliver, in terms of time? Like, how much time did you actually need to make that difference?
OLIVER: I think I asked for less than a second [chuckles] in one place and a little bit more than a second in another place.
CARMEN: [laughs]

OLIVER: We had an interesting kind of negotiation about where they’d be inserted because Eric sort of cherished a particular pause for the suspense, and for him, the AD voice coming in there would’ve interfered with that. So, he put the pause somewhere else, but it worked out fine. But the interesting conversation, which kind of gets into, I don’t know, an unusual amount of gray area of audio description was everybody had a different opinion about it. The filmmaker, Eric, who wasn’t used to watching films with audio description, felt the narration was a distraction. Thomas, I think you were not distracted, and you appreciated the extra information that would’ve been provided there. And then Antonio, who is losing vision and using a cane, but not so, still new to using a cane, for him, he actually appreciated the silent pause that Eric wanted to have in there because it was not old hat to him in the same way it might’ve been to you, Thomas, as more of an expert cane user.
THOMAS: Yeah.
OLIVER: That affected where we put the narration.
THOMAS: Mm, which goes into our approach in terms of audio description and that blind-centered approach, right? Why would we tailor the AD to someone who’s not going to use AD? But it’s so funny how often that’s a big part of what we do when working with filmmakers, right? Just kind of explaining that and explaining what we mean by a blind-centered approach. And that’s a perfect example of it right there, so. Very good.
CARMEN: There was something really interesting in the making of the installation at the museum in Zurich, too. Because these films were audio described, we could watch them outside of the grow room, because even when we were outside of the installation, we could still hear the AD and watch the film, which was really nice.
THOMAS: [happy laugh] That’s access!
CARMEN: Mmhmm, mmhmm.
THOMAS: Very nice.
CARMEN: I’d be happy to answer any questions about the art stuff, but also cannabis stuff, too, and my, like, yeah, whatever you wanna know!
THOMAS: Did you go back to retraining for O&M? [laughing] Did you get any more training?
CARMEN: No. I mean, I feel like my brother can give me some pointers, but I’m pretty stuck in my ways of using the cane like I like to. [chuckles]
THOMAS: Yes. And you use a black cane. Your cane is black? Is that the one you always use?
CARMEN: I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just order them without the tape on them, and they’re graphite canes from Ambutech in Winnipeg. They have these silvery kind of joints that, yeah, hold the segments together, yeah.
THOMAS: Mmhmm. The collapsible parts there? Yeah.
CARMEN: Yeah, yes. Yeah. And a wooden handle. Yeah.
THOMAS: Gotcha. Oh, and a wooden handle. Okay. Very cool, very cool.
OLIVER: I wanna know finally, and for all time, is that cap fleece or pashmina?
THOMAS: [laughs]
OLIVER: It’s not a coarse weave wool.
CARMEN: I think it is wool. I mean, I have two of the same. This one looks more, see, this is more brushed. See, this is the alternative. I have a green hat, the same as I’m wearing right now, but green, in my hand. And it’s more soft. I think this is, yeah, more of like, finer woven than the one I’m wearing right now. But, yeah, I don’t know. [happy laugh]
OLIVER: Well, the mystery will have to be prolonged.
CARMEN: [laughs]
OLIVER: We’ll meet sometime.
CARMEN: Yes, and you could read the tag for me, or I could get someone to read the tag for me and send you!
NEFERTITI: Carmen, I value very much friendship and family and all of this, and I just really enjoyed witnessing that communication between your brother and you, navigating with your canes and talking about how you’re using little body parts to detect and to keep safe and to gather information and all of. I just think there’s something so, so beauteous about that. Whereas, people can think, oh, how sad or what have you. And I just, I was really moved by that, this idea that it’s a difficult time and yet you have your brother, your flesh and blood, right there to share in it with you and to share of yourself with him. And that’s captured through the growing that you do. And I heard you here say today that it’s become sort of a family endeavor. So, I just really wanna congratulate you and really appreciate that you chose to share that with the world.
CARMEN: Thank you. Aw, that’s really nice. My experience with the cannabis grow with my brother growing for me has been a really positive experience where I feel like I’ve really been able to claim some agency with regard to my pain management. And it’s very different than conversations that I might have in the medical setting. It’s based in our relationship. And even, you know, when we, for whatever reason, have friction, we still have the grow that we have to talk about. And too, you know, that kind of anchors us.
NEFERTITI: [chuckles] Yes!
CARMEN: I have to say, too, that, with my condition, So I have retinitis pigmentosa and then sickle cell anemia, and my brother shares the visual condition with me. My sister shares the blood condition with me. So, we have different, I have different relationships with both of my siblings. I carry both of those conditions. They each have, one of my parents who we got these from are not symptomatic. So, we really kind of have banded together in certain ways around our conditions and in really deep ways. And for years and years, until I would say 2020, my sister was the only person I really could talk to about sickle cell. I didn’t really know anybody else. And it wasn’t until I met someone through disability art that also has sickle cell and is like, “This is who I am. And this has this is my experience,” that I was really able to even explore that part of my experience. And my brother gets very, too, like, my brother gets very specific about what he’s growing for me, how it’s working for me, what kinds of things we need to change. Like, it’s a dialogue about my pain management in a very kind of this exchange that I might not have in another setting, yeah.
NEFERTITI: Yeah, it sounds very personal and literal cultivation of care. Literally, you have—
THOMAS: Nice! [laughs]
NEFERTITI: Yeah, right? I got some bars. [laughs]
THOMAS: Nice!
CARMEN: [happy laugh]
NEFERTITI: But yeah, you’re literally cultivating the care, and the cannabis is the tangible proof of that connection.
CARMEN: Right.
NEFERTITI: And it’s just beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
THOMAS: Yeah.
CARMEN: I should say, there are a lot of people who serve this role in their communities, like as a caregiver-grower for people who are pain patients or who have other chronic illnesses. And it is such an interesting relationship with others in your community. You know, you have this passion for growing and maybe even supporting them in the ways that you can through the grow. But like, you get to know them so personally because, I mean, there’s a lot of, yeah, growers grow for, say, a handful of patients, like 15, sometimes 30. But they’re getting to know these people and what they need and what works for them too. So, it really is a lovely kind of experience. Some cultivators, too, grow strains specifically for people who need what they provide. I just think that’s really wonderful. Yeah.
NEFERTITI: Yes.
THOMAS: Carmen, is that the term, “caregiver-growers”? Is that the name?
CARMEN: Yeah, yeah.
THOMAS: Okay, okay. ‘Cause I know someone who might be interested in doing something like that. Yeah, that’s very cool. Very cool.
NEFERTITI: Yeah. I’m learning so much. I don’t know about these things, so quite an education for me and I think for others. And I also think we had a hand raised, if I caught that. Susannah Mars?
SUSANNAH: Yeah. Hi, this is Susannah.
NEFERTITI: Hi!
SUSANNAH: I just felt I enjoyed it so much. And I love the juicy language that you used. I love the marshmallow tip cane. And similarly to Nefertiti, I felt that nurturance of the plants and the caring among living things is so beautiful because it really crosses between the relationships and the care and the really caring for all living things in that generous and loving way. And the relationships, I appreciated, again, like Nefertiti mentioned, the joy of your relationships and that connection that just suffuses the whole work. It’s very beautiful. I appreciated it, and Thomas, I thought your voice was just lovely mixed in, in the mix. You know, it was all just—
NEFERTITI: Always!
SUSANNAH: —beautiful.
THOMAS: Thank you, Susannah. Thank you. Appreciate it.
SUSANNAH: Thank you. Mmhmm.
NEFERTITI: Always, always. Thomas Reid elevates anything Thomas Reid touches, I just wanna say!
CARMEN: Mmhmm.
THOMAS: Aw, thank you, Nef.
NEFERTITI: Yes! Oh, this is wonderful.
THOMAS: I do wanna ask you a little bit about the ear cleansing. Can you talk about, a little bit about, you know, the way you look at sound and just think about in terms of non-visual and what the ear cleansing thing was really all about?
CARMEN: Yeah, yeah. So, when I was in my undergrad at Simon Fraser University, I took some acoustic communications classes. It’s like the university where that whole practice and field of soundscape studies emerged. In the late ‘60s, there was this thing called the World Soundscape Project, and it was a initiated by R. Murray Schafer, who I talk about in that piece. But they basically got together a handful of researchers who went out into the environment and just started recording sound and listening and developing terminology for what they were noticing. And this whole field of study kind of like, you know, we have the word “soundscape”. We have various ways of even protecting the acoustic environment from noise and sound pollution, noise pollution, sorry. And I just heard about this practice of, like, okay, let’s, it’s sort of like the focus you get when you shut your eyes and are trying to focus your non-visual senses. You just kind of plug your ears for a time, and then you unplug them. And then you are acutely aware of what sounds are where.
And I don’t know. For me, it was a process of learning how sound was spatialized. At the beginning of my vision loss, like, starting to use a cane, I would have to spend time in a room. And you know, I used to run this reading series, poetry event at this bar here called the Railway Club. And I remember just like, it was so acoustically cluttered in that space. And I would sit there, and I was like, I can’t make sense of any of this. But eventually, I just started active listening in that space, and I could, you know, voices, you know. I kind of recognized who was talking, where they were, like, what the dimensions of the space were. I kind of adopted this active listening practice through acoustic communications and these practices that whole crew around the World Soundscape Project. But I think, you know, without that tool, I would find my own way, and I, you know, I know. Sorry, I have to mention that a friend, Andy Slater, who is a blind artist, he really, he dislikes R. Murray Schafer. He’s like, oh, he should not get the spotlight. We should get the spotlight because we’ve been learning how to listen before there was a term for it.
THOMAS: When Antonio said that once he took the earplugs out, and he, it was about 30 seconds that he was looking for something new. He wanted to hear something different. And I was just like, oh, wow. That’s really interesting because there’s sort of like a rule of thumb when creating audio pieces that says, yeah, things should change every 30 seconds because folks’ interests change.
CARMEN: Hmm.
THOMAS: And so, I was like, oh, wow! Look at that. I don’t know if they’re related, [laughs] but he just so happened to be looking for something after 30 seconds, which jumped out at me. Yeah. Very cool. Anyone else have anything?
CHERYL: Go ahead, Susan!
SUE: I was very touched by the scene where your brother was describing what made the plant happy and how you could tell the plant was happy by the angle of the leaves. I have a green thumb, and I raise a lot of plants. And I once went into a car dealer to wait for my car, and the plant that was in the waiting room was very miserable and unhappy. And I went over to the receptionist, and I said, “Please help this plant. It’s very unhappy.” And she just looked at me. So, when the car was returned to me, I took the plant home and took care of it.
CARMEN: Mm!
SUE: And that one scene reminded me of all the times that I notice when plants are happy, but I never thought of touching the plant to see if it was happy.
CARMEN: Mmhmm.
SUE: I notice it by looking at it, so I’m gonna touch my plants more now.
CARMEN: That’s really nice. I love that. He is so attuned to their needs, and he spends time with them so much. And when you’re in the grow room too, you feel like you are…. They have a presence to them.
SUE: Yes.
CARMEN: And yeah, I really like that. And you were attuned to the needs of that plant when you walked into that car dealership. Which, yeah, I think it is a relationship that you have with these living things that you are growing. It’s quite amazing to, you know, like the whole process to like, you know, from seed to, like, when— They’re so fragile, too, as well. When we had our outdoor grow that there was, that was shown in the films, it was on this patio outdoors. There’s about ten plants out there. They got to over six feet tall, maybe seven feet tall eventually. And in Vancouver, you know, you plant them in April, and then they’re ready in maybe October. We had a lot of wind and rain by then, so it’s not a great place for outdoor growing. And I remember getting, because my parents were also keeping their eye on the plants sometimes, they were like, oh. I mean, I remember getting this call that it sounded like they were on a ship or something. They were like, “Oh no! These plants are gonna tip over, and we’re gonna lose them!” And so, it was, I really think it’s like damage control.
The challenge is just protecting them so they can cross the finish line by the end, ‘cause they just grow so tall. And with the weather conditions here, it’s just not ideal. But those kinds of things, I mean, of course, it really just, my brother was so affected by that! And of course, you know, you put months of care into these plants, and you want them to make it to the end. And then each of them holds like 100, sometimes more, 100 grams or more of cannabis. And yeah, if it’s not ready yet, there’s only so much you can do to make it usable. Yeah, it doesn’t get its full growth cycle.
SUE: You sound like, what you were just saying is a metaphor for raising children.
CARMEN: [chuckles]
NEFERTITI: Yeah, and I was going to say life in general, right?
SUE: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: We invest in things, and sometimes they fruit, and sometimes they rot. And you know, it’s like, yeah. I think it’s a beautiful metaphor for these things.
THOMAS: Just don’t smoke your children.
CARMEN, NEFERTITI, and THOMAS: [huge laughs]
THOMAS: Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one.
NEFERTITI: That’s a good one, Thomas. Good advice. Life hack. [laughs]
THOMAS: No, hopefully that’s not good advice!
CARMEN, NEFERTITI, and THOMAS: [still laughing]
NEFERTITI: Earlier you did say “cannibal”. I’m just saying. [laughs]
THOMAS: I know I did say that. Cool, cool. Very good.
OLIVER: I just wanna be sure to thank Carmen and Antonio in absentia for letting us, you know, SADC and with the Blind Audio Chat to premiere these cool movies. Thank you.
CARMEN: Yeah, thank you.
THOMAS: 100%. Yeah.
NEFERTITI: Can people watch these films anywhere? Are you showing them in any film festivals? Do you have plans for the future?
CARMEN: Yeah, we have a longer, we’re gonna launch our Impaired website ‘cause it’s just gonna show our progress. But they’re first gonna be available through SADC’s site, I believe.
OLIVER: Premiering and then living, for at least a while, as streamables on our website.
CARMEN: Yeah, yeah. So, super happy about that. And yeah, we’re continuing to work on, we have a show coming up, another exhibition me and my brother are in, in 2026 at the Mackenzie Art Gallery in Saskatchewan. We have all sorts of plans to do…. Well, we’re still in this long-term process of developing a hallucinogenic pain reliever, a strain of cannabis. My brother’s proposed a name for that strain, Tripping Hazard, which I kind of, I like, yeah.
NEFERTITI: Love it!
CARMEN: [laughs]
NEFERTITI: Oh, my God! I love that!
CARMEN: Yes, yeah.
NEFERTITI: Oh, I’m a sucker for a play on words. I love it.
CARMEN: If anyone shows up in Vancouver, you know, we are legal for recreational use here, and I do have some homemade concentrates that I’d love to share, especially for folks who are, who do have visual hallucinations. ‘Cause I, one of the things I’ve been loving is talking to people like Thomas and Andy and our friend Collin and others about their visual hallucinations and also how cannabis might affect them. Yeah.
THOMAS: Absolutely. Absolutely! Let me just. Hold on. I was just on Flights.com. Vancouver.
CARMEN, NEFERTITI, and THOMAS: [big laughs]
NEFERTITI: I was thinking when I was in Vancouver last year, damn it, I wish I would’ve known of you, at least, because I would’ve definitely made an effort to try and connect. But I know you now, and I work for a Vancouver company, so.
CARMEN: Cool, cool.
NEFERTITI: Yeah, I might come through.
CARMEN: For sure.
NEFERTITI: Thank you so much.
THOMAS: Bring me something back, Nef. [laughs]
NEFERTITI: You bet, Thomas. Absolutely. Well, thank you, again, Carmen, for your time, for your talent, for your knowledge. And thank you, Oliver, for being here as part of the process, Cheryl and Thomas as co-hosts and co-members of the BCAD and SADC. We have a monopoly on all these letters, y’all.
THOMAS and CARMEN: [laugh]
NEFERTITI: And yeah, do we have any final thoughts as we shut this baby down? Okay. I think that answers that.
THOMAS: Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.
CARMEN: Thank you so much, everybody. I hope you all enjoy today, and yeah, imbibe or partake in whatever ways you feel comfortable. I do love rolling a joint, actually. Like, that’s like, I love the tactile experience of, I use these raw, they’re called raw cone wraps or something, king-size cone wraps. And I just love filling them and twisting them and yeah, just. Yeah, I guess it’s like a nice pairing to our dreary weather here, sitting on the patio in the rain [laughs] with a joint.
THOMAS: Yeah. Sounds good.
CARMEN: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: Heck yeah. That’s artistry in and of itself.
CARMEN: [laughs] Yeah.
NEFERTITI: Yeah, definitely.
OLIVER: And this has been a joint production.
THOMAS and NEFERTITI: [laugh]
NEFERTITI: Nice, Oliver! Nice. All right, everybody, thank you so much. Till next time!

THOMAS: Cool. Well, that concludes this week’s conversation. Why don’t y’all keep the conversation going on social media.
CHERYL: Use #ADFUBU, for us by us, #DescribeEverything, and #AudioDescription.
NEFERTITI: And hey, you know we’re out here, right? Mmhmm! Gathered and galvanized y’all. If you haven’t joined us yet, what are you waiting for?! You can find us in the LinkedIn Audio Description group and the AD Twitter community. We know that your participation will only make these spaces better.
Music fades out!

Hide the transcript

Music begins
THOMAS: Welcome to the Blind-Centered Audio Description Chats. These are the edited recordings of the Blind-Centered Audio Description Live Chats!
CHERYL: The live is the most fun part! We get together, we start with a question, and then we invite up anybody from the audience who wants to come and chat with us, agree, disagree, shed light on something that we hadn’t thought about before, which is Nefertiti’s favorite. [electric whoosh]
NEFERTITI: I’m Nefertiti Matos Olivares, and I’m a bilingual professional voiceover artist who specializes in audio description narration! I’m also a fervent cultural access advocate and a community organizer.
CHERYL: I’m Cheryl Green, an access artist, audio describer and captioner.
THOMAS: And I’m Thomas Reid, host and producer Reid My Mind Radio, voice artist, audio description narrator, consultant, and advocate.
[smartphone selection beeps]
CHERYL: Recording now!

NEFERTITI: As ever, our approach is that of centering the blind perspective. In this discussion, we will be yielding the mic to blind people first. How about we talk about blind centered, what that means, and what that means to us as the hosts of these chats, but also what that means for the blindness community at large? All right, Thomas, lobbing the ball to you. What is blind centered? What does it mean? What’s that about?
THOMAS: Ooh, I think I caught it.
NEFERTITI: Good catch.
THOMAS: Thank you. Cool. Good afternoon, everybody. Blind centered, yeah, let’s talk about that. So, you know, we’ve been doing these chats since the, I think toward the end of ‘22, when I looked back. It might’ve been the summer of ‘22 when we actually started, but they started posting toward the end of ‘22. And the idea behind it has always remained the same, is that our perspective is that we believe that when everything about audio description, the creation of audio description, like any good product, should center its targeted audience. And while we all know that audio description can serve many different populations, that centered population has been, and should always continue to be, blind folks. And I will say, I will try my best to say “blind and low vision.” But I want y’all to know that for me personally, I always, included in when I say blind, I’m including that spectrum, okay, that full spectrum of blindness, which includes low vision, from low vision to total blindness. So that’s what I mean when I say blind. That’s our guiding principle, the fact that the target audience for audio description is blind folks. WE use this centering to look at everything about audio description. I think everything, everything about it, everything that goes into the creation.
So, for example, the technology that’s used to create audio description. If we looked at that, we probably wouldn’t have inaccessible software that, companies using inaccessible software to create AD, whatever part of that software, whatever part of that business is. If targeting, again, centering blindness, that would mean that it would automatically be accessible. So, that’s an example of how that works, right? The creation, the delivery, the process of educating and training those who are producing audio description. Again, blind centered, employing and procuring, right? AD centering blindness. That’d be fantastic.
So, I think what we wanted to do today is to take a look at, again, this certification by first framing it with this perspective of blind-centered. I think it would be good if we first take maybe five, let’s say five issues that are of the greatest concern to blind people when it comes to audio description. What are five things that are the most pressing? I’m specifically talking to blind consumers of audio description that I wanna hear from y’all. But what are some of the most pressing issues when it comes down to audio description? What are some of the most pressing issues that you feel we face today?
JOLIE: There should be as much audio description as there is captioning.
THOMAS: Okay, okay.
KATIE: One of the things I thought of just now is not interpreting emotions or facial expressions, like just saying what somebody’s face is doing or what’s physically happening, not, you know, having someone say, “he looks worried” or “he’s angry.”
NEFERTITI: Gotcha, okay.
KATIE: You know, it’s like, what do they, you know, what’s their face doing?

NEFERTITI: Anybody else who identifies as a blind consumer?
GRETCHEN: Hey. Yeah, this is Gretchen Maune. And I just wanna say, quality control.
THOMAS: Quality control.
NEFERTITI: Excellent.
MITCHELL: Oh, that’s what I was about to say.

CARRIE: I think it’s this debate that we’re all having, which is fine, about text to speech versus real audio description with narrators, human narrators. And it’s the whole thing, like, some people think, “Well, it’s better than nothing, and it’s fine with me.” And other people it’s not.
THOMAS: Mmhmm.
CARRIE: And I think how companies, I don’t wanna, say, pick on anyone in particular, but specific companies think it’s cheaper and it’s so convenient and will give more if we can just do TTS, and it’s fine.

NEFERTITI: So far, we have TTS versus human voiced narration, we have quality control, interpretation, and that we should have as much audio description as there is captioning. Anything else?
ROBERT: And censorship of explicit material as well as the audio description infrastructure not traveling from one studio to the other.
THOMAS: Okay. Censorship and passthrough. So, I’m gonna go ahead and do this list ‘cause I was pretty much working on this, and I think we all captured the majority of them. And this is not necessarily in any order, but I think many of us would feel that TTS is a high priority, right? So, the forcing of TTS on us. And I’m gonna, yeah, I’m gonna say it like that. I’m gonna collapse some of these into one because I think when we talk about, when Robert mentioned the censorship and all of that, I feel like this is about quality. And some of this stuff falls into quality.
NEFERTITI: Yes, and I would also loop in interpretation in there as well.
THOMAS: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: Censorship, interpretation, all of that goes into quality.
THOMAS: And there’s a bunch of other things that go into quality that I think we can, that we talk about and we think about: well written, culturally appropriate, well casted, all of that.
NEFERTITI: Absolutely.
THOMAS: All of that kind of goes into the quality. So we’ll say quality is one, but it equals all of those things. I’m gonna go and add significant and meaningful inclusion of blind professionals throughout the process.
NEFERTITI: Aha! Yes.
THOMAS: Oh, y’all okay with that one? Y’all okay with that one being in there?
NEFERTITI: Oh yeah!
THOMAS: All right. Cool.
NEFERTITI: Very okay.
KATIE: That’s a good one. Yeah, exactly.
THOMAS: Thank you. We’ll also say, I’m gonna add this one because I know that this is a thing. We still experience this. But I’m just gonna go ahead and say the overall experience of theater, in theaters and in broadcast and all of that, right? So, we’re talking about the experience. I think some of that is captured by passthrough. We mentioned the passthrough issue, right? That’s part of the experience because the AD just never made it there, but we know it exists already, right? Just never made it there. When you go to a theater and the theater gives you the equipment that doesn’t work, that’s part of the experience. All of that stuff. When you go to a theater and the treatment that you receive in that theater is beyond, eh, you know, it’s just not a comfortable experience when, you know, they say, yeah, they have AD on the Tuesday at 7:00 one time a month for this one show. And then when you get there, if you can get there, no one really kind of knows what to do. Like, that’s not a good experience. Yeah, they have AD, but it’s not a good experience. So I’m gonna add that in on our list because I think that’s a really important one.
NEFERTITI: And that’s for cinema and for live performance.
THOMAS: Absolutely. Anywhere that they say they have AD.
NEFERTITI: Right.
THOMAS: And then one that I didn’t hear, but I think y’all might agree, is increasing awareness among consumers, number one, because y’all know we’re here. We’re in the know. Even if we’re just looking at the States right now, but we’re talking about more than the States, there’s a lot of people who do not know or are not using audio description who are blind. So I think there’s a real effort that’s necessary to get this word out to them. But also, in terms of getting the word out, increasing awareness also amongst content creators. Because we know that if content creators were more involved in the process of creating audio description and looked at it as a creative process, a creative tool, I think we believe that that would increase both the quantity and the quality of audio description.
NEFERTITI: I certainly believe that. Yes.
THOMAS: Okay. Cool, cool.
NEFERTITI: I believe that any content that embraces audio description is enhanced by it.
THOMAS: Is enhanced by it, so the content creators need to know about it. So, that increase of awareness is really, really important. It goes beyond those two, but I’m really just kind of talking about those groups specifically: blind people and content creators in the long run. Because, you know, one of the things we talked about that would be great for audio description is—and any form of accessibility—is when we, accessibility from the beginning of the process, right? So that won’t happen, that will never happen until content creators are aware and accept it and view this as an art. We won’t get there until that happens.
NEFERTITI: Absolutely.
THOMAS: Cool. So, we have the five things, those five areas. That’s the framing that I’m talking about. That’s the blind-centered framing. So these are the things that are pressing to blind folks when it comes to audio description. Okay? So, that’s what we’re gonna work with today.
So now what I wanted to do was to say, okay, let’s use this as the context to sort of look at where the accreditation, the proposed, I’m not sure if it’s just proposed, but the document is serving blind-centered, serving these things. How does it help? How does it help reduce TTS? How does it help increase the number of blind professionals? How does it help increase the awareness of audio description? How does it help the quality of description? Including all of those issues, including cultural appropriateness, including making sure that it’s not censoring, including how does it help the passthrough issue?
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm.
THOMAS: How does it help all of that?
NEFERTITI: The impact.
THOMAS: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, that’s kind of how I wanna approach this. Because we can go through it and just be like oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That’s fine. We could do that. But I think to get to that sense of at least my question when it comes to this is, how’s this gonna help? How is this gonna help us as consumers?
NEFERTITI: Absolutely.
THOMAS: How’s this gonna help us as consumers?
NEFERTITI: How does it benefit?
THOMAS: How does it help us as blind professionals?
NEFERTITI: Yes, exactly.
THOMAS: Okay, so.
NEFERTITI: How does it impact? How does it benefit? How does it possibly take away from?
THOMAS: Yeah, yeah. If anyone has anything specific to point us to where it does address any of these issues, I’m willing to hear that. I would love to hear that, ‘cause that would probably make this a little faster process. But until that, we’ll go through it. Let’s just go through it. I’m gonna go through a couple of things that I noticed, and then we can invite a couple of folks to come up and talk about some of the things you noticed. Because maybe you did notice if it does or if it doesn’t address any of these five things. And in general, how would it help those who are looking at audio description from a blind-centered approach as opposed to something else?
So, I wanna go over this one part that I noticed, and we could use this as an example that I thought was kind of interesting. Okay. So it says, “In media and in live performance practice, a CAUDES tries to fit the description into the pauses between the spoken or sung dialogue and critical sound elements. A list of visual elements to describe includes, but not limited to, actions, facial expressions, physical characteristics, body language and gestures, visual comedy and sight gags, dance movements, costumes and clothing, multimedia effects and lighting, settings and scene changes, props, including signage, characters’ descriptions.” Oh! There we go. There goes something. I mean, that might be some identity stuff. Might be, that’s kind of low, but it’s there, I guess, if that’s what that means. “Text or on-screen graphics.” Okay, cool. Titles, credits, all of that. Okay. Oh, why is that kind of low though? The character, the characteristics, if that is, I guess that’s identity. Y’all see? Nef, you think that’s identity and character? Cheryl, that’s identity? Is that, would that be identity stuff? So, would that be?
CHERYL: It doesn’t have to be.
THOMAS: It doesn’t have to be. Right.
CHERYL: No, I don’t think, at least the item that you read out doesn’t rule in or rule out anything, for example, race or ethnicity, skin tone, hair, disability, like you started to say, mobility devices. Or is it just “this is the mom”? All I can say is that particular item you read out doesn’t clearly answer to that. There may be something later in the document.
THOMAS: Let’s go to Jolie! Let’s go to Jolie. So, Jolie, is there anything that you see that is addressing some of the five concerns?
JOLIE: Yes, yes, yes!
THOMAS: Yeah.
JOLIE: You know what I found really exciting is at the very beginning where it says what the definition of a CAUDES, a certified audio describer specialist, they say can be blind, low vision, or sighted. I love the fact that that starts out with blind, then goes to low vision, then goes sighted. Because normally it would be the other way. And they may say, “and in certain circumstances people who are blind could also blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” But instead, it starts right out with a certified audio describer specialist is a person who is blind, low vision, or sighted. I like that. I like that list.
THOMAS: Jolie? Jolie, who else? Who other than someone who’s blind, low vision, or sighted would it include?
JOLIE: Exactly, Thomas! Exactly. And so, I just, when you talk about blind centeredness, I think that that’s excellent. The stuff, by the way, that does cover the idea of ethnicity and how to describe different things like skin tone and hair and all the rest of that kind of stuff, that’s in a different part of the document. But I encourage everybody to read it with an open heart. There you go.
THOMAS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I wanna get back to that, though, because I think I’m thinking of that line a little differently because, well, I definitely wanna point out that it says that. I definitely. But I’m more curious to how does it do it? How does it do it? Because there’s lots of things that say things, right? Because what I was getting at is that a person who’s doing audio description, from my knowledge, can only be sighted, blind, or low vision. I’m not sure what the other option is when it comes to, I mean, you know—
JOLIE: You know, Thomas, I’ve been in discussions where just to try to get somebody who is sighted to understand that a person who is blind can absolutely do audio description, that it’s not you’re editing something that somebody else has said or the people who are sighted who are helping you are really doing it, and you’re just taking credit for it, blah, blah, blah.
THOMAS: Yeah, I know.
JOLIE: I have been in those discussions.
THOMAS: Same. Same.
JOLIE: Yeah, yeah.
THOMAS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JOLIE: I was in one this morning, so I’ll tell you I think there is an open heart here.
THOMAS: Okay.
JOLIE: But people should make comments and stuff like that ‘cause that’s what the group is, you know, is looking for and that kind of stuff.
THOMAS: 100%.
JOLIE: But, yeah, I liked that.
THOMAS: Cool!
JOLIE: Anyway, this makes me nervous. So, I’m gonna go back and hide out in mute land.
THOMAS: Aw, Jolie, I hope I’m not making you nervous. I hope it’s just the fact that you’re talking to other people that make you nervous. Not me. I hope it’s not me.
JOLIE: Oh, it would never be you because you have Charles Bonnet syndrome.
THOMAS:
JOLIE: And your show, that podcast. I have that. And I hated it my whole life, Thomas, until I heard your podcast on Charles Bonnet syndrome. And I know that’s not the subject at all, but now I can sleep because I don’t hold those pictures and images and light and stuff against them. And now it’s just, as you say, a reverie. It just changed my life. It was nice. It was nice.
THOMAS: Aw, that’s awesome. That’s awesome.
NEFERTITI: All right, thank you for sharing that.
JOLIE: All right, I’m gonna go hide. Bye-bye.
THOMAS: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Cool. So, that’s good. So Jolie looks at that as yeah, that’s blind centered because blind was mentioned first. Cool. I can appreciate that. I can appreciate that. So, I also wanna, I wanna see how ‘cause I think the how is important. The how is very important.
MITCHELL: I think this still is related, but one thing that stuck out to me was the on-screen text. And the reason that this sticks out to me is because there are certain shows, for example, Survivor, where they subtitle English, and sometimes it actually can become more difficult to understand what people are saying when two different people are reading or saying the exact same thing. And I wonder, I guess, what would be the best way or of how to go about understanding. Because obviously, you wanna have everything described, but also, there needs to be some sort of limit.
THOMAS: Are you talking in terms of who should be subtitling, who should be narrating that? Who should be voicing that?
MITCHELL: Well, it’s, I’m more referring to is when subtitles are narrated by audio description, when they’re being said relatively clearly by other people.
THOMAS: Mm!
MITCHELL: And I think that they’re subtitled to ensure that people understand what they’re saying.
THOMAS: Mmhmm.
MITCHELL: But in some ways, that could lead to actually more misunderstanding.
THOMAS: And that’s the type of thing we talk about in other blind-centered chats that we have, blind-centered AD.
MITCHELL: Okay.
THOMAS: But here we wanna really focus on that. But I can definitely appreciate what you’re talking about. And just real quick, I think sometimes, you know, it’s a call that someone has to make on whether or not to actually go ahead and voice that. And to me, that’s an access issue, right?
MITCHELL: Yeah.
THOMAS: Like, sometimes our access issues can break someone else’s access or maybe annoy someone, but, you know, someone, a different person is being served by that. And so, I think we always have to kind of remember that.
MITCHELL: Exactly.
NEFERTITI: Absolutely. One size does not fit all when it comes to accessibility.
MITCHELL: Nope!
NEFERTITI: But thank you, Mitchell.
THOMAS: Yeah. Thank you, Mitchell.

CHERYL: I read through the draft criteria, and it is exquisitely detailed. So, kudos to the team for covering so many topics and so many angles. I will say, however, that the writing is often very dense and sometimes even academic, and there wasn’t, at least in my feeling, a real emphasis on plainer language. And sometimes I have trouble understanding reading, and I have to get somebody to read it to me. Or sometimes if writing is very dense, I have to take it and rewrite it in my own words and then cross check and make sure did I get the stuff right. And so, there may be some things that I don’t understand, so I can’t say they’re good or negative, because the writing of this document sometimes is too hard. And so, I wonder if, I’m not asking people to answer, but I do wonder if other people have experienced or may experience trouble knowing whether they can get certified or knowing what certification is about because the document is a little bit hard. I will pause and yield the floor to Scott Nixon.

SCOTT: I completely agree with Cheryl about the draft. The language in it was very, very dense. Very, very not necessarily hard to understand for myself because I’ve had experience with these sorts of documents in the past, but a plain-language version I thought would have been a great idea. Because in many cases in, you know, legislation or things like that in government and so forth, they have obligations to have a plain-language version that anyone can understand. So, creating a plain-language version of this would be good as well.
But the main points that I would like to bring up are this. Going back to the points that Thomas was mentioning at the start when I first came in, things like passthrough and cultural competency and cultural sensitivity and things like that, I don’t think that this is going to really help change much of that, simply because, yeah, okay, we want to create this overarching standard for audio description professionals. That is great, in theory, but which companies are gonna sign on to take this certificate or this training or whatever seriously enough to hire people who are going to go through it? And once these standards are adopted, are they only gonna be recognized in the United States, or are they going to be recognized in Canada or the United Kingdom or here in Australia?
At the end of the day, I in no way mean to harsh anyone’s vibe about this great idea that everyone’s having, but at the end of the day, at the moment, with no company willing to take it on as a standard, no company saying, “we expect you to have done this” or whatever, it’s just another piece of paper. It’s just gonna be another thing. Okay, great. Sure, great to have. And it will increase the amount of blind professionals who are out there in the industry, you know, like myself who is a audio description narrator. But it’s not gonna help with passthrough at all. It’s not going to help with TTS at all. It’s, you know, it may help with competency and cultural competency and things like that.
THOMAS: How?
SCOTT: But we….
THOMAS: Scott?
SCOTT: Yeah.
THOMAS: I just wanna back up because you said that it will increase the amount of blind professionals. How do you see that happening with this?
SCOTT: Because it’s going to be coming through from blind-centered theory, and the information is gonna be passed out to people who are blind or have low vision in the community, hopefully. And people who are blind or have low vision will be able to see it and go, “Okay, well, I’m blind, I have low vision. I think I’ve got a decent voice. I think I might be able to do this, so let’s”—
THOMAS: This is not about narrators. This is not about narrators. It’s only about writers and quality control.
SCOTT: Oh, right. My deepest apologies. I did come in a few minutes late. In that case, scratch that. Okay. We’re taking that off the table. Quality control. it may help with people who, getting more people who are blind or have low vision to come in for quality control. Scriptwriters, I don’t see it working at all. So yeah, like I said, at the end of the day, it’s going to just be another piece of paper. And I don’t see how without getting all the companies together, all the producers together and saying, “Okay, we’ve got this. We wanna get more blind people into the industry,” they’re just gonna turn around and say, “Why? We could do it faster with a sighted person. We could do it faster with a computer” or whatever. Because at the end of the day, it’s coming down to cost. It’s coming down to, you know, speed and accuracy and things like that. And I don’t think this proposal is going to improve standards. It really just comes down to the skills that someone is gonna be bringing to the table, and you can teach them all the skills in the world. There are still gonna be things that, things that slip through. And cultural competency, I don’t see it happening, you know, at all. So, yeah, that’s more than two minutes for me, I’ll shut up now.
NEFERTITI: Thank you for speaking up, Scott, for sharing with us.
THOMAS: Thank you. Thank you. I would want to get an understanding of how someone with no experience who’s interested in becoming, a blind person who’s interested in doing QC, let’s just say QC. Let’s not even touch on the writing. But I would really like to know how would a blind person interested in QC be able to kind of go through this process? Because it seemed like there was a significant, like the barrier of entry seemed relatively significant to get by. It’s really partially because even what Jolie was talking about in terms of getting folks to even be willing, I think there’s that barrier. But then the requirements in here, which I don’t have in front of me, but it was, you know, 100 hours of this or this and that and all of these various things that folks have to take and sign off on and whatnot seemed like an additional barrier. Plus, if we go into, which is not in here, whatever the cost of the trainings, there’s probably a dollar level that has to be reached, not only by the training, but then all of the other things that one has to have, submit to get this piece of paper.
CHERYL: So you said just for the purpose of discussion in this moment, let’s think about blind QC and not so much the writing, just for right now. The certification looked like you have to have X number of hours in, you know, film or TV, that kind of post-production, and X number of hours in live. If you were in the city where I live, I don’t know if blind QC is used in the scriptwriting process in the theatre. Now, you know that the stuff that I write and the stuff that I work on for film, we do employ blind QC. But if you lived where I live, where there’s no…. I don’t know, some of the live theatre describers who I know don’t work with blind QC.
THOMAS: Yeah.
CHERYL: So, for the blind QC specialist who lives in my town who wants to get certified, how on earth are they going to get their hours in the live space if it’s not being offered here? I guess remote is the only option.
THOMAS: I just wanted to point out something that I read in here that I find kind of related to what you just said because it says, it says here, “When possible, a CAUDES involves audio description patrons in the design and development of audio description language and encourages the collection and use of patron feedback.” When possible. I think this should be mandatory. I don’t think that “when possible” should exist, because that’s the problem. That’s the issue that you’re talking about right now, is that folks leave it. You know, it’s always possible. Blind people are all around the country. It’s not that hard.
NEFERTITI: And yet, it is always possible to leave us out, to not include us.
THOMAS: Absolutely. And I think, yeah, and giving this a, making this an option, to me, isn’t blind centered. That’s going back to what we started. That’s not blind centered for me. But we can go to Mitch. Let’s go to Mitch.
MITCHELL: Yeah, I agree with you on this because I’m personally, as someone who doesn’t really live close to any big cities or whatever, so I can’t exactly go places for QC stuff. But I think it’s, it does, I agree about the fact that it does…. You have the ability to leave people out, but also the ability to leave people in. And I agree. I think it is very important that this is mandatory. I just, I do think that that’s true. But I’m also kind of curious in just the, in the broader sense of like, you know, where would you go to get, who would you contact, and who would you contact for when these QC openings opened up?
NEFERTITI: Well, I think that speaks to a little bit about, so you go through this training, however much that will cost. You take the exam, if there’s a cost associated with that. And then will there be a job for you at the end of this? If we’ve established that companies are not necessarily jumping or chomping at the bit to accept this certification as a means to vouch for someone’s competency, then what guarantee is there that there will be a job, Mitchell?
MITCHELL: There isn’t. There isn’t if no one, if no one. Like, it’s just a piece of paper if no one can vouch for it.
NEFERTITI: If no one validates it necessarily.
MITCHELL: No one believes it.
NEFERTITI: That’s interesting. Something to think about for sure. Thanks, Mitchell.
MITCHELL: Glad to help.
THOMAS: So, we talked about the formatting, the accessibility of the document itself, industry adoption. We talked a little bit about, yeah, the fact that blind professionals are really barely being hired right now, let alone having to go and get some certification or even just having other things to do to try to get into the industry. That’s just, to me, it sounds like another barrier. It really feels like that. I should have said this off the top, that this is a critique of the document. This is not a critique of the intention behind the document. It’s not that. Because I think that chances are, most people affiliated with this process have good intentions. I believe that.
NEFERTITI: I agree.
THOMAS: We’re not talking about the intentions. We have to talk about where this is going to lead and how is this going to help? Again, how is this gonna help the quality of AD? How is this gonna help the experience? How is it gonna impact those five things? And so far, I’m not seeing how it’s going to do that.
NEFERTITI: So I wonder if in the last four years that this committee has been meeting, it’s a lot of people involved, which is fantastic, a lot of perspectives from all over the world, though I must note I did not—and Thomas and Cheryl, if you’ve picked up on this, let me know, or if someone in the audience has—I didn’t notice any involvement from Africa or much, if any at all, in South America, was it?
CHERYL: One from South America, none from Central America or Mexico.
NEFERTITI: Central America, ah. Okay.
THOMAS: I mean, I know there were blind folks involved in the process. I don’t know how many.
NEFERTITI: Oh, for sure. I’m not sure of how many, but I do recall going through the extensive list, loving the representation, the amount of people at all sorts of levels.
THOMAS: What part of that representation you talking about?
NEFERTITI: Blind specific.
THOMAS: Blind specific.
NEFERTITI: But also people from other countries.
THOMAS: Okay, okay.
NEFERTITI: People that I’m assuming are of color, some.
THOMAS: Hmm.
NEFERTITI: I don’t know anything about sexual orientation or gender identity, but I’d like to think that that was represented to some degree or another amongst those folks.
THOMAS: Mmhmm.
NEFERTITI: It was a big swatch of, nice amount of people over the last four years, and I just wonder what if that time had been put towards these five umbrella type terms that we’ve put out here? The quality, the fight against TTS, the awareness of audio description as an option to enhance access.

THOMAS: We could put this in context because, well, I don’t know if it is in context, but it’s a part of it, I think. I think timing is an interesting part. Because four years, right? So that goes back to 2020. Mm. I think of the climate of 2020.
NEFERTITI: Oh, gosh. Do we have to?
THOMAS: Well, I mean, it’s a part, it’s a, I think that’s context.
NEFERTITI: No, it is, it absolutely is.
THOMAS: I think it’s context.
NEFERTITI: I jest, but the truth is, as much as we may not want to, it has been a tough time on us all.
THOMAS: Yeah, but even if we go back to that, and I’m thinking of what was taking place. Let’s just bring that down to this, right?
NEFERTITI: Yeah.
THOMAS: There’s the cultural stuff, right? There’s all of that. Absolutely. That is a part of this I believe, too, in terms of framing because nothing happens in a void, right?
NEFERTITI: Correct.
THOMAS: Audio description involves everything. Everything.
NEFERTITI: Yes.
THOMAS: But specifically 2020, there was a lot. That was the beginning, to a certain extent, of really sort of like this idea of blind professionals. That was 2020. That’s when that conversation was really up front and center. That’s when it started. And if it was going back before that, I’m not talking about two people somewhere having a conversation, I’m talking about a community conversation. The audio description community was talking about that. The audio description community was really talking about cultural competence, right? I think that’s important. But also, if we look at TTS. TTS was really starting to take place at that time. That was a little before. It was happening, but that was the time that I think we as a community failed to really get a hold on that. So Nef, when you talk about the amount of effort and where some of that effort could have gone, that could be, could really contribute to audio description, we gotta look at the time frame. We have to.
NEFERTITI: 100%. What else was going on? What else were people doing? What else was coming at us? And how did we respond?
THOMAS: I mean, you know, we, obviously, were in the pandemic and all of that, right? But this is, so this came out of during that time.
NEFERTITI: Well, that too. And blind participation too, right?
THOMAS: That’s what I’m saying.
NEFERTITI: That’s when we started being able to record from home.
THOMAS: Yes! Access was taking place.
NEFERTITI: And having more opportunities like that. Yeah.
THOMAS: Yeah!
NEFERTITI: Because everybody was cooped up.
THOMAS: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: Nobody could go out to studios and carry on, right? Like, we had to adjust.
THOMAS: We were having conversations about blind writers.
CHERYL: At the same time, this development of AI writing was exploding, so that is also kind of a threat to having human writers, blind and non-blind.
THOMAS: Mmhmm.
CHERYL: I don’t see that addressed in the certification. It may be in the background in the committee who wrote these criteria. I kinda wish it was foregrounded, like really openly stated: “We don’t want AI writing audio description.”
THOMAS: I wanna point out this right here from the document. So it says, “A CAUDES should not allow personal bias to interfere with communicating the creative intent of the original work.” This doesn’t, I mean, it’s a good line, but there’s this thing called unconscious bias. When a person, when a person is not familiar with their bias, they can’t be expected, cultural competency can’t be this checkbox.
NEFERTITI: No.
THOMAS: It cannot be this idea that, “Okay, y’all gotta know what you’re doing. Recognize your bias.” Folks who have bias don’t believe they have bias. You don’t know it. And so, until they understand it, they can’t do anything about it. And if this document, if the training—
NEFERTITI: Some don’t know it. Some don’t care to know it.
THOMAS: Some don’t know. But who’s training? Okay, so what this document doesn’t say is who’s doing the training for these audio description folks, right?
NEFERTITI: Correct.
THOMAS: So if there’s gonna be a certified, if there’s gonna be a certification, that means certain trainers have to be certified. How are they getting trained to teach cultural bias? How are they how going to do that? It’s not in here.
NEFERTITI: How are they getting trained, who’s doing the training, and how do you check up on that?
THOMAS: How do you check up on that? Well, quality control.
NEFERTITI: How do you keep up? Yeah?
THOMAS: Quality control. But it has to be the full thing. So, it’s not addressed in here. So just the idea, I just wanna get this because I need more. And again, this is just my interpretation. But just because words are used in a document doesn’t mean that something’s being addressed.
NEFERTITI: That said, I would love to hear from people who were involved in making this, in putting this proposal together. I really wanna hear, and Thomas and Cheryl, you let me know if you agree, but I would love to hear from folks who were part of, like, where the kitchen was, right? I would love to hear from the cooks in the kitchen if we have any of them amongst us, and you’re comfortable speaking.
THOMAS: Before we do that, or when we do that, because I am open to that. However, I wanna frame that too because this is not, there’s no need for them to defend anything here, right?
NEFERTITI: Oh, not at all.
THOMAS: But if they could shed some clarity, that’s a different thing.
NEFERTITI: That’s what I want.
THOMAS: If they can give some clarity on something, right, that would be fine.
NEFERTITI: Thank you.
THOMAS: But there’s no, y’all don’t need to come up here and say, “Oh, we had great intentions.” I tried to establish that. I think you probably did. I think most of you probably did. I’m an adult. I don’t necessarily think everyone is, you know. But who do we have?
OLIVER: Yeah, I just had the thought that, I mean, it seems possible in theory that, you know, the creation of the institution of certification, this gatekeeping, this committee that has to decide on rules, requirements, and update them regularly, it just seems like a natural consequence of that would be more of a community, more communication and discussion among AD writers. And else equal, that actually could accelerate the adoption of progressive ideas. I mean, even if it’s not said in the draft document, isn’t, can we rule out that it wouldn’t generate more community? And I mean, do we know there would not be democratic or sensitive to movements that support the principles, the goals?
THOMAS: Walk me through a scenario, Oliver. Walk me through a scenario where the certification creates more community. Oliver, I’m not sure if you were here during the beginning framing that in our blind-centered approach.
OLIVER: Well, yeah, I’m saying specifically with respect to these goals like cultural competency, which you would like to see embraced by the AD industry overall, and you know, which are not percolating through, I think, one could argue that that’s because there isn’t really a community of AD writers. But if there were a community of AD writers and somebody heard and was persuaded that it was a good idea to be more culturally competent, then they would tell the other people in their community, and maybe that would become a popular idea. And maybe they would talk, they would talk to the member they know that’s on the committee, or they would host their own continuing education lecture because continuing education is a requirement in certification, as I’m familiar with it. So yeah, I am speaking with respect to the particular goals of, you know, the five ones. I’m sorry I can’t rattle them all off, but it seems worth considering that this is a way of helping.
NEFERTITI: Absolutely. Thank you, Oliver, I just wanna say really quick interjecting here. Remember, folks, your comments, though we will be sharing this audio and transcripts on the Reid My Mind Radio podcast, we do highly encourage you to do your own work in commenting directly to the organization. That’s comments@ACVREP.org, putting in the subject line CAUDES, very important. CAUDES, at comments@ACVREP.org. We still have time till March 31st to get your comments in, folks. March 31st, 2024, to get your comments in to the committee, or to the ACVREP, I should say, the organization.
I will not speak for Cheryl and Thomas, though I’d like to think that you join me in this. I would love to hear from folks who were part of putting this together. As Thomas so beautifully said, this is not confrontation. This is not come up here and defend your work. Not at all. We believe that your intentions are good, and that overall, this is to legitimize audio description as a field, as a practice, as an art form. Though I agree with Thomas, we are all adults here, right? Not all of our intentions are purely good necessarily. But beside all that, I would love to hear from folks, particularly blind folks, right? Blind-centered. Where are the blind folks who were part of putting this together? I just want to, again, encourage any blind folks who are here with us today who were part of putting this together, who had input, who had a seat at the table, let us know. Please speak to us.
How does this all work? How does it come together to improve the quality, the access to the experience?
Whether we got to it here or not today, whatever your thoughts are, and if you haven’t yet, or if you want to go over it again, that proposal is nice and front and center at the ACVREP.org website. But to comment, that would be comments@ACVREP.org with the subject line of or that includes the word, I should say, and if you just wanna make this the subject line, that’s fine too: CAUDES. Very important that that be in the subject line: CAUDES. Let them know.
THOMAS: You know, I feel like this just has a different vibe, this whole idea of the certification. It doesn’t really feel like it’s going to really help. It almost feels like it’s a reversal. It’s a reversal a little bit. Like we’re going cordless, and this is really putting a landline back in the house.
NEFERTITI:
THOMAS: I’m sorry. That’s my silly joke. But yeah, there you go. But I do encourage everybody to go ahead and whatever they feel, by all means, send it in and let’s hope for the best.
JOLIE: You know what? I’m looking forward to getting a certification. Because I feel that if I have a certification, I can say to people, “You know what? Yeah, I’m blind, and I have a certification. I’m a certified audio description specialist, or.” I’m dyslexic. I have trouble with all the letters and stuff. And I think it will make a difference. I absolutely encourage everybody to read this and comment because they need our comments.
THOMAS: Yeah!
JOLIE: If we’re gonna hold people to the fire to or say good things or whatever it is one way or another, it has to be based on, as you say, authenticity.
THOMAS: Jolie, I just wanna say thank you for that, and I wanna let you know that I hope it works out for you. I really do. And for whoever is impacted by that, if that so be. That is truly what I hope for, because I do want you to have an opportunity. However you get that opportunity, I would love for you to have that. So, thank you. Nef, Close us out.
NEFERTITI: Yeah. Just please remember that you do have till the 31st, the 31st of March, 2024 to get your comments in. Be that against, be that for, whatever it is. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your effort. And I agree with Thomas. Whatever comes of this, we hope it is for the best. After all, this is an art form: audio description for us, by us. It should always be about us, and I can only hope and trust that anything of this kind to legitimize it more, or whatever the intentions are, makes it better, improves it, and makes it more open to blind and low-vision folks, who this is all about period. All right, everybody. Talk to you at the next chat!

— Sci-fi sound rises and music begins…
THOMAS: Cool. Well, that concludes this week’s conversation. Why don’t y’all keep the conversation going on social media.
CHERYL: Use #ADFUBU, for us by us, #DescribeEverything, and #AudioDescription.
NEFERTITI: And hey, you know we’re out here, right? Mmhmm! Gathered and galvanized y’all. If you haven’t joined us yet, what are you waiting for?! You can find us in the LinkedIn Audio Description group and the AD Twitter community. We know that your participation will only make these spaces better.
Music fades out!

Hide the transcript

Music begins
THOMAS: Welcome to the Blind-Centered Audio Description Chats. These are the edited recordings of the Blind-Centered Audio Description Live Chats!
CHERYL: The live is the most fun part! We get together, we start with a question, and then we invite up anybody from the audience who wants to come and chat with us, agree, disagree, shed light on something that we hadn’t thought about before, which is Nefertiti’s favorite. [electric whoosh]
NEFERTITI: I’m Nefertiti Matos Olivares, and I’m a bilingual professional voiceover artist who specializes in audio description narration! I’m also a fervent cultural access advocate and a community organizer.
CHERYL: I’m Cheryl Green, an access artist, audio describer and captioner.
THOMAS: And I’m Thomas Reid, host and producer Reid My Mind Radio, voice artist, audio description narrator, consultant, and advocate.
THOMAS: Hey, Nef, why don’t you tell people how they could join the live recording?
NEFERTITI: That’s really simple. Just follow us on social media to keep up with important details, such as dates, times, and what platform will be using. On Twitter, I’m @NefMatOli. Cheryl?
CHERYL: I’m @WhoAmIToStopIt.
THOMAS: I’m @TSReid, you know, R to the E I D.
[smartphone selection beeps]
CHERYL: Recording now!

NEFERTITI: All right. Here we go! So, as a reminder, we are here to talk about what it means to center blind people and how that affects the quality of audio description. What exactly is allyship? How can our allies be effective using their position and privilege to open doors and then get out of the way? Or as I like to say, “Great! You’ve got clout. Now get out!”
THOMAS: [chuckles]
NEFERTITI: That said, plus, we’re also going to get into what to expect from BCAD, Blind-Centered Audio Description Chats in the future. And now to Thomas to kick us off.
THOMAS: Cool. Cool. So, why don’t we start with Blind-Centered Audio Description? So, since we’re back, you know, this is our, I guess, second season, if you will, second year. Just talk a little bit about maybe how we started this and why we started this, and then we can get into the conversation. But I think it’s important for everybody to know. The reason we call this Blind-Centered Audio Description Chats, well, let’s take that, the chat, we’re talking. That’s simple. The blind-centered audio description is really what we feel about audio description in general and how it should always center that target audience, which is blind folks. And when I say blind, I just wanna make it clear, I’m including low vision. So, I don’t necessarily always say, “blind and low vision.” I’m including that in “blind.” Okay. So yeah, the idea there is that if you are going to create audio description—and audio description is a service for, and it’s a art for folks who are blind—and so, when we’re creating it, that’s who we should be thinking about.
So, we shouldn’t necessarily be thinking about…we shouldn’t be thinking about, “Oh, I have to do this because the government tells me so or because my boss told me so.” Eh, that’s not too great because the product isn’t going to be that great if that’s where you’re coming from. But what you should be thinking is, “What are the needs of folks? What does the community want,” right? That’s a big deal now. We get audio description. We have conversations, and sometimes folks who are dominating those conversations aren’t necessarily the users of audio description. That doesn’t seem cool! [laughs] It doesn’t seem smart. If you had a product, don’t you want to hear from those who are using your product? Well, that’s what blind-centered is all about: keeping that in the target there.
So, allyship. We’re talking about allyship, so I figured, why don’t we do a little bit of a definition of allyship? I looked it up on WordHippo! WordHippo says that an ally is, “a person or an organization that cooperates with or helps another in a particular activity,” okay? That’s a basic definition, right? So, you could say, what does that help? So, we got “partner, associates, colleague, confederate.” Not crazy about that one. That brings up some other stuff for me when I hear “confederate.” Just saying. It’s America. “Accomplice, collaborator.” I like accomplice. I like collaborator too. “Comrade.” That’s cool. “Deputy, helper.” Meh. “Supporter, accessory.” That’s cool. “Aide, backer.” And here’s my personal favorite. I don’t know about y’all, but this is my personal favorite: “henchman.” [delighted laugh] I’m just digging that one. You’re not an ally. You’re my henchman!
THOMAS and NEFERTITI: [laugh]
THOMAS: And sometimes in life, you need a henchman. You need a good henchman to get you by sometimes, I’m just saying.
NEFERTITI: Heck, yeah.
THOMAS: You never know.
NEFERTITI: Two thumbs up to that one. [laughs]
THOMAS: You know what I’m saying? It could come in very handy to have yourself a henchman. [laughs] Not that I know anything about it! Anyway. But, you know, an ally is really about someone who has privilege but chooses to stand for and with usually a marginalized community, right? And so, we all in our lives, in different roles, can play the role of an ally, right? So, when we talk about marginalized communities, there’s many different marginalized communities. So, you know, I as, myself, as a blind man, blind cisgendered man, could be an ally for women, right? That would make sense. What’s interesting is if we talk about some of the steps to allyship. And then what I think is, so these are just general, right? These are very general. But I think what could be fun and interesting is if we apply them to audio description after that. All right? So, here’s some steps. So, ten steps I found. “Number one, listen.” I love that one. I love that one. And so, real quick, Imma tell you a real quick story. So, a few years back, I think it was… I think it was John Legend, the artist, right, the musician. And he was talking about how he was very much into prison reform and wanted to become an ally and be all about it. He spent the first I think it was like a year or two going to meetings, going to all these various things, learning about it, and never saying a word, just listening. And I always remember that because I was like, wow, that’s the way to do it, right? That makes total sense because you’re new. You’re new. You’re new to this, and so you’re just all about learning. And so, that’s what that listening was. “Get educated.” That’s a part of that listening, that listening process. Three, “Get involved.” All right. We can talk about that again. Remember we’re gonna talk about these specifically around audio description. Four, “Show up.” I like that. Five, “Speak up,” aight? Six, “Intervene.” Now intervening, you know, you just don’t intervene. You gotta intervene with permission. So, just don’t go saying something. “Welcome discomfort.” Now, that’s a real good one. That’s a real good one, because, you know, if you’re not of a community, and you’re learning, there’s some things about that, especially if we’re talking around disability, that non-disabled folks are just uncomfortable. Well, sit with that. That’s good. Sit with that uncomfort. Eight, “Learn from your mistakes” ‘cause you gonna make them. And yeah, I said “gonna.” You gonna make them. [laughs] Nine, “Stay engaged.” Real, real important. Ten, “Donate!” That’s a good one. That’s a good one, ‘cause everybody and every process and every movement needs some money.
So, if we think about this from audio description, and y’all help me out. And this is a question that I wanna ask the audience, so in prep for y’all, if you have any stories around allyship, specifically around audio description. But, you know, if there’s something that makes a point that is non-audio description related, I think we’re open to listening to it. But let’s keep some of these steps in mind around audio description. So, listen. I can even just say listening to audio description. If you’re an ally, and you don’t listen to audio description? You don’t even ever watch a film or a television show with audio description? Well, how you an ally?! You know? I think you should be familiar with it. But it’s also listening to the people who are talking about it. And so, listening, again, remember, this is blind-centered, listening to blind people talking about audio description and what they care about, what’s important to them.
Getting educated. Well, what are some ways you can get educated about audio description? One is if you’re in the house right now, I appreciate it. And hopefully, we’re gon provide some of that education. I think, you know, the series of Blind-Centered Audio Description is one way. Listening to Cheryl and Nefertiti when they’re on a panel. Those panels are great, and they are great on them, and you’ll learn a lot. You know, there are podcasts, and yes, Reid My Mind Radio is one of them. But there are other podcasts too, that you can learn. I think Reid My Mind Radio’s the best one, though, but I’m just gon say that. Anyway, you know?
NEFERTITI: [imitates boisterous air horn] Ber-ber-beeeeer!
THOMAS: Thank you, Nef! [imitates air horn]
NEFERTITI: [laughs]
THOMAS: [chuckles] Get involved. Let’s think about this one. Because how do you get involved with audio description, right? How do you get involved with this? So, let’s say, obviously, if you are someone who is making audio description—you’re a writer, you’re a narrator, whatever the case may be—that is one way of getting involved. Obviously, listening and watching something. But what are some other ways to get involved in audio description? I think there are communities. When we talk about live audio description, there are many types of venues that offer it that might be looking for volunteers. Especially for those who are, you know, who know about it and are familiar with it, there’s opportunities there in museums, right?
Advocating. That’s another way to get involved. Just if you go to a theater, you go to a show, and they don’t. You could ask, “Do you have audio description?” “Oh, what’s audio description?” Bam! Tell them about it, right? That’s getting involved. Speaking up. That’s that one. I think that’s a great example there. If you go to a theater, even if you don’t consume it, I think that could be really fascinating for someone who is an ally to just, “Hey, do you have the audio description?” Even if you are, you know, you might ask for it or just ask to see if they have it there. And again, they might not know what it is. Or you can even go through an experience of what often happens in a theater environment, movie theater, right? Ask for it, go into the theater. Does it work, or do you have to run back out, right? Go through that experience, see what that’s like, and then maybe have a nice conversation with the manager. You can do that. You can do that, too. That would be great. Is that too much to ask for? What do you think, Cheryl, Nef?
CHERYL: No, I don’t think it’s too much to ask somebody, even if they don’t intend to use it, to be like, “Hey, do you have the equipment?” And I would even add, “Do you charge the batteries?”
THOMAS: Mm.
CHERYL: “Does your staff know where to find it? And who do I talk to if the equipment isn’t working?” Yeah.
THOMAS: That’s great.
NEFERTITI: Yeah, absolutely. “Does your staff know the difference between the setting for people who are hard of hearing versus audio description for blind and low vision folks?”
THOMAS: Yeah. Yeah. You know what that reminds me of?
NEFERTITI: It’s all part of advocating, educating, all of it.
THOMAS: All of it. All of it. And it reminds me Somebody was telling me or us that, how they don’t like to go to the theater because, for them, okay, I have to either, you know, the public transportation might be the situation. I get an Uber, I pay that money to get to the theater, and so many times when you get there, it doesn’t work, right? So, imagine if there’s an ally who’s kind of doing that work. And so, now you can go there because that work is done. Because often, you know, I can’t tell you how many times when audio description, when I first started going to theater, our local theater, and it was new, how many times I went there to watch a film and never got to watch it with audio description but got free passes to another film. [laughs]
NEFERTITI: Yes. And may I just say, free passes for what? So, I can come back, and you fail again?
THOMAS: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: You don’t want a free pass. You want to enjoy the experience you paid for at the time you paid for it.
THOMAS: Yeah. I want the free passes too, though! [laughs]
NEFERTITI: Well, you know! All right.
THOMAS: Plus I had, you know, they were little at the time. My kids were little, so. Yeah, we were using them free passes! [laughs] But it wasn’t cool to get them the way we got them. So, that’s part of that speaking up, and it’s also part of the intervening there. That’s a really, really cool way of intervening because you don’t have to necessarily ask because you’re just sort of taking charge. You’re in there. But other ways to intervene, you know, you might be in a live theater environment, and maybe you’re sitting next to a person. Maybe that person is not with you, but they’re having some problems with the AD equipment. And you might be able to help intervene, right? Maybe because that person might, you know, if they have to get up and go find a manager, if that person’s by themself, well, that could be a really time-consuming task for someone who’s blind to get up and try to go find a manager, where for someone else it might be really quick and easy. So, intervening and helping out in that situation is probably a very welcome thing.
NEFERTITI: I can tell you personally how many times I’ve wanted to attend a live performance—I’m really into live theater, Broadway, off-Broadway, etc.—and they only offer one audio described performance per season? Two is a lot to ask for. I live in New York City. I am in the mecca of live theater, and you mean to tell me that you only offer one to two performances with audio description? That’s not okay. So, how about intervening and advocating for more options, more availability of audio description?
THOMAS: Instead of that one show on a Tuesday at 7:35, right? [laughs]
NEFERTITI: Oh, if only! It’s usually like on a Sunday at matinee or something.
THOMAS: Oh, okay. Okay. Tuesday was a inconvenient day for me, but yeah. [laughs]
NEFERTITI: No, that’s true, too. The time can be inconvenient. The day can be inconvenient. Whatever it is. You know, a lot of us work, or a lot of us wanna spend Sunday resting or with family or whatever the case is.
THOMAS: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: Why are you pigeonholing me? Shameless plug. Cheryl’s podcast, Pigeonhole.
CHERYL: [laughing] Stop!
THOMAS: [laughs]
NEFERTITI: Check it out.
CHERYL: I have to say one of the reasons that they do that, that they only offer the one or the matinee or they don’t offer options, one reason is they will say, “Well, we don’t know that the demand is there.”
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm.
CHERYL: So again, even though I may not utilize that equipment and use the audio description, I can go in there and say, “Are you offering this? I know this is of interest. I know this is a good thing to offer,” and just, you know, we need to build the numbers up so that people know the demand is there.
NEFERTITI: Yeah. And if you build it, they will come. If we have more options available, guess what? More people will show up just by virtue of you giving them options that they can make fit into their schedule.
THOMAS: Yeah. And we can take that from the live theater space to the online streaming platforms, you know? If there’s a platform that you’re on, and maybe you’re watching something, and it said it had audio description, but it’s not there, it’s not working, do you just let it go? “Aw, that sucks.” Because, “Well, okay. I guess I just have to watch it without. That’s fine. I really wanted to watch it with, but I’ll just watch it without because I can.” Well, why not call the customer service and advocate on behalf of folks, right?
NEFERTITI: Or write an email.
THOMAS: Or write an email.
NEFERTITI: “You say you have audio description? Actually, you don’t. Most of your titles don’t. Or none of your titles do. What’s up with that?”
THOMAS: Yeah. Ooh-wee, what’s up with that?
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm!
THOMAS: So, learning from your mistakes. This is a good one, because I think it’s inevitable that well-intentioned folks are going to make some mistakes. And I think everybody has to leave some space for the mistake that’s gonna happen. You know, have some grace for that individual. But at the same time, if that individual makes that same mistake again, [laughs, sighs] that’s not cool. That’s sending a whole message that you, either you do mean to send, but you probably don’t. And so, learning from your mistakes could be a really big thing, you know. And that could be as simple as how you talk about audio description online. Like, are you, again, are you centering yourself, or are you centering the blind consumers in how you talk about audio description?
NEFERTITI: The blind consumers who, by the way, audio description was made by and for.
THOMAS: Correct.
NEFERTITI: Also, you make a mistake once, that’s understandable, reasonable, forgivable. But you make it more than once, and that’s a choice, y’all.
THOMAS: Yeah. That is. You’re right. You’re right. Three-strike rule. Do y’all use the three-strike rule?
NEFERTITI: Two for me.
THOMAS: You got two strikes? You playing softball.
NEFERTITI: If that.
THOMAS: Yeah, that’s the softball move.
NEFERTITI: If that. Depending on what it is, you get one!
THOMAS: You ain’t playing with two strikes. Okay.
NEFERTITI: Mm-mm.
THOMAS: Okay. Okay. Cheryl, you a two-striker or a three-striker?
CHERYL: You know, I tend to give a lot more strikes just because I want time. If the person’s willing to dialogue, I want time to uncover, “But why does this keep happening? Or what do you need to make this happen better?” Like, maybe I’m not giving enough instruction or enough context. And really trying to uncover people’s motivations, name the elephant in the room. I feel like if somebody refuses to name the elephant in the room, then you get all three strikes at once. But I do leave, especially ‘cause I’m neurodivergent, I do leave people a little more time to strike out a couple of times.
THOMAS: Mmhmm, yeah.
CHERYL: But, you know, I think refusing to learn from your mistakes and say, “Well, I’m not gonna advocate anymore, you know. I’m just gonna leave this,” then, like you said, Thomas, you’re centering yourself. You’re not being a good comrade. I like the term “co-conspirator, henchman.” [laughs]
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm!
CHERYL: If your mission and your values are, I will be an ally or a co-conspirator with this person or this group, and you make a mistake, recenter yourself on what that mission was. “No, I am gonna be an ally. I made a mistake. I’m not gonna beat myself up. I’m not gonna say I’m horrible. I’m not gonna leave the movement.” I do think it’s possible to recenter yourself on the goal if you are being an ally. And that is how to be an ally, is to recenter yourself on the goal, not on yourself.
THOMAS: Yeah. Yeah, I love that you said that, recentering yourself, because that goes to the next one, which is staying engaged. And that’s exactly it. Because sometimes folks get discouraged, get disappointed, again, centering yourself, “Eh, I’m taking my toys, and I’m leaving!” You know, that type of thing. “Aight, bye. I guess you wasn’t really about this.”
NEFERTITI: That’s right. It’s not about you, right?
THOMAS: Yeah, yeah.
NEFERTITI: It’s not about you. It’s about the general movement and moving it forward.
THOMAS: Yeah. Which is about everyone. Cut 00:28:12 – 00:29:18)
The final one is the idea of donating, and I think this donating when it comes to audio description again could be, there could be many different ways you do this. So, for example, if you know someone who hasn’t experienced audio description in a live theater space, whether that be live theater or whether that be a movie theater, perhaps you might want to donate a ticket. You know what I’m saying? Especially if you were the one. Maybe you went to that theater like we were just talking about and found out that this theater does have it. Well, maybe you wanna donate to someone, say, “Hey, go ahead and go check out audio description. I know you never checked it out because for most of your life, you’ve been experiencing inaccessible content. But hey, this is accessible, and I know they have it here, and it works. Go check it out. Here’s a ticket for your movie.” How cool is that? That’s an ally. I think that’s pretty cool.
NEFERTITI: That’s really cool.
THOMAS: Yeah. Yeah.
NEFERTITI: Also, you can donate your time.
THOMAS: There you go.
NEFERTITI: We’re all donating our time right here. We make zero, zero on these conversations, but they are super important. It’s a labor of love, and it’s a labor of progress that we’re trying to accomplish here. So, if you know, let’s say, of a podcast, become a guest, donate some time, you know. You being here, listening to us or telling somebody about the Reid My Mind Radio podcast where they can hear the replays of these, what do we call them, episodes? Gatherings?
THOMAS: Yeah, they’re the Chats.
NEFERTITI: Yeah, Chats. Oh, hello! It’s right in our name. Thank you.
THOMAS: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: Tell them to tune in if you find these conversations, these chats of value. That’s donating, donating knowledge.
THOMAS: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And so, yeah. So, I wanna hear from you all if you have any stories or if you have any comments or if you have any examples of some of these. There’s lots of conversations taking place today around the topic of audio description. Ah, I don’t know if I wanna say a lot, but there’s definitely more than there were a few years ago, right? And I wouldn’t necessarily say that they’re all even in terms of do they all come from a blind-centered approach? I wouldn’t say that was the case. I’ve seen some, I’ve heard talks. I’ve been around some things that the focus is definitely not on blind people. And sometimes that could make sense. But I think even in those conversations, there should be some centering, right? So, meaning if we’re talking within the industry, and let’s say it’s about narrators or it’s about the production of audio description, and unfortunately, there’s not that many blind folks involved in that, which we will probably be talking about again here at some point. But even in that instance, I think there are moments in the conversation where the centering of blind people and the consumers, right, blind consumers should be taking place, and I don’t see it happening. And so, maybe some of y’all have seen things like that, have witnessed that. I wanna hear about them if you wanna share them. Always looking for that.
So, in a situation like the one I was just kind of talking about, when there are panels, when there are panels, when there are these conversations about audio description, and let’s say they are inclusive of blind people, you know, how should they work? How should they work? When we talk about allyship, we talk about passing the mic, right? That’s a reference to letting those who are impacted have the say. Their voice needs to be heard. Amplify those voices, because even in something like audio description, the voice of non-blind people hits harder than blind people in the public. There’s a louder voice. There’s more, more folks will listen when a quote-unquote “expert” who’s not blind is talking as compared to another quote-unquote “expert” who is blind. Because the blind consumer is an expert. Is an expert. We can get into the weeds of that expertise, right? So, I’m not saying that they are that knowledgeable of the process, but they are often, not everyone, but many of them are quite experienced in terms of consuming audio description. And that means a great deal. That means a great deal, but it’s not often considered that way.
So, in a situation like that, I think we’re looking for more than input from that blind person sitting on that panel, right? It’s not, it shouldn’t be the non-blind person taking up all the airspace, taking up all of that, right? So, we have to be mindful of that. And I think we should be critical. We should be critical when we watch these things, when we’re listening to anything, when we’re watching anything, a panel, whether it be a podcast or whatever the case may be, I think we should be critical about that and say and talk about it, right? And again, you don’t have to be controversial, but it is something that we should be comfortable in critiquing and talking about. But another question could be, you know, what does performative allyship look like within the AD space? Because maybe you’ve seen that. And by that, I mean, you know, is this person really an ally, or are they just trying to get attention for themselves? We don’t have to mention names, but if we’re critical and if we’re honest, I think we’ve probably seen it. [laughs]
NEFERTITI: All right, Courtney, you’re up.
COURTNEY: So, I’m a learning experience designer, so we are constantly making videos for training. So, some people are like, “Well, you can write for accessibility and then you won’t have to use audio description.” Is that something that is acceptable?
THOMAS: Mm. It’s a cool way to go, but I don’t think you probably, especially if we’re talking about video content, chances are you’re not gonna eliminate the need for AD in total, right?
COURTNEY: Mmhmm.
THOMAS: And so, what I would add to that is it’s not only the writing for it, because that’s definitely something you can do, but the planning in general, right? So, if there are things that are going to need explanation that aren’t included in the writing, are you leaving space in the edit to have time to provide that audio description, right?
COURTNEY: Yeah.
THOMAS: So, yeah, I would add that into the mix. Those things together I think would work well.
COURTNEY: Okay!
THOMAS: But I don’t think when we’re talking about visual content, there’s a lot of stuff that’s going on. Especially around learning, right, educational stuff, if it’s eye candy, right? You know what I’m saying, right when I say the eye candy thing?
COURTNEY: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
THOMAS: If it’s just eye candy, then perhaps that doesn’t need to be described. But if it is something that is going to impact the person’s ability to learn and get the lesson, those things need to be described.
COURTNEY: Gotcha.
THOMAS: And that’s often, it’s gonna be said, it’s going to be communicated visually, right? There’s often some of that stuff that’s gonna happen. But I’m not totally against the idea of writing for accessibility at all.
COURTNEY: So, maybe a mix of the two is probably optimal if there are a lot of decorative things. I feel like a lot of times it’s just illustrations with a [laughing] slightly waving hand, you know?
THOMAS: Okay, yeah. Yeah.
COURTNEY: So, that doesn’t add to the learning experience, but maybe adds something for those who are sighted.
THOMAS: Yes. Yeah.
COURTNEY: All right. Thank you.
THOMAS: I think the takeaway for Courtney that I would want you to recall is that one of the most important parts is to have that whole video QCed, quality controlled, by a blind person. And so, you should be able to get some real feedback as to how effective that really is, right?
NEFERTITI: Again, thank you so much. That’s a great question.
COURTNEY: Thank you.
THOMAS: Yeah, it was a great question. Courtney.
COURTNEY: Thank you, guys.
THOMAS: Thank you for your bravery!
COURTNEY: All right. Thanks! [laughs]
THOMAS and NEFERTITI: [delighted laugh]
NEFERTITI: All right, Scott, you’re up.
SCOTT: Hey, guys. How’s it going?
THOMAS: Scott Nixon.
SCOTT: Scott Nixon all the way out, all the way out here in Australia. I have a comment and possibly a question for the panel and everyone else as well. When it comes to advocating for audio description, what do you do when you just keep hitting the wall, you know? You talk to a company or a streaming service or whatever, and they just keep coming back with these vague, nebulous answers that don’t really give you what you want them to, want them to give you. And you keep explaining. “No, I mean this, this, and this.” And they just keep coming back with the same old, “We value your input, you’re a valued customer,” and things like that. Because I’ve been dealing with one of the major streaming services over the past two years now about their failure to pass audio description through to their streaming service outside the United States and Canada. They just don’t provide the AD anywhere else in the world, and I don’t understand why.
I’ve talked to them again and again and again, and they just keep coming back with responses A, B, and C that just don’t go anywhere. And it’s gotten to the point where dealing with them was affecting my depression and anxiety to the point where I’ve just had to say, I’ve had to throw up my hands and say I can only be an ally for so long. I had to cut off communication with them, and I’ve actually unsubscribed from their service until they can prove to me that they’re actually going to do something about it. So, what do you do when you reach that burnout phase of allyship where you’re just not, you just can’t, like, lick a watermelon into a different shape? And yeah, so, that’s basically the comment and the question. So, Broken Eyes out.
NEFERTITI: I wanna start by saying good on you for meeting your own personal needs.
THOMAS: Mmhmm.
NEFERTITI: That’s absolutely crucial that we take care of ourselves. So, whatever that looks like for you, in this case, unsubscribing and taking a break, kudos to you. But once you feel up to it again, maybe not start back up with the same person or company, organization, whatever the entity is, but maybe taking on someone or something else. But do come back. Take your rest, do your self-care, fully lean into your break, but do come back. We all need that spirit, that energy. That’s what I have to say.
SCOTT: It can definitely be a case of pick your battles and know when you need to take off ‘cause, you know, it was getting to the point where I wrote a three-page email that in no way could be considered abusive or heavy handed or anything like that. But I just went back through and read it before I sent it, and I just went to myself, “No, this is not me. This is not my voice anymore. You know, this is, this is coming from the bad place” type thing. And so, that’s when I decided that I had to take a step back. And yes, I definitely will come back and challenge things maybe from a different perspective, different tactic, or something. But yeah, just I hit that burnout phase, and it just, yeah, snuffed me for a while.
THOMAS: Yeah. So, I agree with all the self-care. Absolutely. But one of the things that I think we have to remember, especially in this day and time, is that social media effect and the ability to tag and put these conversations in public. And that right there is some pressure. You may not think it is, but it is often pressure. I remember I had a issue with Amazon. And this wasn’t even anything around audio description. It was like a product or something. And I was sending emails and calling, and all I did was at them on Twitter, and bam, they were right in my DMs, [laughs] right in my DMs, and like, “Hey, send us this, this, and this. We can get this resolved.” And it got resolved. And it’s like, wow. Okay, this means something. So, that’s one thing.
I’m gonna forward you a link. And it’s a couple. Cut 00:50:21 – 00:50:24) They wrote up that they were going through a similar thing, and it had to do with passthrough to was it YouTube or something? I don’t remember. But a station wasn’t passing through AD, and they wrote it up. They tracked every single call they made, and they wrote the whole thing up. And I think they posted it to their website. They contacted other people within the industry of AD who started to use some of their influence, and they’re having progress now, right? And I think part of that is the writing up of everything as well as the sending that to other people. Because there’s a big difference when you don’t have things written up like that, and you just like, “Yeah, this company’s” dah dah dah dah dah. I’m not saying you do that, but it sounds like that to people. Sometimes it comes across like, oh, this person’s just complaining. But when you have things documented the way they did, then it takes on a whole different thing. So, I’ll send you that just so you can see that. And maybe you might even wanna connect with them because they might be able to give you some good advice.
The other thing is that when you are contacting a company like that, one thing that helps is if you can—this is hard—but sometimes you can just, you looking for that internal ally that, literally what we’re talking about today, that person on the inside who actually cares. And I saw that in action years ago because my Fox affiliate, it was the X-Files movie that was coming out, and it was supposed to have AD. This was some years ago. And I turn on Fox. I was a big X-Files person back in the day, and they didn’t have it. And so, I call them, and I just happened to make my way to someone within my local Fox who knew the person within there who they said, “I don’t know about the audio description, but I know about the captions.” So, they got me to the captions person, and so the captions person ended up just kinda taking it because they cared about access. And so, they got it resolved for me the next day, and it was so cool. But it was only because somebody gave a “beep,” right? And so, if you can kinda finagle. And you know, you a charming dude, so I feel like you could probably do that. You could probably, you know, work something with the intention, maybe not just getting it solved right there, but maybe having a different intent is to find someone who gives a “boop” within the company, you know? But again, going back to your self-care, that’s the first, and then all of this stuff comes later. Imma send you that link sometime. I’ll send you that probably tomorrow.
SCOTT: Yeah, no worries. Thanks, mate. I really do appreciate that. And yeah, just, yeah, I agree that finding a way to find the person who will give a hoot about your situation and wanna help is definitely key. I do have a few contacts who may be able to help me once I’m back in a better mindset. But yeah, for now, yeah, it’s difficult, but I don’t wanna have to give up. But at the same time, I know that it was starting to affect other factors in life. And yeah, so, sitting back, taking self-care, going and exploring my newfound ability to play video games again after 25 years is what I need to do right now just to take care of myself.
THOMAS: There you go. Do what you gotta do.
NEFERTITI: Thanks to audio description!
SCOTT: Dang right. [laughs]
THOMAS and NEFERTITI: [air horns]
NEFERTITI: Thank you so much for your contribution, Scott. Always valuable.
SCOTT: And I just wanna say, you guys, it is so great to have you all back. Thomas, Cheryl, you guys are absolutely fantastic, but I just, I can’t help myself. I have to give a special shoutout to Nef. You have been smashing it lately with your advocacy and all the work that you have been doing, Nef. I’ve just been so impressed by everything you’re doing at the moment, and just please keep crushing it because we’re all just loving what you’re doing.
THOMAS and CHERYL: [enthusiastic air horns, laughter]
NEFERTITI: Thanks, you guys. Thanks. You’re gonna make me cry. Thank you so much! Appreciate you.
THOMAS: Nef is killing the game right now! She’s killing the game!
THOMAS and NEFERTITI: [laugh]
NEFERTITI: Thanks so much. All right, Renee, you are up!
THOMAS: Renee, who?
RENEE: Arrington-Johnson.
THOMAS: Aw! That’s who I was talking about! [huge laugh]
RENEE: I know! [laughs] Scott, I understand completely. My battle with the streaming service started over two years ago, and I did take a break because they frustrated me, and I had to regroup and rethink. And I took an approach that I had learned at work about how to document every step of a process. And just to put it really quick, I had a supplier that was doing work for me, and we set up a purchase order where they were docked every day they were late. And I documented everything, and instead of paying $65,000 for the service, we paid $3,000. So, that’s just, that was what was my idea for what I did, me and my husband, when we wrote that paper. But you do have to be in the right headspace to be able to do it. But besides that, I did wanna give a positive example.
THOMAS: Oh, cool.
RENEE: A few years ago, when I lived in Michigan, we had attended a movie theater, and the equipment was not working. The audio description was not working. And the one iPad that they had that was supposed to set everything up to fix things was broken. And I was saying, okay, for a $500 iPad, you’re not gonna provide this service. And I was so frustrated. I contacted a member of the talent for a local network for local ABC who was an ally to people with disabilities because he had a granddaughter with SMA. So, he was very in tune to people with disabilities ‘cause he advocated a lot for her. So, he actually knew the owner of the theater, and he contacted them, and he let them know what my complaint was ‘cause I had put it on Twitter and had tagged him. And he had the owner of the theater call me, and they purchased extra iPads and invited me and my husband back to the theater. And that ally made a big difference for me with that experience. So, they really can, you know, allies can really make a huge difference when they are committed to the cause.
THOMAS: Fantastic. Fantastic story. Yep. There you go. And you did it on Twitter. [laughs]
RENEE: [laughs] Yeah, I gotta find something new ‘cause I don’t even get on there anymore. I don’t know what to do.
THOMAS: Yeah. Yeah.
RENEE: But thank you guys for doing this. This is really great.
THOMAS: Thank you for joining us, Renee. Appreciate it.
RENEE: Okay.
NEFERTITI: Absolutely. Really appreciate your contribution. Keep up the great work. Thank you.
THOMAS: You know, one of the things I was gonna say is that that documenting is something that you can start from the beginning. You know, like, the first call you make, just open up a little, you know, text, keep a text file, whatever, and just put the date, the name of the person that you talked to, what happened, what you said, what the result was. “Okay. I gotta call them back tomorrow.” Put them back. Next time you call them, same thing. Write that date. You know, the documentation doesn’t have to be a real big project. If you wait till the end, then you’re gonna try to have to remember things. But if you could just do that right when you’re gonna start that process, it’s cool. It really does work. It’s very helpful on many levels, so, especially just remembering someone’s name. It’s a big difference when you can say, “Oh no, I spoke to John on this particular date, this time.” “Oh, John Such-and-such.” “Yes.” Boom.
NEFERTITI: Cheryl, any thoughts from you? We haven’t heard from you in a while.
CHERYL: Yeah, well, I was being a good ally and listening.
THOMAS: [chuckles]
CHERYL: And I said that on purpose to be silly, but also to remind people how very, very easy and tempting it is to ask for your plate of cookies for doing something that was asked of you. [laughs]
THOMAS: Mm.
CHERYL: So, just again, like it is that feeling when you want to be an ally and you name yourself an ally to a community, but nobody in that community knows that you’re an ally, you can get that energy, and “I wanna show off! I wanna post on social media how much money I donated to this fundraiser, and I wanna tell everybody about….” There’s kind of a rush with that. But it’s not a… that’s not an ally move. That’s not a comrade or co-conspirator move. So, yeah, I just made that joke just to sort of (Cut 01:00:49 – 01:00:52) recenter….
THOMAS and CHERYL: [laugh]
CHERYL: The blind-centered, the ally is not the center of the show.
CHERYL: Cut 01:00:59 – 01:01:13) ‘Cause I feel like I see it, but sometimes it can be really helpful to name it. You get a feeling in your stomach like, “Is that person, are they helping? Are they making it worse?”
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm or standing in our way?
CHERYL: Mmhmm. I love what Nefertiti just said about standing in the way ‘cause I think about, I have people open doors for me, and then literally stand in the doorway, and I can’t get past. And then they’re mad that I wait for them to move. And I know I’m not the only one who experiences that, but like, literally, I opened the door for you and then stood in your way, and now I’m mad at you. But an example of performative allyship I’ve come across is somebody maybe sharing something on social media like, “This is about blind” something, but they didn’t read the whole article. They didn’t carefully analyze who wrote it, you know, what is the source, was this actually debunked on Snopes already? ‘Cause it was. But just, I think it’s real performative to go out there and just share literally everything you come across that’s about blind anything, AD anything without carefully figuring out what is the message of this thing, and what will I be promoting when I share this?
THOMAS: What about someone who is talking that good talk, and then at the same time sharing images with no descriptions, sharing videos with no AD, not even recognizing it, not even providing any sort of context or anything like that. Like, you know, to them, they miss it at that point, but they still believe that they’re an ally [laughing] of audio description. But meanwhile, they’re sharing stuff without description.
CHERYL: Well, yeah, ‘cause you’re not an actual person, Thomas. You’re just an audio description consumer.
THOMAS: Oh!
CHERYL: So, I’m gonna clock in. I’m gonna do my audio description for your movie. But beyond that, you don’t exist to me, so it doesn’t occur to me that I should write image…. Obviously, I’m playing.
THOMAS: [laughs]
CHERYL: But I do feel like it’s that rehab and service provider model of accessibility.
THOMAS: Mm, talk about it.
CHERYL: Like, “I provided my service. I’m all done. But, you know, that one hour that you spent listening to AD and watching that movie, you are still a whole person the other 23 hours of the day. And I’m spending the rest of the 23 hours getting in your way, but I’m satisfied that I helped for that one hour.” And I think service providers of whatever sort have to always remember, if you are providing a service, you’re providing it to a complete and whole person and entire communities of complete and whole people.
THOMAS: If you’re in audio description, if this is your job, and you have [sighs] no relationships whatsoever with people who are blind, does that make a difference? NEFERTITI: I think that for people who want to make a name for themselves or get notoriety, get a pat on the back, “You’re so wonderful! Look at what you do for these poor blind folk,” you can’t have it both ways. You can’t be a so-called ally and then be on some “boop,” right?
THOMAS: Mmhmm.
NEFERTITI: You can’t have it both ways. Talk about performative. “Oh, I’m behind the scenes doing X, Y, Z thing, but really, I’m about the business side of it all. I’m about that money, right? It’s just a job to me in action. But in the performance of it all, I’m here to help y’all poor blind people.” No, no. People see that. People notice that. Maybe not right away. Maybe not everyone.
THOMAS: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: I’d like to think that it does catch up with folks.
THOMAS: So, it’s okay if it’s just the job. But don’t say you’re an ally if you have something else.
NEFERTITI: Exactly. Exactly.
THOMAS: Exactly.
NEFERTITI: If it’s a job, then be about that job. That’s fine.
THOMAS: That’s a job. So, I mean, I think that’s a really good thing. And the only thing that I would add to that person who it’s just a job, and that’s fine. If it’s just a job, it’s just a job. That’s okay. But you should still be centering blind people in that work. That’s what I would say. But it doesn’t mean that, you know, you’re an ally. You just do the work.
NEFERTITI: 100%.
THOMAS: Yeah. I don’t necessarily think everyone needs to be an ally if they don’t feel it, right?
NEFERTITI: No, of course not. I’d rather you not.
THOMAS: Exactly.
NEFERTITI: I’d rather you’re not because you’re probably gonna be really crappy at it.
THOMAS: Right, right.
NEFERTITI: You’re not about it. Okay.
THOMAS: You’re not about that life. [chuckles]
NEFERTITI: Right! And you have every right. That’s fine.
THOMAS: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: But again, then get out the way. Stop it. Stop being a fool. Stop being a hypocrite. We see you. We’re blind, but we see you!
THOMAS: Yeah, yeah.
CHERYL: [laughs]
NEFERTITI: Okay?! All right. [laughs]
CHERYL: I think for somebody who does wanna be an ally but is doing this, I think that from that list Thomas started with about listening, I think you gotta listen to yourself, too. Ask yourself, why is this so hard for me? Why do I want to be an audio describer, but I never want to do any alt text on social media or X, Y, Z? And not in a judgmental way. But really, I need to listen to myself. I need to ask myself what are the barriers? Why is this happening? And then, yeah, maybe your answer is, “Actually, I’m not gonna be an ally.” And I’m gonna stop there ‘cause Gary’s raised a hand.
GARY: This conversation is just so parallel to sign language interpreters in the Deaf community.
THOMAS: Mm.
GARY: And, you know, I’ve talked in the past with other audio describers about the certification process for AD and how that’s similar to the early days of sign language interpreters. And I think the development of the profession is fairly parallel and similar, but also the whole conversation around ally building, that are interpreters truly allies to the Deaf community, or are they just clocking in, performing a job? “Here’s my bill. See ya later.” And I think there could be some fascinating discussions between interpreters and audio describers and perhaps Deaf people and blind people—which may well be happening, because I’m probably not the originator of the thought—you know, just that how service providers are more than service providers. So, whether we’re providing interpreting or audio description, and being clear, at least in your own mind, how to evaluate yourself, you know, how to analyze: Am I truly being an advocate or an ally, and what does that mean? And how do I own it or not own it, but at least how do I be honest with myself? What are those clear expectations from the Deaf community, the blind community, so that I can be checked and checked myself?
THOMAS: Mm, yeah. Check yourself. [chuckles] Very important.
GARY: Yeah.
THOMAS: Yeah. I like the idea of that sorta conversation between the two communities because I did something like that on the podcast where, you know, it was around the idea that lots of blind folks refer to captions almost like the North Star, right? The Holy Grail. Like, “Oh, captions are ubiquitous, and captions are great. They’re everywhere. We need to have that. We need to be more like the Deaf community.” And I’m like, “Have y’all ever heard about the captions?” You know, because they’re not, there might be captions quote-unquote “everywhere.” And you know, that’s not true, but the quality of those captions aren’t always great. And so, that’s something that we need to know because we’re not just shooting for the quantity, we’re shooting for quality. So, you know, those discussions are really important, especially when you’re trying to, when you think one is a model that you should follow for your own access, right? So, I like that you brought that up, Gary.
GARY: Yeah, just to clarify, this is Gary Morin, here in Maryland.
THOMAS: Yes, sir.
GARY: Yep! We’ve just chatted. It was great turning on and hearing your voice tonight.
THOMAS: Very cool.
GARY: And for everyone else, I am an accessibility coordinator at the National Cancer Institute in Maryland, to introduce myself.
THOMAS: Thank you.
NEFERTITI: Excellent. Thank you so much.
GARY: Yeah. I love interacting with audio describers and learning more and more and just learning my way about it. So, I’m glad to be here.
THOMAS: Thank you, sir. Thank you for being here.
NEFERTITI: Glad to have you.
GARY: Thanks!
NEFERTITI: Cross-disability.
THOMAS: And thank you for being active in your learning. I think that’s really cool.
GARY: Yeah. Yeah.
NEFERTITI: 100%.
THOMAS: Very cool. Very cool. So, I wanted to ask another question. I think questions are good, right? Like, all of these conversations sort of start with a question. And I think allies and consumers, all of us, we need to be asking better questions of ourselves. Sort of like that example that I just gave, like sometimes we just repeat things, you know, without ever really, really thinking about it. Or things get just said, and they just get repeated, right? There’s phrases that people repeat all the time around audio description. It’s like, “Oh, you just saying that.” What does that mean, you know, when folks say, this is just something I came to recently in terms of, you know, we talk about we want the equal experience of sighted people when we go to a theater and while we watching visual content. That’s not gon happen. [laughs] It’s not gonna happen. I don’t even think the best audio description is going to be able to do that, right? So, why are we repeating that?
NEFERTITI: Yeah, no. As somebody who has repeated things in the past that I have since then thought better of or now have lived experience from which to speak from, I can say that no. Repeating just because a high-profile person has taken this approach or has made up this punch phrase or catch phrase, whatever the phrase is, it’s not okay. I think what is okay is to examine, to question, to really dig deep, like, is this really true to me? Is this really what I believe? Is this really what I experience as a blind person, especially, not for nothing, if it’s a sighted person saying these things? We are all about blind-centered here, yes? So, as a blind person in this community, what’s my fellow blind person saying, thinking, experiencing? And what about me? Is this true to my experience? How? And if it isn’t, should I really be repeating this, perpetuating this, bringing focus to this, and bringing more focus on this person or people or organization? Mm. Cheryl?
CHERYL: Yeah. Slightly different thing that popped into my head was a good ally move, if you’ve got a question, and you need to check a source or you need more education on something, I think a real good ally move is to speak to somebody and get the resources and get guided to the education you need without bugging the people in the community you’re trying to be an ally to, to educate you for free.
NEFERTITI: For free.
CHERYL: For free. I think there’s some steps to work through first, and that’s where you can speak to another ally or another comrade or co-conspirator to get directed. And then you are coming with more education and more self-reflection before you come into the community with deeper questions.
NEFERTITI: And it’s okay to humble yourself a little bit. It’s okay to admit what you don’t know or that you’ve made a mistake or that you’re afraid to make a mistake. Aren’t we all? Haven’t we all? But respect to those who do better, who try harder, try at all, right?
THOMAS: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, and, you know, it applies to all of us, the questioning: questioning of ourselves, questioning of others. You know, everything you just said goes back to those steps, those points for the steps to allyship, right?
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm.
THOMAS: Listen, get educated, get involved, show up, speak up, intervene, welcome discomfort. That’s a big one. [chuckles] Learn from your mistakes, stay engaged, and donate. So many of those were wrapped up in what you were just talking about, Cheryl, [laughs] in that example, even the donate. Because, you know, you’re asking someone for their time and for their education. You know, sometimes it might just be asking. That person might be like, “Nah, it’s cool,” you know? But just offering, that could be a, that could go a long way, too, so. And so, we’re gonna continue this conversation. And what I can guarantee you is that whatever avenue we’re talking about when it comes to audio description, can you guess who’s at the center? [laughs]
CHERYL: [imitates air horn]
NEFERTITI: I mean, I don’t know. Could it be blind people?!
THOMAS: Yeah! How’d you know?
NEFERTITI: I mean….
CHERYL: She was listening!
THOMAS: [laughs]
NEFERTITI: And I’m a genius! But no, I was listening.
THOMAS: She is a genius!
NEFERTITI: I live this every day. Blind and low vision people at the center. Always! Always.
THOMAS: All day. Every day. Yeah. Yeah. I hope folks will stay tuned. Nef, tell them what’s the best way of keeping in touch with BCAD Chats and learning more? And let’s say they had a suggestion. If anyone has a suggestion or something that you’re interested in, how could they let us know?
NEFERTITI: Absolutely! Well, we are on the socials, y’all: LinkedIn, X. That’s mostly where we are, right? We have an email address now. BlindCenteredAD@gmail.com. (Cut 01:21:49 – 01:21:57) BlindCenteredAD, I was just about to say, all one word @gmail.com. (Cut 01:22:17 – 01:22:30) Hit us up. You know, if you didn’t speak today, but you want to let us know your thoughts, we’re open. Any suggestions for future chats? We are here for it. Anything you wanna complain about, we will take that too. We are here for all of it. So, BlindCenteredAD@gmail.com. And if you’d like to follow me or just whatever, you’re big on the socials, look for me on LinkedIn: Nefertiti Matos Olivares. It’s a long name, y’all. N E F E R T I T I M A T O S O L I V A R E S, or the first three letters of each of those names: @NefMatOli on X.
THOMAS: Very cool. Very cool. Cheryl, you wanna give your?
CHERYL: Yeah, I’m just here. I just, I just, I don’t go anywhere. I’m just, I’m just right here.
THOMAS and CHERYL: [chuckle]
CHERYL: I just follow Thomas and Nef and share what they write. [laughs]
THOMAS: Yeah, I share what you write.
THOMAS and CHERYL: [laugh]
NEFERTITI: I do too. And since the three of us will be, you know, receiving and reading and the like, we will take turns responding. We will sign our first name, so you have an idea of who responded. And don’t be surprised, if it’s a thread, if you get feedback or responses, replies, whatever, from, you know, one or two or three of us.
CHERYL: We do have a lot of resources that we’ve collected over the years, too. So, if you’re curious about, you know, stuff that other people are talking about, other ways people are writing about it, I mean, we got all, we love to share this stuff, and we love to be in these conversations.
NEFERTITI: Absolutely. Like Thomas offered earlier to Scott Nixon. I mean, that’s what we’re about.
THOMAS: All right. Thanks, everybody.
NEFERTITI: Thanks, everybody. Thanks for being here live. Thanks for tuning into the replay. We will be announcing on our various socials when the next chat will be, what it will be on, what platform it’ll be on. And tell a friend, all right? Tell someone you care about. Sharing is caring.

THOMAS: Cool. Well, that concludes this week’s conversation. Why don’t y’all keep the conversation going on social media.
CHERYL: Use #ADFUBU, for us by us, #DescribeEverything, and #AudioDescription.
NEFERTITI: And hey, you know we’re out here, right? Mmhmm! Gathered and galvanized y’all. If you haven’t joined us yet, what are you waiting for?! You can find us in the LinkedIn Audio Description group and the AD Twitter community. We know that your participation will only make these spaces better.
Music fades out!

Hide the transcript

Music begins
THOMAS: Welcome to the Blind-Centered Audio Description Chats. These are the edited recordings of the Blind-Centered Audio Description Live Chats!
CHERYL: The live is the most fun part! We get together, we start with a question, and then we invite up anybody from the audience who wants to come and chat with us, agree, disagree, shed light on something that we hadn’t thought about before, which is Nefertiti’s favorite. [electric whoosh]
NEFERTITI: I’m Nefertiti Matos Olivares, and I’m a bilingual professional voiceover artist who specializes in audio description narration! I’m also a fervent cultural access advocate and a community organizer.
CHERYL: I’m Cheryl Green, an access artist, audio describer and captioner.
THOMAS: And I’m Thomas Reid, host and producer Reid My Mind Radio, voice artist, audio description narrator, consultant, and advocate.
Hey, Nef, why don’t you tell people how they could join the live recording?
NEFERTITI: That’s really simple. Just follow us on social media to keep up with important details, such as dates, times, and what platform will be using. On Twitter, I’m @NefMatOli. Cheryl?
CHERYL: I’m @WhoAmIToStopIt.
THOMAS: I’m @TSRied, you know, R to the E I D.

EDITORS Note:
THOMAS: The following is the second half of a two part conversation from April 5, 2023.
We’re calling it, Becoming Critical. In part two, we speak with John Stark, a Blind film critic who reviews films both with and without AD, in order to highlight the need for audio description.
And now, let’s jump into this latest Blind Centered Audio Description Chat!

[smartphone selection beeps]
CHERYL: Recording now!

THOMAS: Tell me about your first experience with movies in general, not audio description, movies in general.
JOHN: I mean, I’ve been watching movies my entire life. I’ve always loved movies in sort of like an obsessive way. I remember as a little kid, I actually used to cut, back in the day when they used to put the ads in the papers and they had little posters of the movies, I used to actually cut those out. I was like five or six, and I collected them. [laughing] So, just like obsessed with movies! But I don’t know. I’ve always wanted to watch movies. I think Jurassic Park was kind of maybe the big turning point for me. I’ve never really wanted to make movies. I started reviewing as a critic. I used to live in a small town, and our small-town newspaper didn’t have a critic, so I actually convinced them to let me write for them in middle school. So, that was kind of cool. I got to write for a couple years until they ended up picking up a movie critic out of syndication and decided they didn’t want a, you know, 13-year-old writing reviews for them anymore. I guess they didn’t like the fact that I gave Power Rangers four stars.
But yeah, I used to be able to see, so I enjoyed a lot of films that way. And I eventually grew and started doing stuff online. And I’ve tried to bounce around on sites, trying to review wherever I can, eventually getting, you know, getting it all together to have my own site and post my own reviews and then my own YouTube channel. But I do have a degree in Cinema Studies; it’s what I went to school for. And then around 2017, I found out that I was losing my vision, and it went pretty fast. So, I kinda stopped for a little while ‘cause nobody told me right away about an audio description! And as soon as I found out about it, I dove like head first. And I was like, “Oh, what is this amazing thing?!”
THOMAS: How did you find out about it? How did you find out about AD?
JOHN: To be totally honest, when I went blind, when I started joining all these Facebook groups, at first, nobody was talking about it. I would try to talk about movies and television shows, like, “Hey, what do you guys watch?” And pretty much everybody was watching reruns, you know, of stuff that they were familiar with. But eventually one day, I don’t know, somebody just mentioned audio description. They were like, “Hey, do you know about this?” And I was like, “What?! Tell me how do I turn this on? Where is this amazing feature?!”
THOMAS: [chuckles]
JOHN: And I really, I mean, I knew it existed ‘cause I had worked in movie theaters, but I didn’t know that it existed in the, at least in the proliferation and like, how to turn it on and that it was on all these apps, and I could have it on my phone, and I could have it on my Roku. I just, I just didn’t know. And as soon as I did, I haven’t stopped.
THOMAS: So, what was your—
JOHN: I felt like I had to catch up on everything.
THOMAS: Yeah.
JOHN: So, I feel like I’ve just been watching non-stop.
THOMAS: Do you remember your first experience with AD?
JOHN: Oh. I don’t. I wanna say it might’ve been when, like, a new season of Stranger Things was coming out.
THOMAS: Oh, really?
JOHN: Probably like, around when Season Three of Stranger Things, I think, hit.
THOMAS: Ah!
JOHN: ‘Cause I think I went back ‘cause I didn’t get a chance to watch Season Two. And I remember I had to watch Season Two before Season Three. That’s about the time that I remember hearing about it.
THOMAS: Okay.
JOHN: Yeah, and that’s probably the best memory I have because Stranger Things is such a visual show that I was so happy to have that audio description and feel like I, you know, I knew this world, and I knew the crazy special effects and everything that were going on, and it was great. And, yeah, I just, I would get disappointed after that every time a film didn’t have audio description. And when new things came out, and I couldn’t understand them, I was like, “Why? How do I tell somebody that this is unacceptable? You know, why doesn’t this film have audio description?” So, I joined the community, this audio description community, and just started listening, paying attention and calling and arguing with streaming services to try to get audio description on titles and fighting with them. And I just wanted to sort of help those out there who don’t know about audio description to try to help other blind people find titles that work for them, to talk about titles that don’t have audio description. And is it sort of watchable if you have to watch it? Is it not watchable? Like, what level of it is it, and why is it that way? Why can’t we follow this?
THOMAS: With the audio description specifically, how long did it take you to sort of get your own determination of what is good audio description and what is bad audio description?
JOHN: A lot of different things for a lot of different companies. And ‘cause everybody kinda does things differently.
THOMAS: Mmhmm.
JOHN: And for me watching, you have to watch every genre, too, because it’s different for genres. I think there’s, there are different expectations with everything. I notice with a lot of TV sitcoms that really just kind of nobody stops talking, the audio description is very light. Whereas there are other programs where almost nobody’s talking, so the audio description narration fills in a lot. I mean, you get everything. You get costumes, you get hair, you get people’s facial reactions because there’s nothing there to, you know, to talk over, to accidentally. I understand you don’t trample the dialogue. It’s comparing them. It’s seeing who does it differently. It’s hearing conversations.
I remember when I started reviewing, I went pretty hard on how I felt about Chip N’ Dale Rescue Rangers and that audio description because I thought it was pointless. It didn’t do what it was supposed to do, which is bridge the gap for blind and visually impaired users because it didn’t include basically every single cameo that they had in the film. There’s YouTube videos going over like 300+ cameos in that film of other animated characters. And it was like the audio description went out of its way, even on characters where it did reference, it described what they looked like instead of saying what characters they were. So, you had to guess based on the description. And meanwhile, if I was able to see, I would’ve instantly recognized all these characters as all the sighted people did! So, come to find out that was actually Disney requested that. So, I don’t understand why Disney requested that. I don’t know why they wanted us to have half the experience, but that was definitely a moment for me where I was learning from the community as I was reviewing.
THOMAS: Mm.
JOHN: And I try to pay attention. I try to come to meetings like this and learn as much as I can so that that way, I know what it is I’m criticizing, like, what the parameters are, what’s possible for audio description, and so that I’m not demanding something that is impossible or cannot be done. And I think I’m doing that? But I don’t really know.
THOMAS: It takes a while for folks to get used to listening to films with audio description and get their own bearings on what is good and what is bad. Take us through your process in critiquing a film. How do you do that with the AD? ‘Cause you do with and without AD, is that correct?
JOHN: Yeah, I do with and without. ‘Cause I tried to call out a film. I actually had that really interesting experience where I worked with a producer—we can talk about that later—of an Oscar-nominated short where her film didn’t have AD, and she saw my review. And then we ended up getting the film AD.
THOMAS: Yeah.
JOHN: So, that was a cool experience for me. But in general, first of all, the question is, can I understand it?
THOMAS: Yeah.
JOHN: Did the audio description, was I lost? Could I not follow the film? Most of the time, the answer to that question is yes. Most of the time I am able to follow. It gets a little bit trickier the more you get into like, action, sci-fi, and horror, because there’s a lot of things happening. And I think especially with horror films I’ve seen, that’s probably where the audio description gets the most tricky because I’ve seen audio description that leans away from horror and gore and doesn’t describe it. Which sort of defeats the purpose of the genre.
THOMAS: [chuckles]
JOHN: But then again, I go back to the thing about contracts, and I don’t know whether or not the studio is saying, “Please don’t describe this.” So, and sometimes things are described sort of generically, and you don’t really get the scare of the scene. It’s really hard to be scared anyway. I mean, I used to be kind of a baby about horror movies. Now I find myself watching anything because it’s like, well, if I don’t, if I can’t see it, good luck scaring me. And so far, that’s proven to be largely true. I can be grossed out a little bit, definitely. But jump scares and everything have a completely [laughing] different effect when you can’t see the thing that’s lunging out at you on screen, and it’s just like sound or something. Just, I don’t know, for some reason it’s not as scary. But yeah, it’s stuff like that. Is it effective for the genre? Did I understand? Did a character die, and they forgot to tell me about it? [laughing] You know, did I miss something?
THOMAS: Hmm.
JOHN: Was somebody referred to as the wrong thing? When I get to review a film that I did see visually, and then now I’m watching it again as a blind person, that’s when it gets really interesting. ‘Cause then I’m like, okay, I actually got to see this, and now I’m blind. What’s my experience like now?
THOMAS: Yeah.
JOHN: Those are interesting comparisons for me because I do know what I’m missing. With audio description, I have to guess what I’m missing. And sometimes I don’t even know. Like recently with Tetris, there’s a scene that’s like an 8-bit car chase scene that just is kind of described as a regular car chase scene. But when I heard another critic describe it, it sounds like I totally did not get that scene described to me the way that at least they’re describing it in their review. So, that happens a lot. I don’t actually know what I’m missing, so it’s hard sometimes to grade it. And then I come back around. I’m like, I, you know, I don’t know. Did I miss something that I didn’t know that I missed?! So, it’s very tricky. And I hope to continue to get better at it and continue to pick up and just further the audio description discussion, so.
THOMAS: So, how do you do that on a film that doesn’t have AD?
JOHN: By pointing out why the film doesn’t work and why it’s unintelligible and why someone would need audio description. Sometimes it’s led to somebody pointing out to me that there is audio description available. It’s just nobody’s using it.
THOMAS: Mm.
JOHN: I know William Michael Redman reached out to me because I reviewed Crimes of the Future, which I rented when iTunes had it 99 cents on sale. And then later on, Hulu had, it still didn’t have audio description! So, I saw two different versions of it. And he’s like, “I recorded audio description for this. I don’t know why nobody’s using it!”
THOMAS: Yeah.
JOHN: But it’s a body horror film, and there’s almost no, there’s almost no dialogue in it. So, it’s pointless, and it’s impossible to watch. It’s a waste of time for blind people. But I did sit through the whole thing to let people know, like, “Yeah, I sat through this, and this is what you’re gonna get. You’re gonna get about three scenes of dialogue and just kind of some sound effects.” Skinamarink was an experience. I mean, that film by law should be required [laughs] to have audio— It’s impossible. It has almost no spoken words in the entire film. It’s all just sounds. So, it’s a very weird experience, and there’s no score. [laughing] It’s a very weird experience.
THOMAS: Oh, my gosh.
JOHN: And so, a lotta times I stopped. At first, I was using, I was using the lack of audio description in my grading, which I didn’t feel like actually represented the film. So, I just started grading those films as being unwatchable.
THOMAS: Yeah.
JOHN: Like, it doesn’t get a letter grade anymore. It just, I just say it’s unwatchable, and I move on.
THOMAS: Oh, I think that’s an F. That’s should be an F. [laughs]
JOHN: I mean, basically it equates to an F. But I also am acknowledging that this might be the best film ever made.
THOMAS: Yeah.
JOHN: I just have no idea because this film is not accessible to me.
THOMAS: Wow. And so, talk about describe watching a film like that with no AD. I’m like, “Dude, what are you doing?! [laughs] Why are you, why are you, why are you doing that to yourself? Why are you?” You know. So, why? Why are you doing that to yourself?
JOHN: To show people. I actually, on my YouTube channel, I filmed myself watching RRR, which Netflix had decided to offer only with English dubbing and no audio description.
THOMAS: Hmm.
JOHN: And so, I basically filmed myself watching it and then uploaded it, just talking about like, can I understand anything what’s going on? And I would talk about, like, as things are happening, I’m like, “This is what I think is happening. I’ve got no idea because there’s no audio description here. Oh, this song sounds really cool. I don’t know what they’re doing on screen, but…” you know, stuff like that. If somebody’s not doing it and pointing it out, then everybody will think that everything’s okay, that we’re just okay, that because nobody’s complaining, nobody’s saying anything. You know, these streaming services, they hire customer service agents to just kind of placate us and move along. I mean, I’ve complained to Paramount+ about some things. I complained about Showtime audio description on their service when it launched, and it still doesn’t have audio description for known, for titles that have audio description. And it’s owned by the same parent company.
THOMAS: Mmhmm.
JOHN: So, I’m trying to bring attention and focus in whatever way I possibly can. And if it’s me suffering through things to be able to point out like, “Yes, I tried it your way. Your way doesn’t work, you know. You have to do it this way. You have to get the audio description because I’m paying the same amount as everybody else for all my subscriptions. But I’m actually, like, a bunch of these titles are not accessible to me. They’re completely unintelligible without audio description.” So, I’m fighting complacency within the streaming service, so I will watch anything if I think it might stir the pot. But like I said, I don’t know. I don’t have a huge following. Everything nowadays is based on your social just footprint. And if I had a million followers, I feel like there would be audio description on Showtime! Because there would be a series of videos of me calling out Paramount+ until they actually did it, so.
THOMAS: Are you on Twitter?
JOHN: I am on Twitter. I’m MacTheMovieGuy, yeah. I don’t use Twitter as much as I do YouTube, but I have the ability to tweet. It’s, I feel like people are leaving Twitter, so I don’t really know what to do [laughing] with Twitter!
THOMAS: No, but the reason I ask about Twitter is because I think, like, I’ve personally had some really good experiences with HBO, Amazon, I think Paramount also, when you get at them, right there on Twitter, right in public. Because you could just @ them. You could, if I were you, I would be @-ing them every single video, you know. But even when you just have your customer request stuff, like, put it out there in the open for the world to see. It doesn’t mean that the world is going to see that, but it means that the world can see that.
JOHN: Oh, I’ve done that a couple of times.
THOMAS: Okay.
JOHN: I just don’t do it all the time. Because I, again, I don’t know how effective Twitter is anymore, and I was just worried. I just don’t know if anybody is—
THOMAS: Yeah, I don’t know either. But I would still put it out there.
JOHN: —listening on Twitter anymore.
THOMAS: I would still put it out there.
JOHN: Yeah, I will.
THOMAS: Yeah, yeah. Especially all your videos because, What’s interesting is that there are people doing the same work, right, but doing it differently, whether that be, you know, making those phone calls, whether that be advocating the governmental environment, you know, the whole CVAA, all of that type of thing. But to show your experience is pretty good. People write about their experiences, all of that. But yeah, that’s an interesting, it’s another level, and that’s fantastic. I like that.
How do you choose the movies that you decide to film yourself watching?
JOHN: Every once in a while, it’s just totally random, but I usually try to review new titles. I need to allow myself the grace to not review literally every new title because I, last year I reviewed, I reviewed 295 titles that were released in 2022.
THOMAS: Huh.
JOHN: And there were some titles I wasn’t even interested in, and they were poorly made, and there were these like, crappy things that are thrown together that had audio description, you know. [laughs] And so, I reviewed them. I was like, “Oh, well, you put audio description on this film with nobody in the cast I’ve ever heard of. I’ll watch your random freebie rom-com. Sure!”
THOMAS: [chuckles]
JOHN: So, and a lot of them ended up being predictably bad. So, I’m trying not to review these films that I don’t think anybody cares about.
THOMAS: Hmm.
JOHN: But yeah, I wanna review things as soon as they at least hit streaming and they’re accessible to everybody. I could go to theaters. As somebody who worked for four major movie theater chains when I could see, I know that they do not train those managers very well in actually figuring out how to fix AD. And the whole thing about paying for the Uber to go out there to find out the audio description doesn’t work. I just know too many times when I was working in movie theaters, our audio description wasn’t working, and I never knew any of the projectionists who knew anything to do other than turn it off and turn it back on, unplug it and plug back it in!
THOMAS: Yeah.
JOHN: So, it’s gotta be incredibly frustrating. I had no idea how frustrating it was until I’m now on the other side of it. But nobody ever trained us. So, I see people all the time posting how frustrating it is to go to theaters. And it’s like, I can’t. I just don’t have that kind of time and money in my life to spend that money to Uber out to a theater to find out that the movie doesn’t even have audio description, so I can’t even review it.
THOMAS: Again, that’s an example of, you know, yeah, choose your fight, right? Because that literally, I know for me, it took about three years for this one theater that my wife and I would constantly go to, to actually start to get it right. It took about three years. Now, we were always comped, [laughs] you know? But still, it took about three years. So, it’s, yeah, it’s crazy. Tell me about—
JOHN: You always get passes, yeah.
THOMAS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had lots of passes.
JOHN: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: And may I just say, passes are great except that when you came back, I’m sure it still wasn’t fixed. So, what good, really, are those passes?
JOHN: Well, the theater’s not giving you passes for the Uber either.
NEFERTITI: Right. Right.
JOHN: So, if you’re having transportation issues, it doesn’t compensate you for that.
NEFERTITI: Or gas money, you know?
JOHN: Exactly. Whatever it is.
NEFERTITI: Yeah. I’ve never been a fan of like, “Oh, we got comp tickets!” What good are they, really, ultimately?
THOMAS: Well, it could be good. It could be good. For me, it was good. [chuckles] Family of four? Yeah, I was able to go with just my wife. We’ll get a, they’ll end up giving us four passes, and then we go to watch something with the kids, you know. But it was, it was also, part of that was—and I’m not saying this works for everybody—but it’s just like again, you choose your battles, but that takes them seeing you there in a relationship because we started to talk to the manager. And again, this is just one of those things where once they know you, once it’s not a, “Oh, there goes that, here comes somebody,” you know. But now they know you. You know what I mean? They start to make a change. I’m not saying that everybody needs to do that, but that is one way is to go. When you go in there, ask for a manager, introduce yourself to that person. Because they’re probably gonna be there the next time. And so, that’s who you should be talking to. You bypass the little, you know, the college, the high school kid who’s working behind the counter. Bypass that guy. [laughs]
NEFERTITI: You build the relationship. And that is something that I am a fan of.
THOMAS: Yes. Yes.
NEFERTITI: I do like relationship building, and like, look, put this, put this human being who this lack of access is affecting, like, this is a real-world example. This isn’t some abstract thing. So, I definitely like that part. Yeah.
THOMAS: I wanna hear about, John, your experience where calling out a film ended up doing something happened there. Tell us about that.
JOHN: Yeah. I reviewed, ‘cause definitely, when I’m saying I review things that I think people are interested in, I review, I try to review as many Oscar nominees as possible, and that included the shorts when they were available on streaming. So, when My Year of Dicks was available on Hulu, I reviewed it. It did not have audio description, predictably, because Hulu doesn’t, [chuckles] you know, Hulu be Hulu. And so, I had to do my review based on how I was able to understand it based on the lack of accessibility. And it wasn’t great. It wasn’t completely unintelligible ‘cause it has dialogue, but there was a lot in there that just didn’t make sense and didn’t come together.
And I actually had the writer of the film reach out to me on Instagram, and she immediately tried to fix it for me. They hadn’t even, they didn’t even really think about audio description or know what it was. And suddenly, I had educated them. And she actually sat down at her computer and tried to do what I would call homegrown audio description, just at a laptop, which kind of sounded a little bit like director’s commentary, [laughs] almost.
THOMAS: Yeah.
JOHN: But because she didn’t know the ins and outs of audio description. So, it was essentially what she gave me, which wasn’t even complete, it was just like the first 10 minutes of the thing, talked over dialogue. And so, I explained to her, I was like, “This isn’t really audio description. This is why. Plus, I can’t really use this because no one else can use this. This is just in a Dropbox you sent to me. So, it’s not, I mean, I appreciate it. You’re going out of your way to do this, but it’s not like I could rereview the film based on [laughs] homegrown audio description you put in a Dropbox.”
THOMAS: Yeah.
JOHN: And so, she was really interested in trying to fix the problem permanently. And I was posting about this at the same time in that Facebook audio description group. And I had a producer on there that reached out to me and said, “Hey, can you connect me with the person that you’ve been talking to from My Year of Dicks? We would like to provide the audio description for that film free of charge.” Which I’m assuming they were doing so because they were a company I hadn’t really heard of, and they figured, hey, it’s an Oscar-nominated short. Maybe more people will know who we are, and it’s great publicity for us, so—
THOMAS: Can you name the company? What company was it?
JOHN: Oh! Off the top of my head? No, I can’t.
THOMAS: Okay.
JOHN: And I would have to go look up the producer’s name because I did not remember. I haven’t talked to her since she provided audio description.
THOMAS: Okay.
JOHN: But it’s on Vimeo, and it was uploaded onto Vimeo. There’s a, it’s, you didn’t have to turn the audio description on. It’s just a static, it’s like open audio description is what they ended up creating and uploading for the film. And they managed to get that out a little bit before the Oscars. They sent it to me. I shared it with the group. I’ve tried to share it out with other people, and I did do a second-look YouTube review of the film with audio description where I did give it a higher grade the second time around because it had audio description. I predictably was missing some things that the audio description made more clear for me. So, it was, yeah, all in all, it was, it was great. And it was nice to hear something from a content creator that said, “Hey, we should, we need to fix this. You know, how do we fix this? How do we make our title accessible?”
For something as small as an Oscar-nominated short, because honestly, I mean, I know film and shorts do not, they have a half-life of about five seconds. Once the Oscars are passed, nobody looks these things up again. Nobody’s gonna go back and try to find the Oscar-nominated short from 2004 that didn’t win the Oscar. They’re used, often, for those directors to get feature gigs, to get hired by bigger companies, generally, is where those directors come from. I don’t know that anybody is, in a couple years, is even gonna look up My Year of Dicks, but hopefully, until there’s another Oscars and it gets moved out of the limelight, people will go over to Vimeo and watch the audio description track, so.
THOMAS: But do you think something came of that interaction with the writer? ‘Cause you said it was the writer. It wasn’t the director. It was the writer of the film, right? Correct?
JOHN: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
THOMAS: Okay.
JOHN: I think it’s somebody who now is aware.
THOMAS: Mmhmm.
JOHN: And I think she made her team aware.
THOMAS: Mmhmm.
JOHN: I don’t think, I don’t think this was a conversation that she had, like, just by herself, you know, without anybody else. I think she likely contacted, I don’t know, like, the producer, director, whatever of the team and said, “Hey, I wanna, I wanna do this. I wanna get audio description on our film. Can we allow this to happen?” ‘Cause somebody had to okay it being uploaded to Vimeo, so it wasn’t, you know, there wasn’t a copyright claim. So, yeah, I think a couple more people are aware. And if more people can be aware, you know, I mean, that’s what I did with just, I have 118 subscribers on YouTube, and I did that. So, if I have, you know, 118,000 someday, I don’t know who’s gonna see my YouTube video and who I’ll be able to reach. So, start small, and I’m just gonna keep doing this until I make effective change, so.
THOMAS: Why is this so important to you?
JOHN: Because film is. Because it’s what it—
THOMAS: Why?
JOHN: Because it’s, it’s everything that I do. I mean, I have, I…. I have, [chuckles], I’ve, everything I’ve done has been around movies. I’ve reviewed movies online on various websites. Even when I was a kid, I reviewed movies for a newspaper. I have been watching movies. I had a huge, massive VHS collection. I even did like the illegal thing where I dubbed movies that I rented so that I could try to increase my VHS collection back in the day. I have a massive DVD collection. I used to even play some of the games. There’s a whole bunch of games for people who love movies. There’s like Hollywood Stock Exchange existed for a long time. I used to play a game called Hollywood The Game where you kind of wrote a screenplay and produced like a fake version of your movie and released it into the box office to see how it did, stuff like that. Box office challenges, the stuff to predict box office. I’ve talked to people who run other websites or their movie websites. I worked for Movie Gallery while they still existed, and people still rented movies, actually, in a store. I was a store manager for them in addition to the fact that I worked for four different movie theater chains where I was also a theater manager, so. Then I went to film school!
THOMAS: So, John, let me ask you—
JOHN: I haven’t done anything else!
THOMAS: So, let me ask you the question a little differently then. Why should anybody else care?
JOHN: What do you mean by anybody else? Like, anybody but me?
THOMAS: Anybody. Yeah, I mean, you telling me why—
JOHN: It’s like anybody care about me or anybody care about film or audio description? Anybody else care about film?
THOMAS: Why should anybody else care about audio description? You’re telling me, because of you and your background—and I respect that. I get that—but, you know, a lot of people would be like, “Okay, that’s you. That’s your problem.”
JOHN: The weird thing is that I think a lot of people don’t know about it. I’ve had personal interactions with people where since then, I’ve told them about audio description and turned it on, and it’s like their mind is blown. Actually, I work in a school, and I had a student that came in who was also visually impaired. And I was like, “Dude, do you watch movies with audio description?” He was like, “No, what is that?” And I explained it to him. And I had him, I turned it on, on one of my apps that I just had. Like, I pulled up Netflix, just pulled up a movie and just played it. And he was like, “Wow, that’s really cool that you can actually follow the action.” It was like an action thing that I pulled up to get the most effect out of the audio description.
THOMAS: Mmhmm.
JOHN: Yeah, you can actually hear it. And I think if people realize what it is that they’re getting, that they’ll use it to watch those films that they consider unwatchable and the TV shows that they consider unwatchable. Because I saw so many conversations from people who believe that action movies and horror movies and sci-fi movies are unwatchable and they just, like, they won’t watch them anymore. They only watch things or listen to things that they’ve seen. They won’t watch anything new. But it’s like they want to. If you go blind right now, and you’re halfway through the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you know, you wanna keep watching the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But there’s a lot of visual stuff that happens in that. So, if nobody tells you about audio description, then maybe you just stop watch-, you stop doing the thing that you love. And I think blind people give up enough things when they transition that this, if there’s something here that can help you do the thing that you were already enjoying, that can help you to continue to watch the TV show you were already watching, why not, you know?
THOMAS: Mmhmm.
JOHN: I think, I think it’s just a matter of introducing people to it and getting them, and normalizing it. If you normalize it, then I think people will accept it. I know people who use audio description who aren’t even blind. I had a guy tell me that he uses audio description when he goes jogging so he can catch up [chuckling] on his TV series! You know, like, instead of listening to music or audio books, he jogs to Abbott Elementary with audio description!
THOMAS: Mmhmm.
JOHN: It’s like, okay, you do you.
NEFERTITI: I love that. I love that. Yeah.
JOHN: Yeah. I had another friend tell me he uses audio description because he likes to multi-task, and so he doesn’t have to pay attention to his TV. He can turn on the audio description, and it runs in the background, and he doesn’t actually have to look at the TV. He can catch up on whatever while doing other things. So, it’s interesting that sighted people I know use it too, so.
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm.
THOMAS: That exchange you had with the student, that would’ve been a fantastic video. That would be a really good video.
JOHN: I gotta ask the student if that’s okay.
THOMAS: No, yeah. I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if that’s something you could, if you could show somebody else, another kid, a young person like that, an older person, somebody who hasn’t been exposed to it, capturing that, that could be pretty interesting. Not to say that what you’re doing is not because it is. I’m just saying I would just add that. But something to think about.
NEFERTITI: I think so, too. Yeah.
JOHN: I would say I almost had that opportunity in a weird way. And I have to very, I have to tread very lightly on this because I signed an NDA, but I think if I never say the company, I think I’ll be fine on this. But I would say that somebody caught me and offered me a contract to do just what you’re talking about. But I think it fell through. I was contacted to do essentially instructional videos because they saw me doing what I was doing, and they realized I was blind, and they wanted me to show how to use their product for other blind people. They thought a blind person doing the blind thing would be. Unfortunately, I think that ended up not happening. Which is unfortunate because I would’ve loved to do that. But I came really close to doing exactly what you’re saying, basically, and teaching people how to turn this stuff on and use it, so.
NEFERTITI: Yeah, I think examples like that are really impactful when other people come across like, wow, that person seemed really effected, you know, in a positive way. I think that can be hugely influential for those out there watching. But John, what would you say to people who, and I’ve heard from a number of folks interested in this conversation tonight because they’re interested in getting into this. So, my question is, I guess, a two-parter. One, do you think that there could be impact if the number of critics, blind critics specifically, critiquing audio description in particular, would that be helpful for raising awareness? Is that something you would like to see? And then how could they get started? What would you recommend? How do you recommend they begin?
JOHN: I would say absolutely. Actually, I’ve had this conversation with Alex Howard, who’s, he’s in that group. He’s doing The Dark Room podcast.
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm.
JOHN: And we talked about trying to figure out, we’re trying to figure out a way how to start essentially what is the equivalent of a critics guild, but a critics guild for either, you know, some kind of like disabled critics guild or blind and visually impaired, like, or maybe d/Deaf and blind, some kind of combination, so that that way it brings attention to all of that, so that we can all connect and be stronger together and show people how many of us there are. I think they think we’re some sort of weird minority, you know, like, I don’t know, albinoism or something. Just like, “Oh, I’ve never met anybody who’s like that before!” So, they, we need to provide this service.
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm.
JOHN: Like it’s just some weird unicorn thing, like, “Oh, there’s a blind person that watches TV?!”
NEFERTITI: [laughs] Yeah.
JOHN: I guess. I don’t know. So, yeah. I mean, if we’re all out there talking about it and posting about it and getting on the socials and, you know, if you wanna, if you wanna do a YouTube, do YouTube. If you wanna do a TikTok, do a TikTok. If you wanna do Instagrams, do Instagrams. There’s a website called Letterbox. You can post stuff there. I don’t do Letterbox because there’s only just so many social media [laughing] things I can possibly handle!
NEFERTITI: [laughs]
JOHN: But yeah, there are plenty of places to post and share your reviews and your content, and you just have to start somewhere. Start maybe with a film that you like. Don’t put yourself with the challenge of reviewing something you’ve never seen before. Pick something that you like, that you know you like, that has audio description, and convince people why you like that thing. And then start about, and then start there and explain why the audio description matters to you with that film, why it’s helped you. And then just grow from there and just keep it going and keep talking. And don’t let anybody tell you to stop talking. Because the more noise we make, the louder we are, the more audio description we’ll get, so.
NEFERTITI: [applauds] Yes. Yes. I’m clapping. I love this answer. As someone who is part of a collective, right, of professionals, we’re all professionals in our own right, and we come together and we’re doing and making audio description, creating audio description and spreading the word about it, and, you know, just maintaining this quality of excellence, commitment to the audio description we create. I’m a big believer in people coming together, and like you said, you know, collect our voices. The louder we are, the more we’ll be heard, the further the message. So, if people would like to get in touch with you, how can they do that? If they want to explore this idea with you and join, you know, whatever ends up coming of your collaboration with others?
JOHN: Oh. Well, like I said, I’m on Instagram. It’s @MacTheMovieGuy. I’m on Twitter @MacTheMovieGuy. I am on Facebook as John Stark. If you send me a request, and you let me know why, like, send me a message also on Messenger and say, “Hey, I’m in the audio description community,” then I’ll know you’re not like a weird spambot.
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm, mmhmm.
JOHN: So, don’t just send me a weird friend request out of nowhere! But I’ll accept it if it’s for audio description. And I mean, I’m on YouTube. YouTube.com/MacTheMovieGuy. My website is MacTheMovieGuy.com. Any one of those ways, just reach out if you wanna talk about audio description in movies or anything.
NEFERTITI: Excellent. So, you have a number, a number of ways of getting in touch with John so that you can add your voice to what I personally think, and I think we all agree, is a pretty critical thing that you’re doing.
JOHN: I think I’m here because right now, I’m a unicorn, and I, as awesome as it would be to continue to be recognized for what it is that I’m doing, I would much, you know, I would also be okay with being a horse. You know what I’m saying? Something that you see a lot more common.
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm.
JOHN: So, if there were more blind film critics that were talking about audio description, I don’t mind that. It’s there are a lot of people out there on the Internet talking about movies, and there need to be more of us that are blind and that are talking about the accessibility. So, I know why I’m here. It’s because I’m a unicorn! And if I’m not, then that’s fine too. So, it means that more, that I started a fire and it caught on, so.
NEFERTITI: Absolutely. Yeah. Cheryl?
CHERYL: Well, I want to give Unicorn John Stark such huge thanks. We’re so appreciative. So, everybody, Mac the Movie Guy. 732 videos on your YouTube!
NEFERTITI: Wow.
CHERYL: If somebody wants to see how it is that you critique a film, and it’s not just like, “I liked this.” It is so detailed. You go into so much about character, acting, directing, plot, audio description. That’s the place to go on YouTube to watch 732 reviews.
JOHN: They’re not all reviews. Some of them are talking about the Oscars. I did try to bring people in with Oscar talk, so.
CHERYL: Excellent.
JOHN: Most of them are reviews, though.
NEFERTITI: So, about that, what did you think about the Oscars audio description?
THOMAS: [chuckles]
JOHN: I liked the Oscar Audio Description. I feel like there was something weird about the red carpet, but I can’t remember what it was. But the actual show was great. And I know [laughs] you did it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the Oscars was, the show was great. I can’t remember what it was about the audio description for the red carpet though.
NEFERTITI: Maybe that there was hardly any because it was just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. So, maybe like?
JOHN: That might’ve been it. I don’t know. You know, I don’t care about red carpet! I just was on it because I didn’t have anything else to do. So, it doesn’t really stick out in my memory. All I remember was was Hugh Grant just had that weird walk-off moment. But that’s it. Yeah. If you’d asked me a couple weeks ago, I might’ve remembered. I don’t know.
NEFERTITI: Well, you know what? You don’t have to remember because we can all go to MackTheMovieGuy.com and check out your review there.
JOHN: [laughs] Yeah.
NEFERTITI: So, do that, people. And, you know, full disclosure, I was one of the people narrating that, so that was a shameless question on my part. But thank you.
JOHN: Yeah, I knew. That’s why I said ‘cause I knew you did it.
NEFERTITI: [laughs] Yes! I appreciate that we got a good review from you. That means a lot.
JOHN: Yeah.
THOMAS: Cool. Cool. Well, thank you, John. This was good.
JOHN: Thanks, guys. Thank you so much for having me.
NEFERTITI: This was fantastic. Yeah.
JOHN: Yeah. If you don’t wanna set up your own thing, just throw me some follows or something and likes or something. Increasing my social media presence will end up increasing my voice in the long run.
NEFERTITI: Absolutely. Not everybody has to be advocate. Not everybody has to be a critic. But I do think it’s important that we support each other and we promote one another, right? Uplift. So, yeah.
JOHN: Absolutely.
NEFERTITI: Follow John everywhere. I certainly will. I’m really happy to get to know you a little better during this event. So, everybody, thank you for listening, whether live or on the replay through the Reid My Mind Radio podcast. We really appreciate you being here. And yeah, how do we close? I don’t even remember anymore. I’m so enthused by this conversation.
THOMAS: So am I. [laughs]
NEFERTITI: All right! See ya!
THOMAS: Peace, y’all.
NEFERTITI: Except not really, ‘cause I’m blind.
THOMAS: [chuckles]
NEFERTITI: Peace.

Music begins…
THOMAS: Cool. Well, that concludes this week’s conversation. Why don’t y’all keep the conversation going on social media.
CHERYL: Use #ADFUBU, for us by us, #DescribeEverything, and #AudioDescription.
NEFERTITI: And hey, you know we’re out here, right? Mmhmm! Gathered and galvanized y’all. If you haven’t joined us yet, what are you waiting for?! You can find us in the LinkedIn Audio Description group and the AD Twitter community. We know that your participation will only make these spaces better.
Music fades out!

Hide the transcript

Music begins
THOMAS: Welcome to the Blind-Centered Audio Description Chats. These are the edited recordings of the Blind-Centered Audio Description Live Chats!
CHERYL: The live is the most fun part! We get together, we start with a question, and then we invite up anybody from the audience who wants to come and chat with us, agree, disagree, shed light on something that we hadn’t thought about before, which is Nefertiti’s favorite. [electric whoosh]
NEFERTITI: I’m Nefertiti Matos Olivares, and I’m a bilingual professional voiceover artist who specializes in audio description narration! I’m also a fervent cultural access advocate and a community organizer.
CHERYL: I’m Cheryl Green, an access artist, audio describer and captioner.
THOMAS: And I’m Thomas Reid, host and producer Reid My Mind Radio, voice artist, audio description narrator, consultant, and advocate.
SCOTT B: Hi, I’m Scott Blanks. I’m a passionate advocate for the highest quality audio description in all of the arts. I’m the co-founder of the LinkedIn Audio Description Group and the Twitter AD community.
SCOTT N: Scott Nixon here. I’m an audio description consumer and advocate, hoping to be an audio description narrator very, very soon. [electronic whoosh]
THOMAS: Hey, Nef, why don’t you tell people how they could join the live recording?
NEFERTITI: That’s really simple. Just follow us on social media to keep up with important details, such as dates, times, and what platform will be using. On Twitter, I’m @NefMatOli. Cheryl?
CHERYL: I’m @WhoAmIToStopIt.
THOMAS: I’m @TSRied, you know, R to the E I D.
NEFERTITI: How about you, Scott?
SCOTT B: I’m @BlindConfucius. That’s Blind Confucius.
SCOTT N: And you can catch me on my social media, Twitter only. That’s @MisterBrokenEyes, Capital M r Capital Broken Capital E y e s.
[smartphone selection beeps]
CHERYL: Recording now!

Editors Insert
THOMAS: Greetings! Before we jump into this edited version of our live Blind Centered Audio Description Chat from April 5, 2023,
we wanted to let you know that we’re editing this discussion into two episodes.
The next episode will feature a Blind film critic who reviews films both with and without AD, in order to highlight the need for audio description.
Here’s Cheryl kicking off our discussion!
CHERYL: We were inspired to talk about what does it mean to critique or even analyze or assess or publicly or privately give your opinion about a film and about the audio description, because there seemed to be some feelings of barriers about who’s allowed to share their opinion, especially if they say, “I didn’t like something.” Who’s gatekeeping that? And who’s doing the gaslighting when someone does present their opinion, and someone else says, “No, that’s clearly wrong.” So, those were some of the things that came up. And I know Thomas, you wanted to talk about some of the ways that you do critique or comment on films.
THOMAS: Yeah. And so, even before that, I kinda wanted to go back in. ‘Cause something I’ve been thinking about is based on this conversation that we have several times, not necessarily here, but folks, we have these conversations in many different formats. And so, it’s like, you know, we often want to hear from other people, right? Other blind folks, other folks with low vision, other AD users specifically now, and sometimes we don’t really hear back. And I started thinking about that. Like, why is that? Why aren’t we hearing back from the community as much as we may like to? You know, that could be on the, for the purposes of advocacy. And by advocacy, I’m talking about all aspects of that: reaching out to AD producers, reaching out to the streaming companies, broadcasters. Even back when we were trying to get the CVAA passed, you know, reaching out to your representatives, all of that stuff. And we always wanna hear from people.
And so, specifically now, thinking about the process of talking about AD from the user experience, why don’t we hear back from them? And I think there’s a lot of things that we have to remember. Number one, AD, even today in 2023, is relatively new within the last maybe five years, maybe even a little bit more than that, maybe less than that. But five years, I think, is probably the most amount of consumption of AD that we’ve had in probably in our history. So, whether that be five years, ten years, it’s probably definitely within that last year since the CVAA has been passed. And so, in that sense, watching films with audio description is a new experience.
And I know me personally, when I started watching films with audio description, I was excited about every single film that came out because I had access. So, it wasn’t so much that I was watching this movie to critique the audio description. At that point, to be honest with you, there was many films, there were many films that I was watching that I wasn’t even critiquing the film. I was just freakin’ happy to be able to watch this film and enjoy it. And I think that is probably the same for a lot of people. Anytime someone would ask me about a film, I would always say, “Hey, look. I’m gonna tell you that I’m gonna rate this film high already because I had access.” Like, I was already giving one thumb up. [laughs] You know what I’m saying? I was already giving one thumb up just because it had audio description. And I feel like there’s probably a lot of people like that, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I really don’t.
I think it’s gonna take some time for the community to become more critical about audio description, and I think it’s gonna take more time for the community to become more critical about all aspects of that, right? So, the writing, we always talk about the writing. And we know some of it is better than others. But then also the film itself, right? Being more critical about what you’re watching. Because, you know, we have to do both. We’re watching the film, and audio description is that filter. So, we’re processing all of that at one time. And that in itself, you know, can be a lot of work, and not everybody comes to audio description to do that work. Most people wanna watch television and films and whatnot as their form of entertainment, you know, just to chill. And so, we might be expecting more from the casual AD user than we should, right? ‘Cause most of us who talk about AD who are really caring about it, most of us who show up here, who, you know, who advocate for it, we’re not the regular AD user. And so, I just wanna, me personally, be mindful of that because I don’t wanna see a situation where we’re sort of blaming and putting all this extra stuff on the community, like we go, “Aw, you gotta get out there, and you have to!” And it’s true. We do. We do need to do that. But when we talk about, “You gotta get out there, and you gotta voice your opinion on the audio description,” well, you know, that’s public speaking. Whether it be in writing, whether it be on a forum like this, that’s public speaking. And we already know that’s something that’s scary to a lot of people.
And then you add on to that it’s being critical. And we know this is a subjective thing, whether it be the audio description, whether it be the film. These are people’s opinions. And you know how we get. Just think if you’re one of those people who argue about sports and stuff like that, it’s just anytime that it differs, you can get into an argument, you know. Someone could come and say, “I really enjoyed this audio description. I liked the narrator. I thought it was great. They did a great job.” And then you get someone coming out and telling them, “Well, I don’t know what you’re listening to. That sucked! And let me tell you why it sucked.” Damn. That’s kind of, ugh, you know? [laughs] Who wants to give their opinion after that? Who wants to get into that fight? So, these are things we have to think about. And, you know, eventually, I think we’re gonna see a lot more of us being critical about AD and about films, but I think it’s gonna take some time. So, I wanna throw that out there for some food for thought. I don’t know. Maybe that’s a…. I don’t know if it’s a steak. Maybe it’s a little Chicken McNugget. I don’t know what kinda food that is.
NEFERTITI: [laughs]
THOMAS: Maybe it’s just a snack. I don’t know. Whatever. But if anybody wants to talk about that, Cheryl, Nefertiti, if y’all still there. Maybe I lost connection, and I’m talking to myself. [laughs]
NEFERTITI: Oh, no, we’re here. We’re here.
THOMAS: So, what do you think?
NEFERTITI: I guess I’ll chomp down on the snack a little bit.
THOMAS: Yeah, chomp.
NEFERTITI: I’ll just quickly say, you’re absolutely right that there is more than a handful, I think, of us, but definitely a certain number of us who are very vocal and who do stick our necks out there. I’m one of these people who critiqued something recently, rightly so. These were verifiable mistakes and things that were happening. And, you know, I was accused of not uplifting other talent and all this stuff. And that’s not, was not at all my intention. But when you play favorites, right, and you have your favorites—we all do. I certainly do—and somebody points out a flaw or something like that, there are some people who might take offense to that and let their opinion, out there. So, what do they say? “Opinions are like mmhmms. Everybody’s got one?”
THOMAS: [chuckles]
NEFERTITI: Accusing me of not uplifting other talent? That’s just, that was… That was incorrect. And I don’t think anybody else saw what I said like that, but that person did. So, does that mean that that person is incorrect? Yeah, I and others think so, but it’s still their opinion. So, Thomas, when you say, you know, somebody was like, “Oh, I think this is great,” and somebody came back like, “I don’t know what you were listening to. It sucked,” I think both opinions are valid.
THOMAS: Mmhmm.
NEFERTITI: You know? But just it doesn’t have to get personal. It doesn’t. You know, if the person that just said, “Oh, that’s interesting ‘cause I’ve listened to the same thing, and I thought it was terrible for this and that reason,” then that would’ve been perfectly fine.
THOMAS: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: I think it gets murky and nasty when you make it personal. Like, “I don’t know what you were listening to!” You know, like, there’s no need for that. So, maybe a little decorum, a little bit of manners could go a long way. But I think everybody’s opinion is valid.
THOMAS: Absolutely.
NEFERTITI: And I think it’s super important that for those of us who are advocating and who are not afraid to say possibly controversial stuff, one, we have to have thick skin, right? And two, not everybody’s going to always agree with us. Feelings might get hurt, you know, for sensitive types out there. You have to expect with anything that when you put yourself out there, there might be a little blowback from people who don’t necessarily agree with you. And that’s okay. I think a lot of good discourse can come from that. Different perspectives can come from that. I always say that I love to hear from people who don’t agree with us.
THOMAS: Mmhmm, mmhmm.
NEFERTITI: ‘Cause it might teach us something. It might give us something to think about.
THOMAS: Yeah. That’s your favorite. [laughs]
NEFERTITI: It is. That is my favorite thing. I agree with you. Some people just wanna watch a film and lose their mind in that film and then forget about it. Not everybody’s an advocate. Not everybody is outspoken. But I do think that we do need more people to be comfortable with being critical, not just this, “I’m grateful that it exists at all! So, let me not say anything bad about it, because what if they take it away?!” No, I strongly disagree with that.
THOMAS: Mmhmm, mmhmm.
NEFERTITI: I think audio description is here. It’s not going anywhere. It’s here. And I think the more en masse we present, the more unified we present as a community, the more seriously we’ll be taken and the further we will move the needle. I’m not afraid of it going away or, like, having repercussions that because we speak up so much, you know, it’s gonna be— I don’t believe that’s true. I don’t believe that will happen.
THOMAS: Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. I 100% agree with you. For my own, and for a lot of other people I’m sure, when I say I was just happy to have access, I was not coming from the perspective of, okay, I’m gonna give this thumbs up or whatever, because I’m scared it’s gonna get taken away. No, not at all. It’s just about, you know, you have to remember that for grown folks, you know, and even some of the younger folks, this is, these last few years are almost like this sort of Renaissance in terms of what they have access to, in terms of film.
NEFERTITI: Yes!
THOMAS: And to expect folks to be able to just be really critical, we might be expecting too much. And I think what you said about the venue in terms of where they voice it, you know, if you’re doing that in social media, if you’re doing that in a closed, which I’ve noticed, too, is that in a closed sort of forum like a Facebook audio descriptions list or something like that, right, or an email list, there’s probably gonna be more of that taking place because it’s a somewhat controlled environment. There are rules around there, right? We invite people to come in here, and when they step in here, we’re not gonna take any nonsense. We’re gonna keep everybody, “Hey, no. We wanna hear from you if you have a difference of opinion. We’re gonna respect that.” So, this is a controlled environment.
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm.
THOMAS: But if you’re thinking about— ‘Cause I often wonder, like, I don’t see as much on an open forum like Twitter, where I think it is important to have it because that’s when other folks are gonna see it.
NEFERTITI: Yes.
THOMAS: But I’m realizing that might not be a safe space for people. People don’t feel that that’s a safe space. I gotta understand that and remember that. Yeah, that’s true. That might be true for people. So, but I still think it’s important for folks like you, whomever else, you know, say what you gotta say. But yes, be respectful. But, you know, you can’t control it. And like you said, if you put it out there, just expect that something’s gonna come back. Something’s gonna come back. There’s all the other -isms that come into play where people think they can just say something to somebody, and they wouldn’t say that to someone else.
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm!
THOMAS: And so, unfortunately, you might get more. You might get more than I would get because I think people might check themselves.
NEFERTITI: Oh, yeah. As a brown, blind woman.
THOMAS: That’s a good thing to do. That’s a good thing to do, by the way. Check yourself if you’re gonna come to me. I’m just letting you know.
NEFERTITI: [huge laugh]
THOMAS: I’m just letting you know!
NEFERTITI: Check yourself before you wreck yourself, okay?
THOMAS: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
NEFERTITI: [chuckles] Yeah, no. It’s absolutely true. Like, as an outspoken brown, blind woman, you know, like, yeah, some people just, some people attack just because, you know?
THOMAS: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: Just because. So, I do expect it, and I’m thick-skinned. Some things do get under my skin, but guess what? You’ll never see it. I won’t show it to you. I might talk to Thomas. I might talk to Cheryl. I might talk to my partner. I might scream into my pillow.
THOMAS: [chuckles]
NEFERTITI: But that’s not like the kind of thing to give these sorts of people the ammunition to keep on, you know, attacking you. But also, because if you’re sure of what you’re saying and you stand behind it, I think that’s very brave of people to do.
THOMAS: Mmhmm.
NEFERTITI: And I think it’s really important that we just don’t accept the status quo. If there’s a show that you really like that clearly did not go through QC, what’s wrong with saying, “Hey, this is not okay. This is why blind QC is so important.” And QC for that matter, for some of the quality that’s being put out there these days. Any QC would be an improvement over this. Some people would take a lot of offense to that, right? You know, I think it’s important that we let these things be known, that it’s being noticed, that there is a community out here watching this content and paying attention. And if you’re not doing something right, you’re not doing, you know, putting in the care that it deserves, then if you get shamed, I think that’s okay. Maybe it’ll motivate them to do better next time, you know? We deserve that. At the very least, we deserve to have care in the access that we, you know, literally paid for, right? A lot of these streaming services, we’re paying for this stuff just to get a crappy…. I’m sorry I get so speechless with this stuff because it’s so infuriating to me.
THOMAS: What’s your experience with film before AD? Did you get personal audio description at home? What was your? I never asked you that. If you wanna share here.
NEFERTITI: Yeah, absolutely. You know, it’s interesting because these days when I watch something that I’m really into…. In fact, let me give you a real-world experience or, yeah, an example. So, my partner and I really like Family Guy.
THOMAS: [chuckles]
NEFERTITI: And we’ve been going through the seasons. There’s like 20-some-odd seasons. Season Nine is not described anywhere that we could find, and we tried. We tried recently to watch an episode from that season, and we had no idea what was going on! There was so much music with very little sound effects, very little dialogue that we were like, “Well, if this is the first episode of this 20-odd-episode season, you know, we’re just gonna have to go without because there’s no way that we can follow along.” And it got me to thinking, how were we watching stuff before audio description? And so, he and I had this whole conversation about we really don’t know how we got on without audio description before audio description! I think we just made do. I love the show The Golden Girls. Absolutely love that show. I started watching that show when I was nine years old, and it was only recently that it got some description. I’m realizing, based on the description, that so many of the scenes I thought I knew what was going on, I was completely wrong!
THOMAS: Mm.
NEFERTITI: My brain filled things in, and I was wrong so much of the time. But how do I know that? Because I now have description. I spent years thinking the wrong things were happening in the show. They made sense in my brain.
THOMAS: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: But it’s not what actually was happening.
THOMAS: How do you know that what you’re being described, what’s being described is correct?
NEFERTITI: Honestly?
THOMAS: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: You don’t. You have to trust and have faith—
THOMAS: Aha! [laughs]
NEFERTITI: —that you’re being told, giving, being given accurate information.
THOMAS: Uh-huh.
NEFERTITI: For example, let’s say in a scene, right, I thought one of the characters was, I don’t know, stirring some pasta in a pot. Turns out that actually, she was, like, I don’t know, serving a dish at the table, right? So, not a huge difference. It was still in a kitchen. It was still an action of some kind, but it was different. So, from my making up oh, she must be stirring the pasta in the pot ‘cause they’re talking about food to the describer not telling me, you know, “She stands at the table and serves from a platter,” I have to trust that that’s true ‘cause I’m assuming that nobody’s gonna lie about something visual simply because they’re saying it presumably to a person who can’t see it for themselves. But, yeah, the truth is that I don’t know.
THOMAS: That’s right. You don’t know. And you just said it, and I’m so glad you said it: trust and faith. Because that’s exactly what it is. Now, factor in when we ask folks to give us their opinion, and you’re nervous that someone else might tell you the opposite or disagree with you. And then sometimes, you know, it comes down to, well, damn, how do I know? Even your opinion is based on this audio description, is based on trust and faith. And then when you’re arguing with somebody or even when you’re just discussing something, maybe this, has this ever happened to you? You might be discussing a film or television show with someone who’s sighted, and then your interpretation of what happened was off?
NEFERTITI: Yes. Yes.
THOMAS: So, why in the world would you want to talk about films or anything in public again? So, you see the fact that we have to do that, and we’re using our trust and faith, right? And we already have all of these other things sort of, you know, again, with the idea that you’re somewhat new to film in a way, for a lot of people.
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm.
THOMAS: I don’t necessarily consider myself new to film. I was watching before I lost my sight, but I watch differently now.
NEFERTITI: Right.
THOMAS: And so, sometimes, I’m, I still might be really hesitant, or I’ll do, before I talk about it, I confirm. I might confirm things with other people. “Hey, is this correct? Is this what you see? Is it?” You know what I’m saying? I might do some of that to make sure to have things right. But yeah, that’s another part of it. Trust and faith is the way we experience content.
NEFERTITI: Uh-huh.
CHERYL: And Thomas, I think there’s also a trust issue—I’m gonna come from the sighted audio describer perspective—I think there’s a trust issue, too, where there are some audio describers who inherently don’t trust the opinion of the blind consumer.
NEFERTITI: Mm!
CHERYL: I’m not sure why or where that comes from. It could be, you know, “I don’t trust anybody unless they’ve gone to this institution and are credentialed or certified.” I don’t know what it is, but I have, it’s not universal, but I’ve noticed some people have a bias toward, “Well, I’m trained, so my opinion of what was good or bad audio description is more valid and better informed and more useful than opinions of the AD consumer.” And I think that’s a real problem. And I think that on the non-blind side, we need to check that bias, notice that bias, and do something about it, and really say if the end user is the person whose opinion matters most, then that’s who we should always be asking. So, you’ve talked about some barriers people may face to wanting to give a critique, and I think this is another one that’s real important. Not that somebody’s gonna take your audio description away, but that you’ll be discredited or ignored or talked about behind your back about, well, you know, “What does Thomas know? He’s blind! He doesn’t know what good audio description is.” And that is a bias that I think for any sighted people here listening to this or listening to the recording, stop and ask yourself if you might have that. Because you won’t know until you stop and ask yourself. And it’s something that I think really needs to be addressed in the community of people who provide audio description.
THOMAS: Mm. Absolutely.
NEFERTITI: 100%.
THOMAS: Absolutely. And [big sigh] if that person, right, so, if a user of AD has a good experience, they walk away from that film, that television show thinking, “Wow, I enjoyed that.” And then they hear someone telling them, “No, that was bad! You shouldn’t have enjoyed that,” that really is…that’s awful. [laughs] That’s awful. And it kind of goes against…. [sighs] Like, I’m all for better AD, that it meets certain criteria. But I also know that this stuff is subjective, right? And so, I’m not talking about the AD that breaks the quote-unquote “rules.” Like, the AD that’s telling you that the phone is ringing when you hear the phone ringing. I’m not necessarily talking about that. But it feels like, you know, the name of what we do here is Blind-Centered Audio Description Chats. And that scenario that you gave, Cheryl, is totally not centering a blind person, right? It’s centering the person who’s providing the service. [laughs]
NEFERTITI: Mm, mmhmm.
THOMAS: And I say that on purpose. The person who’s providing the service. The service provider. Mm! The person with the certification. Yeah, that’s interesting.
NEFERTITI: Well, I’m one of these people. And here we go with a controversial opinion. Just ‘cause you may have a letter or three or ten behind your name doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily the smartest or the most, mm, appropriate person in the room to speak on whatever. I understand that those, we put so much stock in, you know, yeah, certification. And, you know, those things are supposed to say, “Hey, yeah, this is what qualifies me to be here and say these things.” Just like at the top of our gatherings here, we say, “Hey, I’m Nefertiti Matos. I do this, then the third. I’m Thomas Reid. I’m Cheryl Green.” And you know, to let you know, hey, we’re here. We do this. Hopefully we know what we’re talking about, and yet we don’t have letters behind our names. And I think we’re some of the smartest people, most with it people out here. And yes, that is an opinion, and I’m totally biased.
SCOTT: Hi, everybody. I’m Scott, consumer of audio description and dabble in quality control in the field as well and have a day job in a non-profit blindness organization. So, it’s so interesting, Thomas. You were talking about how things changed. I was thinking back to in the early aughts, in the early 2000s, I would look for, and sometimes be successful finding, scripts online, like a complete movie script. And that was the closest I could get to audio description for some films, and I was thrilled with that experience. And I look back on it now and all the time that I spent searching those things out and still knowing that my access was not the same, you know, it just, it proves the point that we are beings in motion and that we’re constantly, hopefully, changing to some extent, learning, getting better, and looking for better.
There was also recently a discussion—it’s still going on, actually, I would say—in an email forum about audio description about synthetic speech versus human. And I had to kind of check myself because one of my initial reactions was frustration with people who just said, “I’ll be okay with something rather than nothing.” Because I think we’re all at different points on the journey, right? And there are people who have been used to a certain thing for so long that change can be challenging. But I also feel that it’s really important to continue to advocate. And I think we can advocate and show by example, and people will start to catch on to that. And I think it’s also a point that in that same conversation that was happening on an email forum this week, there were a number of people asking like, “What can I do? What can I do to get more involved?” And even that, I think, is a huge improvement. I think that the Renaissance, like you called it, Thomas, that’s a good word of what’s been happening in the last six years, five, six years, we are seeing a little bit of a wave building of people wanting to get more involved either professionally or even just to advocate. So, we keep setting the example, and I think we’re going to see good things coming.
THOMAS: You know, what Scott was talking about, it was really interesting, though. That’s amazing. Like, you’re going and searching for a script of the movie.
SCOTT: Mmhmm.
THOMAS: What made you do that? What was it about that particular movie that made you just need to know about what’s going on?
SCOTT: Honestly, I think I did it with most of the movies I was watching, and I was watching fewer movies. I mean, listen, at the time, 2005 versus now, let’s say, to me in my mind, there are a lot more things to watch now.
THOMAS: Yeah.
SCOTT: I don’t think it’s arguable that that’s the case. So, I would do it by default with everything.
THOMAS: Mm.
SCOTT: How did I start? I don’t remember. I just remember that like, I was trying to find any way I could to get to know more about the movie.
THOMAS: Mmhmm. But was there a specific reason in terms of that movie that?
SCOTT: No, I did it with a bunch of movies.
THOMAS: You did it with a bunch of movies, okay.
SCOTT: I probably, I don’t know, I would say my success rate was like, 15 or 20%.
THOMAS: Oh, wow.
SCOTT: Why were there complete scripts online? That’s a great question, too. I have no idea. That was maybe something that shouldn’t have been happening. But it was great ‘cause you got the scene setting and the scene transitions, the camera angles, and everything.
THOMAS: Right, right.
SCOTT: So, it was a form of audio description.
THOMAS: Mmhmm.
SCOTT: But [laughs] would I do it now? Probably not.
THOMAS: Yeah. Aha, yeah. That story, Scott, reminds me of like, you know what they say about water.
SCOTT: Yeah.
THOMAS: You know, water’s gonna, water’s gonna get through. You’re gonna find what it is that you’re looking for. You’re gonna find a way, which is audio description.
SCOTT: Yeah.
THOMAS: I mean, you know, the fact that blind people wanted access, and we find a way, we’re gonna find a way. Like, that, that is the thing, man.
SCOTT: Yeah.
THOMAS: Yeah.
SCOTT: Water will take its shape, find its way.
THOMAS: That’s right. That’s right.
NEFERTITI: I love that.
THOMAS: I’m gonna have to look up some scripts.

Swoosh audio effect and music begins.

THOMAS: Cool. Well, that concludes this week’s conversation. Why don’t y’all keep the conversation going on social media.
CHERYL: Use #ADFUBU, for us by us, #DescribeEverything, and #AudioDescription.
NEFERTITI: And hey, you know we’re out here, right? Mmhmm! Gathered and galvanized y’all. If you haven’t joined us yet, what are you waiting for?! You can find us in the LinkedIn Audio Description group and the AD Twitter community. We know that your participation will only make these spaces better.
Music fades out!

Hide the transcript