Abstract
Traditional audio description (AD) is giving way to integrated audio description in which media accessibility is no longer an add-on but built in from the start in collaboration with the artistic team. As directors and producers take a greater interest in making their work accessible to audience members with a sensory impairment, how are the power dynamics altered between the stakeholders? The idea of abusive forms of translation advanced by Lewis (1985) and Nornes (1999) is reconsidered, together with the sanctity of the source text (ST). Also assessed is the impact on the role and hence the training needs of the professional audio describer. Using data from research projects developed by Extant, the UK’s leading professional performing arts company of visually impaired people, and from the European research project ADLAB PRO, this paper concludes that a describer’s skills and competences are still required even with the evolution of integrated AD.
Highlights
In an era of accessible filmmaking (AFM) and integrated audio description (IAD), is the role of an independent access interpreter outdated? In what way do a describer’s skills need to change to reflect the shifting AD environment and how does that affect describer training? This article seeks to answer these questions in the context of ADLAB PRO, a three-year research project financed by the European Union under the Erasmus+ Programme Key Action 2 – Strategic Partnerships
By moving accessibility into the development stage of the process, all of this changes, as translators can influence the timeline and possibly the budget. They can help the creative team think about these things in advance, taking on some of the role given to the Director of Accessibility and Translation that has been proposed for AFM (Branson, 2017)
Nathan Geering clarifies that “generally audio describers seem to be in their 40s 50s and 60s” (Cavallo & Fryer, 2018, p. 39)
Summary
In an era of accessible filmmaking (AFM) and integrated audio description (IAD), is the role of an independent access interpreter outdated? In what way do a describer’s skills need to change to reflect the shifting AD environment and how does that affect describer training? This article seeks to answer these questions in the context of ADLAB PRO, a three-year research project financed by the European Union under the Erasmus+ Programme Key Action 2 – Strategic Partnerships. In an era of accessible filmmaking (AFM) and integrated audio description (IAD), is the role of an independent access interpreter outdated? In what way do a describer’s skills need to change to reflect the shifting AD environment and how does that affect describer training? This article seeks to answer these questions in the context of ADLAB PRO, a three-year research project financed by the European Union under the Erasmus+ Programme Key Action 2 – Strategic Partnerships. ADLAB PRO is charged with defining the profile of the audio description professional and outlining describer competences in order to create a course and training materials for producing more of these specialists in the future. This article draws on two research projects organised by Extant which is the UK’s leading professional performing arts company of visually impaired people. The focus of this article is on Live AD (principally theatre), aspects of subtitling and screen AD are briefly considered
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
