Oscars 2019 concluded last Monday. Talented artists and
technicians from international cinema were honoured at the world’s most
prestigious award ceremony. Even though there are many discussions about
inclusion in cinema, disabled categories are sidelined in most international
film festivals and award functions including the Oscars. Audio
describers are one amongst them.
Audio description, most commonly referred as visual description
is an additional track that is intended primarily for blind and visually
impaired audience. It helps them to get a detailed and better idea of what is
happening on-screen. Movie watching experience becomes more fun for blind and
visually impaired people with the help of these audio descriptions because
you get descriptions of the settings and even about what the actor’s
outfits are! In fact, it is an inevitable aspect for a blind movie-goer.
People from blind community point out that there must be an exclusive
category to award audio describers who make movie watching experience
enriching for blind audience.
Maitreya Shah, who is blind, is a Disability Rights
Activist and a law student. Shah says that adding audio describers
in the award category is a great way to promote inclusion.
Audio descriptions are something that is quite difficult to deliver. It
must be set precisely because too much of it can spoil your movie watching
experience. Audio descriptions have to be accurate without any unwanted
information. It has to be within time loops and must not overlap as well.
For the past couple of years, there has been an increasing demand to add an
exclusive category for audio describers for award functions. That is one
way of making such events more diverse. A documentary on menstruation
received award at the recent Oscars which is also a great way of accepting
diversity. I believe audio describers must be felicitated at Indian award
functions too. After all, they are the ones who make movie experience
enriching to blind and visually impaired audience-Maitreya Shah,
Disability Rights Activist
For a blind or visually impaired audience, audio descriptions are as
important as cinematography or editing of a film. People with vision will be
surprised by the way how audio descriptions can turn out. In fact, they can
understand and analyze many parts of the film through audio descriptions,
parts that they might have missed. In western countries, there are many
people with vision who switch over to audio descriptions while cooking or
driving.
Even though audio description began as an accessibility aid, it is more or
less an art in itself. That is precisely the reason why it must be honoured
and accepted at art festivals.
Simran Chawla is a blind beauty queen. She
is yet to watch a movie with audio descriptions. But Chawla says that it is a
great initiative which she would love to try out.
“Audio descriptions seem so interesting. You can watch a movie without
asking the person who is with you about what is happening on-screen. You also
get a detailed description about what they are wearing and about the settings
as well. It is amazing. It is high time that such an art is honoured”, says
Chawla.
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Source: https://newzhook.com/story/21513
