Image Description for the Current Political & Cultural Moment

[jesse_the_k]

Talk Description to Me is a newish podcast from Canada. Their mission is "Where the visuals of current events and the world around us get hashed out in description-rich conversations." Christine Malec, a perpetually inquisitive member of the blind and partially sighted community who’s always wondering about something, talks with J.J. Hunt, an Audio Describer.

https://talkdescriptiontome.buzzsprout.com
TalkDescription
talkdescriptiontome

The 30-minute episodes cover a wide range.

Episode 1 — the image behind the protests — details the video where Derek Chauvin murders George Floyd in Minneapolis. I appreciate that they face up to the impossibility of "neutrality," which is often touted to audio/image describers.

Episode 4 — Sports in the COVID era, and Bob & Doug’s new Space-age look — delves into the crowd noise "sweeteners" that now accompany baseball games as well as the actual Hollywood set designers for the SpaceX spacesuits. Since I know zilch about baseball, I appreciated the context for the stylized drama between managers and catchers.

Comments

[pauraque]

Oh, that's really cool. Recently when I was watching a show I accidentally turned on the audio description, and ended up leaving it on out of curiosity about how they would describe things. I thought it was clear right away that there was some inevitable subjectivity, even in an innocuous context like a fictional show. How much more significant that is when describing images that sighted people consider iconic and crucial to our understanding of social issues!

[jesse_the_k]

Yes!

I've done informal audio description when watching TV and movies with blind friends. The technical requirements to slip the visual information into the small quiet spots is very challenging indeed. I've learned a lot turning on the AD track (sometimes hiding in language settings on DVDs.)

More AD links to come!

[pauraque]

I thought about that too when I was watching a different show where it seemed like the characters never stopped talking! I honestly don't know where an audio describer would have fit stuff in.

[chanter1944]

Oooooh! Thank you for the resource!