NotesFAQContact Us
Collection
Advanced
Search Tips
ERIC Number: EJ1017620
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013
Pages: 5
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0145-482X
EISSN: N/A
Auteur Description: From the Director's Creative Vision to Audio Description
Szarkowska, Agnieszka
Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, v107 n5 p383-387 Sep-Oct 2013
In this report, the author follows the suggestion that a film director's creative vision should be incorporated into Audio description (AD), a major technique for making films, theater performances, operas, and other events accessible to people who are blind or have low vision. The author presents a new type of AD for auteur and artistic films: auteur description, which incorporates the director's creative vision in the AD script through the use of a screenplay (or other available materials, such as interviews and reviews) and thus gives the audio describer the artistic license to depart from the dictate of objectivism. Auteur description differs from conventional AD in the way the "who," "what," "where," and "how" of the film are described. The main function of auteur description is to immerse spectators who are blind or have low vision in the story world created by the film's director. This report examined how such authorial codes could be rendered in auteur description by incorporating fragments of published scripts in accordance with the fair-use principle of copyright. The auteur description was tested among a sample of viewers at an informal screening at the Polish Association of the Blind in Warsaw, where many people expressed their favorable opinions of auteur description, claiming that the juicy and vivid descriptions gave the film a more entertaining character, enabled them to gain a better understanding of the motivations of the characters, and made it easier to follow the plot. Further research on auteur description could address whether other films render themselves to this type of description, and whether people who are blind or have low vision would like to see more films with such AD. Audio describers and providers of AD may consider using auteur description as an alternative to conventional description when providing AD for auteur cinema.
American Foundation for the Blind. 11 Penn Plaza Suite 300, New York, NY 10001. Tel: 800-232-5463; Tel: 212-502-7600; e-mail: afbinfo@afb.net; Web site: http://www.afb.org/store
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Poland
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A