Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability - audio description

Improving Disability Access at Film Festivals

Emily Beitiks — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 20:26:51 +0000

By: Superfest Co-Directors Cathy Kudlick and Emily Beitiks

For the last nine years, the Longmore Institute on Disability has led Superfest Disability Film Festival, the longest running festival of its kind. We approach this event that is first and foremost for disabled people as an opportunity to discover and model what cutting-edge access can look like. Whether it involves spaces, the movie-going experience, or the content of films, we work hard to establish an environment where we provide as many accommodations as possible *before* guests have to ask. Three decades after the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) went into law, it's high time disabled people should be able to expect to watch a movie without having to make a fuss. Not only that, but various access features benefit far more people than we can ever know.

So what does access look like?

The bad news? Access is messy, complex, creative work. The good news? Access is messy, complex, creative work. Pick a place to start and dive in.

Think of it as an art, rather than a science. Yes, there are some guidelines and even requirements in some instances, but if you approach it as a human enterprise you'll have more leeway and fun, achieving better results in the end.
Use open captioning. We play all our films with open captioning and have never received a complaint that it is distracting. In addition, we have a live captioner to provide access during live speaking events. These features are crucial for people who are hard of hearing or Deaf. But they also benefit non-native speakers as well as anyone who might find reading text an easier way to process information.
In addition, if you're hosting a large public event or if someone requests it, ASL is a must. It is to captioning what hearing someone sing a song is to reading a transcript compiled by a non native speaker of that song. Think of ASL as a dramatic and expressive language. Moreover, having interpreters allows Deaf filmmakers, panelists, and audience members to express themselves.
Make audio description (AD, also called video description) easily available for blind and low vision attendees, who--contrary to public misconceptions--can be big movie fans. By offering a narrated audio track that uses silent moments in the film, AD speaks relevant visual information such as the text of the love note lying on the table or the dead body lying on the sofa. AD is in its infancy and requires subjective skills such as whether to describe race and other physical characteristics. (For helpful information about services and approaches, visit Thomas Reid’s podcast on “Flipping the Switch on Audio Description” or this panel discussion Superfest co-presented on “The Art of Audio Description” with SFFilm.
There are many different strategies for audio description, and it’s important that you explore them and find what’s right for the culture of your festival. Sometimes audio description is offered with headsets, whether a pre-recorded track or provided live by professional audio describers. At our festival, we require all our filmmakers to get their films audio described, a service we provide when filmmakers’ funds are limited. While audio description is crucial for blind visitors, open audio description can create a barrier for people with sensory disabilities who sometimes find it overwhelming and distracting. We alternate screenings with open and closed audio description, providing an alternative screening with the reverse provided.
It's also important to consider how visually accessible your physical program and website are for patrons with vision impairments. While there are some guidelines for best practices that you can find [here], you don't need to settle for an unattractive program. Remember that many people over 40 and most people over 60 will be glad not to have to struggle with tiny grey letters!. For website accessibility, here is a useful checklist of what's required by Web Content Accessibility Guide (WCAG) standards.
Making a film festival accessible often means ruling out more traditional venues. Even a “wheelchair accessible” theater may only have two spaces available for wheelchair riders, far from able to accommodate an audience such as ours where we typically welcome around 25 wheelchair and mobility device users. We seek out flat auditoriums without bolted seating so we can provide many different wheelchair seating options. This allows wheelchair riders to sit where they want with friends who may or may not be wheelchair users. (Before you object by saying you've never seen more than one or two wheelchair users at a movie theater, consider why this might be so!) Lastly, make sure that as you scope out your venue, you consider that the stage is accessible--how heartbreaking to be a filmmaker who can't speak to the audience or collect an award!
A nonstandard venue also makes it easier to accommodate patrons who can't spend hours seated in the confined chairs of most theaters. We provide some bench seating for patrons of all sizes to make sure we have seats that don’t assume a certain body type. Our bean bag chairs have been a godsend for people with chronic pain or who need to stretch out and lay horizontal for the many hours of a film festival.
As more patrons deal with multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS), it's important to work with a venue to adjust their cleaning policy. We bring our own scent-free soap, ask our venues to use them for the week leading up to the event, and remind patrons not to wear scented products to the festival. We also provide a seating section for people with chemical sensitivity set apart from the main crowd, just in case our warnings not to wear scented products get disregarded. Conversations around MCS are still relatively new, so what seems novel today, may be standard soon - just think about how hard it was once for many venues to imagine restricting cigarette smoking!
Where possible, try to carve out somewhere people can go to get away from the crowd, such as a separate quiet area. This especially benefits neurodiverse people, but also anyone who needs a place to unwind after an intense film. Just make sure that signage indicates how the room is to be used--no, this is not a place for you to call your old friend and catch up.
Think of compliance with the law as doing the bare minimum rather than your ultimate goal. The mood you set on your website says a lot to your patrons with disabilities. If you settle for the standard language of “reasonable accommodations,” people won't feel welcome at all. Why not a more inviting statement like, “We welcome the opportunity to make our festival accessible to all patrons. If you need an accommodation, please reach out to...” and provide a specific name/contact info if possible. List all accessibility features clearly on your website so your guests don’t have to dig deep to know if they can attend or not.
Now that you know how to do it, keep offering some form of digital access for your festival! We heard from many disabled people that COVID made the world accessible in ways it never had been before. Even a highly accessible festival like Superfest has people unable to attend because their disabilities prevent them from getting out of bed and/or because they live halfway around the world. For tips on hosting accessible online zoom events, you can check out this guide we put together, “Ensuring Access in the Time of COVID-19.” Especially if you’re already committed to inaccessible venues, online access is a decent short-term strategy for increasing inclusion.
Making mistakes goes with the territory, and that's ok! If patrons know you're working with them and are transparent about your efforts, about what you can (and can't) offer, they'll be on your side. And rather than take you to court as bad ADA publicity wrongly implies, they will likely have suggestions for workarounds. If you don't have all the answers, say so. If you don't have every access feature worked out, say so. When in doubt, apologize thoughtfully. FWIW, nearly everything we now know about the nitty gritty details in access came from making mistakes and learning from patient attendees who told us exactly where things weren't working. These are opportunities for growth and learning, not a reason to throw in the towel. It's a process that means being in for the long haul.
Inclusion of disabled people also entails support for the multiple identities that disabled people hold. For example, a festival that has accessible bathrooms for cisgendered people, but does not have an option for a transgendered person has not yet offered access. Because many disabled people live in poverty, we offer pay-what-you-can tickets to ensure that no one is turned away from lack of funds. The Queer Women of Color Film Festival is a leader in thinking through the intersections of festival access, check them out as a resource!

You might not be able to achieve top notch access overnight, but start somewhere and make a plan to grow from there. Developing access is fun, creative work that will expand your audience and offer unintended benefits for everyone. Enjoy the journey!

For more support and access consulting, please don’t hesitate to reach out! Pklinst@sfsu.edu

*Photo by Paolo Chiabrando on Unsplash

Tags:

access

ADA

Beyond Compliance

Film Festivals

Bringing Better Access to the Global Museum

Emily Beitiks — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 18:25:33 +0000

Thanks to the generous support of donors Stanley Yarnell and Victor Rowley, the Global Museum at SF State now has its first audio description guide for the blind/vision impaired! Director of the Global Museum Paige Bardolph worked with the Longmore Institute to develop this helpful resource. Additional description written by Longmore Student Fellow Maxfield Hunt and recordings by Longmore Fellows Maxfield Hunt and Sam Hengesbach. We hope you enjoy!

To plan your visit to SF State's Global Museum, visit their website.

Click to access the guide without background music and with background music.

Tags:

Superfest Day 2, with Actiview!

Anna Goose — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 20:09:51 +0000

Day 2 Superfest will have closed audio description access thanks to Actiview; here's how to make use of it!

Actiview App “How To”

In-Theater Watching Instructions

We are excited that you’re ready to use the Actiview App! Below are a few tips and instructions for an easy, accessible movie-watching experience.

Before heading to the theater…

1. Download the Actiview App on your iOS mobile device ( http://activiewapp.com/download )

2. Log into / sign up for the app

3. Scroll to the bottom of the homescreen and click the “+” icon, “Redeem a Code” - Enter SUPERF18

4. Select the movie you want to watch (scroll to top of the page and to the last movie in the “In Theaters” section)

5. Select and download the available languages and accessibility service(s) you want to use

6. Make sure your phone is charged and that you bring headphones to the theater if you’re using any audio service!

When you arrive at the theater…

1. Open the Actiview App on your mobile device

2. Choose the movie you’re going to see

3. Make sure your headphones are plugged in if you’re using an Audio service

4. When the movie starts, hit the play button on the service you selected

5. The app will sync using the microphone so make sure it’s not covered

6. You’re all set! Enjoy the show!

Tags:

An Interview with Superfest Judge and Audio Describer Katie Murphy

Visitor — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 17:35:22 +0000

Continuing our series of interviews with the folks who made Superfest 2016 possible , Grad Assistant Robyn Ollodort spoke with Katie Murphy, former Longmore Institute grad assistant and audio describer extraordinaire. Katie's audio description is used for the film Like If..., in which an unlikely heroine emerges and attempts to save the world. Like If... screens Saturday, October 22nd at 6pm. Buy your tickets to Superfest now at: superfestfilm.com/tickets/

Robyn Ollodort: As a part of the Superfest 2016 judging weekend, I got to see your fantastic audio description skills firsthand. Tell me about your process in audio describing.

Katie Murphy: For the judging weekend, I was doing live, on-the-spot description without having seen the films before. So, that’s very different from creating an audio description track for a film. With live audio description, particularly for media I have not seen before, the process begins and ends when the film does. When I am watching, I make note of important details being conveyed visually and then wait for a moment of quiet in the film to describe those details. This is tricky when I haven’t seen the film previously, because I have no idea when those quiet moments will come up or how long they’ll last. As Cathy and Bryan, the two judges I was describing for, can tell you, this means I occasionally begin description only to stop after a word or two because the quiet moment was only one or two seconds long. Live audio description like this is very much in the moment.

Creating an audio description track that will be added to a film in post-production is much more precise, but also more time consuming. I start by loading the film into InqScribe, my favorite transcription software, and then using the timestamp feature to record all the pauses in the film. Depending on the film, any pause longer than 3 seconds is fair game for inserting description. I record 2 second pauses as well in case I get desperate for space later on.

The next step is rewatching the film and filling in the pauses with description. I do this in InqScribe as well, because it allows me to use hot keys to pause and start the film without having to toggle between a Word file and a media player. When writing, I time myself to make sure that the description fits into the pause. If it doesn’t, I revise along the way.

Depending on the project, I might send the finished script to the director for approval before recording.

Then I record, using my laptop and a USB mic. I probably do at least three takes (if not more) of each segment of description, because I’m a perfectionist, and the description needs to fit into not just the pause, but also the tone of the film. I don’t do funny voices or accents or anything, but I do change the pitch and cadence of my speech to match the genre and scene. If the characters are at a funeral, I’m not going to use my perky phone voice.

Once the recording is finished, depending on the project, I either send the audio file to the filmmaker or mix it into the film file myself.

Then I take a nap.

RO: At the judging weekend, you were very transparent in linking having autism and being a good audio describer; why do you think that is, and what makes for strong audio description and a strong audio describer?

KM: Being autistic informs so much of who I am that it’s often hard to pick out how my autistic identity specifically impacts the areas in which I excel. If I am weirdly good at something right off the bat (like audio description) or completely helpless at a given task for no perceivable reason (like juggling), I tend to chalk it up to being autistic. For areas that I don’t excel, I’m typically compelled (either by myself or some authority) to explain exactly how being autistic negatively impacts my performance. For example, I suck at juggling because of poor coordination and motor planning--two autistic traits. It’s rare that I am asked to explain how being autistic makes me good at stuff, so thank you for asking.

In the case of audio description, a lot of things I already do help me be a good audio describer.

Creating strong audio description requires the describer to sort through a ton of audio and visual data to present the most relevant information. This is something people do in their everyday lives, but for many autistic people the process is much more deliberate. Since I have issues with sensory processing, my brain doesn’t automatically sort through external stimuli, so I have to consciously ignore irrelevant sensory information and focus on what’s important. Since I do this pretty much every moment of my waking life, I have years more of experience than your average allistic audio describer. Sorting through this much information requires a lot of mental and physical energy, so I’ve developed a good deal of stamina.

But I do give myself breaks to prevent sensory overload. One of the ways I do that is by listening to audiobooks when I’m out and about. I do not leave the house without my iPod, my big headphones, and an audiobook (usually sci-fi or non-fiction, because I’m a walking stereotype). As a consequence, I spend hundreds of hours a year listening to professional voice talent, absorbing cadences that work, cringing at poor production aspects. All that helps me when I’m recording. I know what makes something good.

RO: Audio description traverses the territory of objectivity and subjectivity, in that what and how you describe what you see carries with it an implicit assumption of what is important; how do you navigate choosing the 'important' things to describe?

KM: I try to balance what I believe the filmmaker is trying to communicate with what blind and low vision audience need to know to understand the film. And that changes with every project.

For example, I’ve done audio description for performance art pieces where the visual details convey the story or message in very intricate ways. So my description would include details that would not be so important in a narrative film. It might be really important for a performance art piece for everyone in the audience to know how many oranges are on the floor.

But for a narrative film, unless the oranges are an important plot point, I don’t have to go into as much detail about set dressings. Instead, I’d focus my energies on choosing language that best communicates the story and the characters. I get to imagine how I would describe the character or action if I was writing a novelization of the film.

Audio description is layers of subjectivity piled on top of each other. The description is the describer’s subjective understanding of the filmmaker’s subjective artistic message and the audience’s subjective desires.

RO: So you audio described the Superfest 2016 film Like If...; is there anything we can expect to hear in that audio description?

KM: Come Se… is an Italian film, so in addition to me on audio description, you will also hear Jennifer Sachs (of the San Francisco LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired) dubbing the main character’s internal monologue. So you will have four straight minutes of three women speaking (one in Italian and two in English) in a science fiction film. Which is not something you hear every day in Hollywood.

RO: You worked previously at the Longmore Institute; how do you think your time there has influenced your perspective?

KM: Thanks to my time at Longmore I am very intentional about the language I use in audio description. By screening films at Superfest with open audio description (rather than handing out headsets upon request), Longmore argues that audio description is an access feature as well as a text in its own right. As a creative text, it’s not above criticism.

I think with audio description there is a real risk of perpetuating the paternalism disabled people experience by assuming that providing audio description of any quality is good enough. There’s a risk of film and television studios patting themselves on the back like, “Oh, aren’t we being so nice by providing audio description to the disabled,” and not really caring if the audio description is actually helpful or aesthetically pleasing. Working at Longmore showed me that people do notice if the description is good or bad. People do analyze the words that you’re saying. They do consider how you are editing the description into the film.

And that really encourages me to push myself and approach writing description with the same thoughtfulness and precision as I would a speech or blog post.

RO: Do you see a career for yourself in audio description?

KM: I would love to keep doing audio description as a freelancer. I really enjoy the opportunity to work closely with artists and community organizations to increase access and make something that sounds good.

If you are interested in hiring Katie to audio describe your film, she can be contacted at: catherinekatiemurphy@gmail.com

Tags:

Superfest: International Disability Film Festival

Uncategorized