Audio Description Resources

by Brett Coulstock. September, 2023.

A selection of high-value, interesting or useful links relating to various aspects of audio-description. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list, just a useful one.

If you feel there is a particularly egregious omission, please feel free to contact me.

Selected Articles on Audio Description

1. Seeing the story — just another day working as a blind critic by Olivia Muscat (2023).
2. The people who find the words to describe sex scenes and a cyclops by Kate Jones (2023).
3. Some tips for Blind Audio Description writers by Robert Kingett (2022).
4. Representation Matters: Excellent Audio Description of The Harder They Fall by Empish J. Thomas (2022).
5. Making a Case for Self-Description: It’s Not About Eye Candy by Thomas Reid (2022).
6. Audio description and the AFI Top 100 List by Alex Howard (2021).
7. In Living Color - Audio Description Looks Past People of Color by Thomas Reid (2021; archived link).
8. What It’s Like to Describe Porn for a Blind Audience By Marissa Martinelli (2020).
9. Design for the Edges: Video for the Blind and Deaf by Katie Hinsen (2018).
10. A Day in the Life of an Audio Describer (2011).

Interesting Papers

• Beyond Objectivity in Audio Description (2023) by Schaeffer-Lacroix, Eva; Reviers, Eva; Di Giovanni, Elena.
• Training future describers: A practice report from an audio description classroom (2019) by Jankowska, Anna.
• Cinematic language and the description of film: Keeping AD users in the frame (2012) by Fryer, Louise and Freeman, Jonathan.
• Translating Audio description Scripts: The Way Forward? - Tentative First Stage Project Results (2006) by Juan Francisco López Vera

Auteur Audio Description

• Audio Description Using Auteur Description by Mireia Varón Gallofré.
• Auteur Description: From the Director's Creative Vision to Audio Description by Agnieszka Szarkowska (Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness).
• Staging the Audio Describer: An Exploration of Integrated Audio Description by Louise Fryer (Disability Studies Quarterly).

Podcasts

Individual Episodes

• All The Light We Cannot See (In Touch, BBC Radio 4)
• The power of audio description By Cath Mahony, on Life Matters (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
• Subtitles for the Blind (Unsung Science)
• Audio Description Services: Changing media forever (2GB radio)
• Scriptnotes, Ep 208: How descriptive audio works — Transcript

There is also a list of podcasts at The Audio Description Project

Ongoing Series

• The Dark Room podcast Two legally blind cinephiles discuss movies and the wonders of entertainment while giving listeners a better understanding of how people with low vision experience the world.
• Know Your Narrator podcast Audio Description Network Alliance — Talent from Movies and TV Series for Audio Description Audiences.
• Talk Description to Me Where the visuals of current events and the world around us get hashed out in description-rich conversations.

Education and Training

• Creating Audio Description for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Royal Holloway, University of London

  Explore how to design and create audio descriptions and audio introductions that fully represent a film, play, or TV programme.

• Audio Description Training Retreats

  Audio Description Training Retreats (ADTR) is a unique and high-quality education model that was developed by Jan Vulgaropulos and Colleen Connor. ADTR focuses on training participants in all aspects of Audio Description (AD) from the ground up.

• Access2Arts

  “Access2Arts developed Australia’s first professional live audio description service and are the leading national provider of live professional audio description training.”

• ADLAB Pro Course Materials

  We have developed a set of free open-access training materials for prospective audio describers.

• Introduction to Audio Description from AVT Masterclass.

  Learn how to create audio description from the experts.

Audio Description Guidelines

• Netflix Audio Description Style Guide
• The Audio Description Project - Guidelines for Audio Describers
• American Council of the Blind's Audio Description Project — Audio Description Guidelines and Best Practices (pdf file)
• ITC Guidance on Standards for Audio Description (pdf file, archive.org)
• EBU Handbook for High Quality Audio Description on Screen (Microsoft Word document).
• Ofcom’s Guidelines on the Provision of Television Access Services (pdf file)
• Describing Diversity — describing the personal characteristics of the diverse range of characters, in particular, the visible, physical markers of race, gender, impairment / disability, age and body shape.
• Pictures painted in Words - ADLAB Audio Description guidelines.
• Audio Description Guidelines for Children (PDF file) Access2Arts.

Books on Audio Description

• An Introduction to Audio Description - A practical Guide by Louise Fryer
• Audio Description New perspectives by Anna Maszerowska, Anna Matamala, Pilar Orero.
• The Visual Made Verbal Training Manual and Guide by Joel Snyder.
• Researching Audio Description — New Approaches by Anna Matamala, Pilar Orero.
• The Routledge Handbook of Audio Description Edited by Christopher Taylor and Elisa Perego.
• Audio Description for the Arts: A Linguistic Perspective by Elisa Perego.

Legal Links

• Exceptions to copyright (gov.uk)

Tools

Software Tools

Free and Open Source Software

• CADET

  CADET is free, downloadable caption-authoring software that enables anyone to produce high-quality caption files that are compatible with any media player that supports the display of captions. CADET can also be used to generate audio-description scripts.

  • Writing Audio Description Efficiently using CADET - A Crash Course (video)
• Describe Align

  Combines videos with matching audio files (e.g. audio descriptions). Works by aligning parts of the audio file to matching parts of the video's sound.

• ffmpeg

  A complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video.

• Subtitld

  Subtitling software can be used to write audio-description scripts. Subtitld has a waveform, and an organic and flexible way of sizing dialogue gaps. It works on Linux (and Microsoft Windows) and it's what I currently use.

• YouDescribe

  Audio description for Youtube videos.

• Audio Description Tools

  A collection of Python scripts maintained by Kyle Warwick-Mathieu for converting subtitle and audio description files between various formats, including SRT, SMPTE, Excel, and more. These tools facilitate the workflow for AD professionals by automating tedious conversion tasks and integrate with some DAWs.

• AD Convert

  Some scripts written by Brett Coulstock and mainted by Robert Kingettused to convert SRT audio description scripts to many formats including WebVTT, CSV, HTML, RTF and Markdown.

Paid Software

• Inqscribe

  “Transcribe. Type Notes. Export Subtitles. It’s that simple. (InqScribe requires a Windows or Macintosh computer).”

• Closed Caption Creator

  “The Audio Description Plugin for Closed Caption Creator allows users to create descriptive video using lifelike synthetic voices in over 25 different languages.”

• Frazier

  Frazier is a timed text editor that lets you listen to your audio description right away.

• Starfish Technologies

  “We offer the Advantage Audio Description product range that can provide an end-to-end AD system, starting with a single AD authoring workstation and expanding through to managed workflow systems for broadcasters implementing automated AD transmission.”

Language and Writing Tools

Translate UK/US English

British vs American Words List

British vs American Vocabulary

Adjectives and Describing Words

Describing Words

Describing Diversity

Avoiding Racism for Writers—Coffee, Honey & Other Color Don’ts

Skin Tone Descriptions for Writers

Phonetics

Pronunciation Guide - Phonetic Respelling by Vocaleyes.

Social Media

Communities

• The ADP Discussion List
• Facebook Audio Description Group
• Facebook ADNA Showcase
• LinkdIn Audio Description Group
• AD Forward on Mastodon
• Reddit Audio Description Discussion
• Twitter Audio Description Group

Blogs

Mac The Movie Guy

He just wants his blind community to know what has audio description, is it good, and should you watch it.

Reid My Mind

Stories & profiles of compelling people impacted by all degrees of blindness and disability. Plus, Reid explores his own experiences in his unique way pairing his words with music and sound design.

Organisations/Companies

• Access2Arts (Australia)
• Access Media (Australia)
• Audiodescribe.com
• The Audio Description Project
• Audio Description Network Alliance
• The Substation (Australia)
• Vocal Eyes

Research Resources

• The Internet Movie Car Database
• Camopedia - The Camoflage Encyclopedia
• List of Garments Having Different Names in American and British English

See Also

• Audio Description in Art and Museums by Brett Coulstock.
• Audio Introductions for Film, Television, and Theatre by Brett Coulstock.