A woman with almost-shoulder-length blonde hair and blue eyes rests her head on one hand as she stares at an open laptop, which obscures half her face. The laptop is decorated with stickers, including a cartoon raccoon in a City of Toronto trash can and chibi-style illustrations of members of the k-pop group Super Junior. That was description right there, everybody!
Contact: descriptionto at gmail.com, or @movies4theblind on Twitter
The Person
Hi! All my life, starting in the United States and then in Canada, I've been writing and reading things aloud. For a couple decades, that meant working in radio as an announcer, producer and what we used to call a DJ. For another couple decades, it has mainly meant describing visual media so people who are blind, visually impaired, learning English, or just not looking to understand what's going on.
So where have I done all that? At AudioVision Canada (now AMI), the Described and Captioned Media Program (still DCMP) and on my own for various clients in Canada and the US. And I’ve done it for 300 episodes of a podcast! You can find out details on my LinkedIn.
What specifically have I done? The whole thing: writing, voicing, editing and mixing. Oh, you mean what titles? Here’s a substantial though partial list over at the Audio Description Narrator Alliance. (Note that list doesn’t include writing only, which I’ve done for hundreds of titles for the DCMP.)
Along the way, I was proud to be named an Audio Description Advocate by the Audio Description Project of the American Council of the Blind in May 2010. In terms of talking about the work, I’ve been on the AT Banter podcast (twice), the Parallel podcast on Relay FM and the ADNA Know Your Narrator podcast.
I also still do voiceover for commercials, e-learning, corporate training, etc. You can contact my non-union agency in Canada about that, or just contact me.
There is much more to do. Hope I can help you!
The Specs
For Audio Description/Described Video
Deliverable:
Described audio track(s) only, either mixed with soundtrack, or as description alone placed to time-code
.wav, .aif, .mp3
48 kHz, 44.1 kHz, or other on request
Resolution: 16 or 24-bit
Reference video (.mov, .mp4, .m4v) with described track available on request
Source material needed:
Proxy .mov or .mp4 preferred, .avi acceptable
Picture-lock or later
Final soundtrack audio, as part of video file or as separate audio files for sync with video
If some visual elements (chyron, etc.) are incomplete, notes with time-codes detailing them
Screenplays or transcripts not required, but appreciated (can shorten turnaround)
For Voiceover
Deliverable:
Audio track(s), cold read
.wav, .aif, .mp3
44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, or other on request
Can take direction over Skype
Needed:
Script! :-)