Title
Designing with voices. The challenges of presenting and sound editing in audio description
Conference name
Advanced research seminar on audio description
City
Country
Spain
Modalities
Date
20/04/2023-21/04/2023
Abstract
The Audio Description of films holds some challenging problems especially for genres like action or comedy. A good describer may overcome these problems and create a text that covers all the necessary aspects. But very often the success of the description lays in the end in the work of the narrator.
Presenting e.g., a funny text in a neutral way may kill all the fun -whereas a good narrator may change a not-so-funny-text into a funny AD. So, choosing the right woman or man to voice a comedy description is very important. The challenge in this is to catch the comedy in the original without adding too much of your own. The editing and mixing of the AD may support this – comedy is often a question of timing and rhythm, and that’s where your sound designer jumps in.
Another possibility in other genres is to present your description with more than one voice. This can be a good idea when the plot is e.g., told on two different time levels (like past/today in “Fried Green Tomatoes”) or from two different perspectives (like in the TV series “The Affair”) or in two different countries or as a real world/dream world story (like in the German TV movie “Play”, available through Netflix). Again, the editing and mixing may support you in this – by e.g. putting effects on your voices and making them sound “ancient” or “unreal”...
This presentation will focus on case studies on voicing comedy and working with more than one narrator. Examples from different films are shown and the work of the narrators and the sound designers is discussed with the audience.
Presenting e.g., a funny text in a neutral way may kill all the fun -whereas a good narrator may change a not-so-funny-text into a funny AD. So, choosing the right woman or man to voice a comedy description is very important. The challenge in this is to catch the comedy in the original without adding too much of your own. The editing and mixing of the AD may support this – comedy is often a question of timing and rhythm, and that’s where your sound designer jumps in.
Another possibility in other genres is to present your description with more than one voice. This can be a good idea when the plot is e.g., told on two different time levels (like past/today in “Fried Green Tomatoes”) or from two different perspectives (like in the TV series “The Affair”) or in two different countries or as a real world/dream world story (like in the German TV movie “Play”, available through Netflix). Again, the editing and mixing may support you in this – by e.g. putting effects on your voices and making them sound “ancient” or “unreal”...
This presentation will focus on case studies on voicing comedy and working with more than one narrator. Examples from different films are shown and the work of the narrators and the sound designers is discussed with the audience.