Montaje audiovisual e integración de la audiodescripción en la producción documental. Estudio de caso del documental "Vidas Olímpicas"

This article is the fruit of a multidisciplinary research project that links the fields of audiovisual translation and audiovisual communication: the project ITACA (Social Inclusion, Audiovisual Translation and Audiovisual Communication), that revolves around the concept of accessible filmmaking (Romero Fresco 2013). This project suggests considering the needs of people with sensory disabilities during the processes of audiovisual pre-production, production and post-production to improve the level of accessibility of audiovisual works. The present study focuses on discovering if editing techniques could be assembled in a different way in an audiovisual work, in order to facilitate its audio description. Additionally, investigation is done on how the editing sequence could be used during the editing process as a tool by the audiovisual professional to detect those excerpts that would be easier to audio describe and those that would prevent a correct audio description due to the absence of gaps in the audio track. This article is based on the analysis of an accessible translation mode (audio description) in a specific audiovisual genre (the documentary). More specifically, we analyse the documentary Vidas Olímpicas (César Martí 2015), how it was originally edited and how the editing could be performed differently to facilitate the addition of audio description. Firstly, this article provides a theoretical introduction to audiovisual accessibility and to the concept of accessible filmmaking. Secondly, the objectives and hypotheses of the study, as well as the documentary Vidas Olímpicas, are presented. Next, the working methodology and the analysis, carried out in collaboration by experts in audiovisual translation and audiovisual communication, are explained. Finally, conclusions are drawn from the results of the analysis and change proposals in the productive routines of scriptwriting, filming and editing of the audiovisual work – which might ultimately ease the process of audio description – are offered.