Enhanced Audio Description

While awareness of accessibility in film and television has grown in recent years, it remains an area where the industry still has significant gaps. The Enhancing Audio Description project explores how sound design and spatial audio can create more inclusive experiences for visually impaired audiences. The project expands the concept of media accessibility and enhances both the quality and availability of audio description services, offering cutting-edge techniques to the UK cultural sector.

Corporate videos often carry the reputation of being either overly sterile or overloaded with information. From the outset, discussions with Mariana López, the principal investigator of the project, focused on creating a video that felt more casual and intimate, taking an approach that contrasted with typical corporate styles and drawing inspiration from Apple’s Behind the Mac commercials.

This approach informed the cinematography and sound design, resulting in softer, mood-driven lighting across the main scenes, a restrained and unobtrusive background music, and a greater reliance on close-ups and handheld camera work. In terms of audio, the enhanced audio description technique was woven directly into the narrative track, allowing visually impaired viewers to fully apprehend the on-screen action without the use of a separate voice-over.

Much of the editing process focused on finding the right balance between conveying enough information and avoiding an overly heavy-handed approach for the viewer. Two contributors, director Samantha Moore and Warren Wilson, were selected to provide on-camera testimonials, helping to highlight the project’s significance and benefits while also giving it a more personal, human perspective.