Another kind of Spectacle...

Visual spectacle is all well and good if you have the ability to take it all in.  However, if your sight hinders that opportunity to fully appreciate the film as it was originally intended, what are you meant to do?

Dr. Mariana Lopez conducting part of her research into replacing audio description with a new format with visually impaired volunteers.  Source

Dr Mariana Lopez from Anglia Ruskin University is leading a study to explore how a story a film can be told without the current audio description track which just describes the events as they happen.  In a brief interview with Mariana Lopez, she voiced her concerns with the current state of audio description tracks.  Audio description tends to be a simple descriptive narration over what is visually happening on screen, and nothing more.

However, she points out that "AD plays a very valuable role in the provision of film and television for visually impaired audiences and at the minute it is the only way in which visual content is made accessible for those audience members."

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 trailer with Audio Description

However, in an interview on BBC Radio 4, Lopez expressed concerns over the fact that audio description is not involved in the post production process and therefore does not reflect the creative vision of the filmmaker:

"In the new systems and formats, we’re thinking about it being a creative process, so not just something that has to be tacked on at the end for accessibility purposes, but something that’s intrinsic to the process of film makers, something that directors, producers and the crew think about when they’re producing their films."

BBC Radio 4, In Touch: Audio in Films

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The full Interview on BBC Radio 4 from 24/2/2015

Additionally, Lopez thinks that the same techniques for creating audio description have remained pretty much the same since they were first created, and so it's time to modernise it.  She thinks that "it’s time for researchers to consider how we can apply advancements in digital audio production and post production to the field of accessibility services." 

And it's these advancements in audio production that Dr. Lopez wants to utilise to create a new format, called audio film, which does not include a separate narration track but uses the existing dialogue with advanced sound effects and surround sound technologies to guide visually impaired people through the film.  For example, she proposes that the new format should use 'soundmarks' to help identify spatial geography in the narrative.

“Artificial reverberation is employed to provide each space with a characteristic sound, and surround sound is used to suggest the layout of the spaces as well as indicate the movement of the characters”.

New Research Makes Sound Sense, 2015 (Source) 

She hopes that this will become a standard part of the film making process, and encourage "social inclusivity" as it removes the need for headphones and "sighted and visually impaired people experiencing the same soundtrack would be a step forward."

This will hopefully benefit the 2 million people in the UK living with sight loss, 360,000 of which are registered as blind or partially sighted, with 86% of people in the UK value their eyesight above any other sense, and the 285 million people worldwide who have visual impairments   

Facts About Sight Loss. Source

The BFI Statistical Yearbook 2014 has argued that,

 "although access has improved significantly over the last few years, there is an opportunity for further development so that more cinema-goers with hearing or sight loss can enjoy more of the latest films at the cinema, in particular the smaller specialized and independent releases" (p. 115) 

The next stage of the research is to apply these techniques to an existing film. However, a great challenge to this is,

"how to transmit that information that is intrinsically visual, such as types of shot, depth of frame, camera angles, camera movements, etc. to the field of sound in order to provide an ‘informative’ but also entertaining experience while at the same time removing part of the descriptions."

In order to successfully integrate this new accessibility format into the creative process of production and post-production, Lopez recognises that "for a new system to work it needs to be easy to implement and cost-effective", which is a part of her next stages of research, whom she'll be seeking the input of members of the film and TV industry on this matter.  

This new format could therefore be considered an alternative form of spectacle, harnessing the latest sound technologies and techniques, just like the industry is doing with image technology with higher resolutions and larger screens, and creating an innovative and exciting new experience through the use of sound, for not only those with visual impairments, but for those who are not.  

This not only continues to provide a service, but also provides an opportunity for part of the audience to fully appreciate the filmmakers artistic vision.  

Mariana Lopez adds that "a lot of the sound design techniques I’m looking into in order to improve accessibility can be considered as part of a ‘spectacle’, in particular those associated with spatial audio and new object-based mixing techniques".