Audio describing the TV series The West Wing : towards a coherent practice

The exercise of audio describing West Wing offers excellent opportunities to reflect on the accessibility of TV drama series. This genre has great popular acceptance, financial success, and though it belongs to the much maligned popular TV media, has conquered art and film critics as a quality multimedia production. This success has not been matched with the minimum accessibility requirements. West Wing to mention one -but we could list recent hits such as The Office, The Sopranos, Mad Men, or Lost- is not accessible to the visually impaired. A new horizon opens with NETFLIX new accessibility policy with 100% subtitling and starting to offer audio description in the two new series: Daredevil and Grace and Frankie. TV series have suffered the same fate throughout academia with little research interest, and articularly in Audiovisual Translation: only four studies (Bucaria 2007, Fuentes Luque 1997/8, Herbst 1994, Zhao 2002) have been found to deal with TV series in the free access Bibliography of Translation Studies BITRA 2. This article was part of a brilliant publication idea by Christopher Taylor. Based on the same audiovisual input -- the Christmas special episode In Excelsis Deo from West Wing (1999) - many audiovisual methodologies were studied. This contribution focuses on the audio description of TV series in general, and with examples mainly from the abovementioned West Wing episode. It looks at issues such as: continuity, location, time, characters, emotions, sound, AD function and strategies

Film reading for writing audio descriptions: A word is worth a thousand images?

While English, German, Catalan, Music, Mathematics are languages which have a vocabulary, a grammar and a syntax – which needs to be learnt before being able to read – film language is understood by babies before they can speak or read. Films can be enjoyed naturally without acquiring any fluency in its language, and this natural approach seems to be taken by many when drafting audio descriptions. Though much international attention has been paid recently to draft audio descriptions standards and guidelines (Benecke 2004; Ofcom 2006; Orero and Wharton 2007; Puigdomènech et al. 2007; Remael 2005; Snyder 2006; AENOR 2005; Vercauteren 2007), little attention has been devoted to the most basic elements of film: its vocabulary, how to read it and its meaning (an exception could be made with sound since we already have articles by Remael forthcoming and Igareda forthcoming). This article departs from basic concepts such as the artistic experience, its channels of reception and how films are presented and perceived. Film languages are then discussed to focus on the image and the many possibilities of its reading. It is through the integration of all the readings and meanings that a deep understanding of the film is achieved; hence a comprehensive audio description can be drafted. It is interesting to note the differences between reading – which is the focus of this article – and telling a story visually. This latter issue is key when drafting audio descriptions for films, since narration will play the leading role, but it is not the focus of this article

La inclusión de la accesibilidad en comunicación audiovisual dentro de los estudios de traducción audiovisual

En el contexto de los esfuerzos institucionales realizados para incorporar a las personas con discapacidad a la sociedad, la accesibilidad en los medios de comunicación es aún una asignatura pendiente. Mientras que en el ámbito del transporte público o la vivienda hace años que existe una normativa acompañada de leyes sancionadoras, en el de la comunicación la accesibilidad se encuentra en una fase embrionaria: la normativa está en período de formación o implantación, y ningún decreto sancionador obliga a su cumplimiento. El presente artículo hace un repaso de la accesibilidad en los medios de comunicación españoles y describe el estado de la cuestión y las propuestas de futuro, al tiempo que justifica la utilidad de integrar la accesibilidad como materia propia de los estudios de traducción y, en particular, de la traducción audiovisual.Though much interest has been shown in political institutions at all levels -local, national and European- Media Accessibility is still an underdeveloped field. «Design for all» the European project to eradicate access barriers has been implemented in areas such as architecture, transport or housing. Media accessibility is still to be developed at technical, legal, academic and pragmatic levels. This article looks briefly at Media Accessibility in Spain: the norms, the lack of any sanctioning law, and the inclusion of accessibility within the university system, and more over into the field of Translation Studies

Media Accessibility. Current Solutions and Future Challenges

GreenSCENT - Smart Citizens Education for a Green Futur