Seeing Film Through Sound: Sound Design, Spatial Audio and Accessibility for Visually Impaired Audiences

Mariana Julieta Lopez; Gavin Kearney; Krisztian Hofstadter

doi:10.1177/0264619620935935

Seeing Film Through Sound: Sound Design, Spatial Audio and Accessibility for Visually Impaired Audiences

Mariana Julieta Lopez, Gavin Kearney, Krisztian Hofstadter

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Enhancing Audio Description is a research project that explores how sound design, first-person narration and binaural audio could be utilised to provide accessible versions of films for visually impaired audiences, presenting an alternative to current Audio Description practices. The present article explores such techniques in the context of the redesign of the short film 'Pearl', by discussing the creative process as well as evaluating the feedback supplied by visually impaired audiences. The research presented in this article demonstrates that the methods proposed by the Enhancing Audio Description project were as successful as traditional Audio Description in terms of providing information, enjoyment and accessibility to audiences, demonstrating that both practices can coexist and as a result cater for the different stylistic preferences of end users.

Original language	English
Journal	British Journal of Visual Impairment
Early online date	1 Sept 2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/0264619620935935
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 1 Sept 2020

Keywords

Audio Description
Accessibility
Binaural Audio
Film

Access to Document

10.1177/0264619620935935

SeeingFilmsThroughSound-Submission-BJVI-final-June2020-preprint
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Accepted author manuscript, 41.3 MB

Cite this

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