The Importance of Listening in Audio Description

The Importance of Listening in Audio Description

By Jenni Elbourne

Which of the five senses is most important for an Audio Describer? The obvious answer might be ‘sight’ – after all, our job is to create access to Sky’s shows for those who have low or no vision. We must be sharp-eyed to ensure that AD users don’t miss out on important visual details.

But what about hearing? A piece of advice I was given once by an AD user that’s always stuck in my head is: ask yourself “would this programme work on the radio?”

Hearing – or rather, actively listening – is an essential skill in audio description. I‘ll often start the scripting process by listening to a sequence without watching the visuals, to assess which elements are easy to glean from the soundtrack, and which parts leave me wondering what’s going on. While some programmes allow a luxurious amount of time for descriptive additions, others have hardly any gaps between dialogue, and it’s important that AD is not squeezed into every pause, drowning out the soundscape or leaving the listener with insufficient time to process what’s being said. 

With documentaries in particular, the audio is often the editor’s main starting point, with illustrative visuals added afterwards. If a contributor talks about a protest while a montage of photos is shown, there’s no need for me to squeeze in repeated references to ‘photos of the march’ that don’t add any new information for AD users. In light of my friend’s question, I find it useful to listen to radio programmes and podcasts where music, sound effects and pauses are used quite deliberately to indicate changes of setting or to build an atmosphere. Where a TV programme’s soundtrack mirrors this, the AD should take care not to intrude.

Facial expressions and body language can pose a dilemma in description – how can the emotions they portray be communicated without the describer getting too subjective? And do we always need to mention them? I recently worked on the animated movie ‘Migration’, where most of the characters are birds – this adds an extra layer of challenge as many of the phrases we might use to describe human body language don’t apply to beaks, wings and feathers! Again, listening really helps because emotions come through strongly in the voice. The opening scenes quickly establish the main characters’ demeanours: mother duck Pam’s frustration with life on the pond and longing for adventure, and father duck Mack’s fearful eagerness to protect his ducklings from the dangers of the big wide world. Their words and the tone of delivery portray their feelings clearly, so there’s no need for the AD to spell out their emotions.  It’s only in those moments where body language contrasts with the script, or moves the story on, that description is really needed. Various scenes later in the film are marked by silent shifts of expression or subtle glances between members of the duck family as they navigate their way through the emotional journey of a long-distance adventure. These are the points where AD added to the soundtrack can really enhance our audience’s ability to follow the story and feel included.  

When adding description, it’s vital to consider how the AD will fit into the context of the narration or dialogue. I generally try to avoid inserting description part-way through an incomplete sentence; even when there’s a temptingly long pause. I’ll often remove a line of AD that becomes redundant when a character or narrator repeats the same information within a short amount of time. And sometimes, I’ll choose to prioritise making sense of dialogue or narration over ‘saying what I see.’ For example, during a nature documentary, a wild cat might be briefly shown on screen, but if the next part of the programme is focused on elephants, it might be more important to make sure the new scene is clearly established, than to mention the fleeting feline appearance.

Decisions about what and how much to describe are often tricky, and we know that user preferences vary too. Paying plenty of attention to sound, as well as visuals, is vital to ensuring that our AD forms part of an enjoyable audience experience.