You’re gonna need a bigger boat.

I am now officially a Rotten Tomatoes Approved critic. There is now a blind film critic on the Tomatometer. Watch out world, the leading review aggregator is inclusive. I have a lot of people to thank, but mostly everyone is in the same field. Audio Description.

It’s why I got back into this, and why I continue to push for and advocate for accessibility in audio description.

Q: Does this change anything?

A: yes. In addition to working on fixing my broke ass website, I now have to back catalog my reviews soon onto the site, which is a monstrosity ahead of me. I have the ability to put my old reviews, as well as future reviews, and I can do film and television. the format the Small Screen Diaries is in is ineligible.It will likely change a bit, again.

When I back catalog, I’m looking to format each review I submit to the Tomatometer in a consistent format. I’ll be changing my grade level to reflect my RT score, and whether it was fresh/Rotten. My goal is to post reviews of films when they have audio description. Some films have gained audio description since my initial review. I will still post reviews to Rotten Tomatoes that do not have audio description because I think it is still important for the world to know why we need it, and what it is like to consistently have to skip around things we might want to see simply because there is no audio description. there is also a range within non audio described content, as to how unintelligible a film is. for example, when something like Flow releases initially without audio description, the movie has no dialogue, so it just becomes a bunch of sound effects. When a film like The Seed Of the Sacred Fig is not given audio description, an audience interested in the film because of its Oscar nominations are largely unable to watch the film because we cannot read the subtitles, and likely aren’t fluent in Persian (which Wikipedia assures me is the official language of Iran). however, in both of those cases, they had money for an awards campaign, so it was more important for their distributors, producers, and filmmakers to be lauded with praise than it was at the time for their films to be accessible. If I’m going to be the blind film critic on Rotten Tomatoes, then I’m going in blind on everything.

in this alignment process, I’d love to get my credits right. I’d love to be able to make sure I spelled the names correctly of audio description professionals, that I have the company listed correctly,etc. I know this industry lives in fear of NDA’s, but a lot of you simply aren’t getting credited by me because either I can’t spell your name, didn’t understand it, immediately forgot it like a goldfish, had a screen reader talk on top of it ((which happens a lot when I watch Netflix titles on my Roku), or I’m watching on something that doesn’t want me to watch credits and immediately has to throw me into something else. I would say as a good rule, if the general blind audience can hear your name at the end, you’re just letting me know how to spell it, right?

there’s no rush on any of this. My site is a little broken, with no search bar, though I’m trying to work with WP support (which is REALLy slow) to fix this. I’ll also be working backward, so the most recent titles I’ve reviewed will be reformatted, and working my way back. I’m one person, I don’t know what the expectations of RT is in how long this should take one person who also has a job, and should still create new content, but it is a long ass chore I’m happy to slowly do. Tediously.

There’s no small screen diaries today. Yesterday was so weird, I didn’t really watch anything anyway. Short story was keeping myself available at any time for something,and thus keeping my phone largely free, where I do most of my listening throughout the day. I did watch FUBAR, but it was the only show with audio description, so it would naturally win every category I suppose. And speaking of the small Screen Dairies…

I do not know what that will continue to look like. Y’all are welcome to give feedback. So the format of the Small Screen Diaries is one that can’t be submitted to Rotten Tomatoes. However, I am able to submit reviews for television as well as film, but the shows have to be individual reviews. If you think, with the amount of shows, that I will individually post reviews of every episode of every show I’m watching… ya’l are crazy. if everyone wants that, start up a Kickstarter or GoFund Me so I don’t need to do anything else but watch TV and write. That’s an insane amount of work, on top of back cataloging and new reviews. So, if I start to review things separately, I can submit something that discusses audio description for that show that is linked to the Tomatometer. I can get those credits noticed as well, since I would format it the same. I could do a whole season, like a binge watch, and review it in its totality, or I could review episodically for things that release weekly (like The Last Of Us or White Lotus). Probably to save my sanity, if I can binge and review the season because it is dropped all at the same time, I would do that.

So, for those of you who read The Small Screen Diaries, if it became weekly like the Weekly roundup, instead of daily, but I started posting more substantial reviews of either full seasons, pilot episodes, or episodic reviews, would that be worth it? I might be creating more work for myself, but also less in the long run. I don’t know what I would do for the current shows I’m watching, or shows I’ve just finished recently either. I think I’m going to try and do more binge watching to get some audio description representation on the TV side though.

I wouldn’t be here without the support of blind, low vision audiences. I wouldn’t be here without the support of the audio description community. I’m also aware I wouldn’t have made it if I hadn’t lost my sight to begin with. There are a lot of film critics, bloggers, podcasters, etc., and they can’t all qualify.So, if I’m about to show Hollywood what this whole world is like, I want to be as thoughtful in my approach as I can be.

And, i just straight up don’t have time to do those quality checks. Sorry, but man that is time consuming. Every quality check I did took hours, because I had to keep stopping and starting, sometimes rewinding, to get all of my thoughts into those things. I didn’t really have the time then, and I don’t see time in the foreseeable future. But I’d love to do it. Again, I don’t know if you know this, but everything I do isn around another job so i can earn real money. y site is not monetized. My Youtube is not monetized. While I’ve made a sliver of money from the AD community, those who have paid me, know what they’ve paid me, and know that if that were my only source of income, I would have starved to death by now.

So, I still have this whole other thing I have to do. I’d love to be independently wealthy and just sit here and do this all the time, but wouldn’t everyone? that’s just not a reality.

Thanks again to those who have been cheerleaders and supporters along the way.