TV Shows Watched: His and Hers: S1E1 (Netflix) with audio description, Horton hears A Who: S1E4 (Netflix) with audio description, Crutch: S1E2 (Paramount Plus) with audio description, Emily In Paris: S5E4 (Netflix) with audio description, and The Daily Show: Wednesday (Paramount Plus) no audio description. However, below, since I only included one show in yesterday’s diary, I’ll add the only other thing I saw on Wednesday, and skip Daily Show. So, look for Fallout: S2E4 (Amazon) with audio description at the bottom.

His And hers- All I needed to know was Tessa Thompson was doing a show on Netflix. Done. She’s excellent in Hedda. She stars opposite Jon Bernthal, a giant bonus. I knew Thompson was here, but also Bernthal? Yes. I’m sold. The show is about an estranged pair of detectives who are married, technically, and now must investigate a brutal murder. The audio description was done by post House, and it is like a 9.5/10. I thought they did a decent job describing the murdered corpse, but the way some of the characters react, maybe it was gorier? But there’s a lot of rich description here. It is a solid track. Like many, it doesn’t know what to do with the ethnic breakdown of the ensemble, and thus far, the plot seems to not revolve around ethnicity specifically.

Horton Hears A Who- It’s lovely. the only note I have here is the transition from the first half to the second half. I think kids will get it, but it really doesn’t acknowledge it. We save the wolf, and then we are in the race. Horton just says something in between, but the AD has no commentary. I’m not sure anyone is focus grouping blind kids on whether or not these AD tracks work for them, so I ahve to occasionally watch something I shouldn’t have to so we can continue to evolve the conversation around AD in children’s programming.

Crutch- Not a great series. i didn’t love the pilot, except that it did set up the show effectively, as a pilot should. the second episode reveals a bit of how Tracy Morgan really can’t do the serious stuff. Maybe, if that’s all he’s doing, and doesn’t have to switch in the middle of scenes, but he’s kind of weak here. The show might need to not worry about having any dramatic payoff, and just play to his strength. the AD track by Media Access is solid, and I love hearing a voice I don’t hear every single day, and know that the narrator is delivering a solid performance just as if he was one of the overworked narrators.

Emily In Paris- She’s still… not in Paris. I was watching this with my mom, and Emily had some weird frivolous concern, and she just said “and just a few miles away, people are dying in Ukraine.” Like, true. Emily is hanging out in Italy, a little closer now to Ukraine, and she has the same escapist issues she’s always had. That’s the point of the series. Honestly, I think some people are like me, and aren’t sure if they are hate watching or actually enjoying it. The AD though, is persistently terrific, and when given the opportunity to relish in a fashion choice, or extravagant location, nearly always understands the assignment.

Fallout- Another great track, though there’s a monster in this episode, and I go back to my comment on size relativity. Without mentioning, so many shows are guilty of large, big, huge, enormous, and hoping our brains figure it out. Just try to actually give us an idea? like, cooper is standing in front of something huge. To a human, and elephant is huge. to a human, a dragon would be huge. To a human, the Empire State Building is huge. My point being, huge has endless possibilities if not given a cap or definition. A monster as tall as a tree, at least evokes something real and tangible. Even though trees vary in size, they are never as tall as the Empire State Building, so it brings some perspective. Even better would be more specific terms, like three times the size of Cooper, or four stories tall. Even at an approximation, it reigns in our imagination to a much smaller window. if I leave no impact on the world of audio description it will be three things.

People do more than thrust during sex, and I’ve never heard that word as much in my life as I have since losing my vision. The second being size relativity. the third being that performative audio description, on some level, is the best way to prevent an onslaught of AI/TTS audio description. the more this community fights for flat narration, the easier it will be to bamboozle you with a well produced AI track that lacks emphasis, emotion, or an understanding of what is happening in any given moment. You might hate it, and if we weren’t in a fight to maintain human narrators, I would entertain people’s thoughts on emotionless flat narration. We do not live in that world. DEI is dead. There’s less of a push to make sure accessibility needs are being met, and with that, a desire to win the race for quality, and sooner rather than later, companies will start asking companies to cut their quotes. No, we don’t need to pay for a blind QC. No, we don’t need to pay for any QC. Why can’t the writer and narrator be the same person? There’s a smaller company over here with less overhead, why can’t you reduce your team to match their quote? Why do we need sound mixing and audio engineers? Isn’t there an easier way? A cheaper way? Can’t I use this program to create all my description and leave it to an algorithm, fully removing the need to pay anyone for anything once the software has been developed?

You should be running up and down the streets shouting about the wonders of performative audio description, because it is the one thing the computers aren’t. Human. Decidedly, very, messily human. For any faults a narrator has in interpretation, it is representation of a choice made by an actual person, not an approximation of what AI thinks a person would do. You can download an AI companion app, and it will try to simulate a relationship for you. but it will never be the messy real relationship. You’ll always have to prompt it. It is not proactive and reactionary. It isn’t anticipatory. It isn’t going to look at you and notice you don’t look so great. It doesn’t remember being in class with you in high school.

it is not human.