JUDITH POLITI: Midterm Portfolio – #4 Audio Description
AUDIO DESCRIPTION PROJECT
SCRIPT:
The opening of the black and white film “Cindy goes to a Party” begins with the Young America Films logo with the words “Young America Films presents” followed by a drawing of a fairy-like figure, holding a magic wand with stars in the background that directs the viewer first to the title of the film, “Cindy goes to a Party” and then the words “A Centron Production”.
Two young kids are playing basketball in the driveway of a suburban home, when Cindy, the young girl presenting person, is called by her mother.
The camera cuts to a close shot of Cindy, who looks at the person she is playing basketball with and tells them that they will continue to play basketball the next afternoon.
The camera cuts to the young boy’s confused reaction, and excalims that he will be going to Marys party and Is surprised that Cindy is not going.
The camera shifts back to Cindy, who with a look of confusion and then frustration on her face exclaims that she won’t go because she never has fun at partys.
The scene is still showing Cindy’s expression when the young boy expresses his hopes that Cindy would go to the party.
Cindy’s expression remains frustrated and almost sad.
Cindy is called again by her mother and Dennis exits the scene.
The camera cuts back to the driveway view to show Cindy walking around holing the basketball, deep in her thoughts as she wanders from the driveway up the steps into her home.
The screen goes black and reopens with Cindy sitting on her bed with her mother playing with her hair. The room is filled with toys and books and the wallpaper has illustrations of cows, mountains, sailboats and cowboys.
As Cindy expresses her discontent with her not being invited to Mary’s party, the mother maintains comforting and attentive body language.
The camera cuts to a close shot of the mother’s face who exclaims “Hey now, your name is Cindy, not Cinderella!” In response to Cindy’s insecurity about not knowing how to act at a party. The mother then reassures her.
The camera cuts back to the room view of both Cindy and her mother sitting on the bed, and Cindy’s mother tucks her into bed, then leaves the room and scene.
Cindy closes her eyes and the camera zooms into her resting face, and as she begins dreaming, we hear a fairy like voice promising that Cindy will go to the party.
This fairy like voice exclaims for Cindy to get up, and as the camera pans out, Cindy sits upright in her bed, looks confusedly around, and exclaims that she doesn’t see anyone.
Cindy’s fairy godmother appears magically on the left side of Cindy’s bed wearing a white long dress with flowers on hernecklain and in her hair.
Holding her wand with both hands, the fairy godmother introduces herself to Cindy as her fairy godmother.
Expressing her distrust, Cindy looks down and ironically says “Sure”
The camera zooms in to view Cindy’s head and the waist-up of the fairy’s body. To prove that the fairy godmother is who she says she is, she begins to provoke Cindy by wondering is Cindy really wanted to go to the party.
The camera cuts to a side view of the fairy and a frontal view of Cindy, and Cindy begs to go to the party.
Looking down at Cindy, the fairy godmother exclaims that there is much work to be done before Cindy can go to the party.
Shaking her head in concern, Cindy exclaims that she wasn’t invited ot the party.
The fairy godmother reassures Cindy that she has taken care of the invitation, and that she will accompany her to Marys party, only if Cindy promises to not tell anyone.
The camera cut back to the wide room view and, considering, the fairy agrees that they should tell Dennis.
Moving from her standing position in the room for the fist time, the fairy turns 90 degrees and makes a magic movement with her wand.
A magic ‘ding’ sound is followed by the fairy turning back towards Cindy and exclaiming that it’s time to go to the party.
The camera cuts the the closer range shot and Cindy excitedly gets out of bed.
The fairy looks her up and down and expresses her concern by saying “Oh! What a mess”.
Stepping towards Cindy the fairy waves her wand towards Cindy’s head and instantaneously transforms Cindy in a flower print short sleeve dress, with her hair done.
Shocked, Cindy looks down and grabs her dress. She smiles and looks up to her fairy godmother and exclaims that its not her very best dress, to which the fairy godmother responds with what is more important than wearing her Best dress: Being clean and neat when going to a party.
Concerned over being on time, the fair godmother transports them both to the party with a magic ‘ding’ of her wand.
The scene cuts to the fairy godmother and Cindy magically appearing outside of a home and door. The shadows and light signifies that it is day time.
The camera shows the front of the fairy and the side of Cindy, who exclaimed that she does not want to be the first guest at the party.
Exclaiming the various different rules about going to a party, the fairy godmother points her wand towards the house and with the magic ‘ding’ exclaims “Be on time” and to “leave on time”.
Listening in awe, Cindy takes a step towards the fairy godmother and asks if she will turn into cinderella, to which the fairy godmother leans her head back laughing.
The camera cuts to a close shot of the fairy who continues to give advice to Cindy.
The camera pans back out to the shot of them both stanidng in front of Marys door, when voices in the background cause Cindy and the fairy to look towards to people arriving.
The fairy magically dissaperas and as Cindy comments on everyone’s arrival time, she confusedly looks around for her fairy godmother who is no longer there.
Cindy’s friends enter the camera shot and after knocking on the door, they ask who she was talking to.
Covering herself up, Cindy claims she was talking out loud.
Mary opens then door and Cindy and her friends look towards her.
The camera cuts to inside Mary’s home to show Mary opening the door and letting her guests in. Cindy and two friends file in, smiling. The wallpaper has flowers on it and the opened window in the background of the scene is draped with thin, layered curtains.
Still only seeing the back of Mary, she closes the door then turns around, and leads her guests into the living room.
Cindy hears her name called by her friend that she was playing basketball with, Dennis, and turn around to face him.
She approaches him and the camera shows the opened window, the front of Cindy and the side of Dennis. Dennis is surprised to see Cindy as he thought she was not coming ot the party.
The camera cuts to a close up view of the side of both Cindy and Denis, where there is a painting centered between them. The content of the painting is a woman sitting with a paiting within the frame.
Cindy is telling Dennis about her newfound Fairy godmother, and as he questions what she is talking about, the camera cuts to a close up of the painting that was between them.
The woman sitting magically turns into the fairy godmother who with a ding makes herself seen.
The camera cuts to the living room and Dennis rubs his eyes, questioning if what he is seeing is real. Kids and playing int he background.
Dennis looks towards Cindy for answers, and she reassures that the fairy will help them enjoy the party.
There is a blur next to Dennis, and the fairy magically appears on his left. We see Cindys head shift to look at where the fairy just magically appeared.
The kids in the background continue to play and a stone fireplace and bookshelf can be seen.
The fairy notices that the kids in the background are setting up for musical chairs, and as Dennis begins to express his discontent with that game, th fairy waves her wand and ‘dings’ all of the kids into the game to play.
This scene shows about 7 kids magically seated and reading to play magical chips in the living room, with the fairy standing in the far right corner looking down with approval.
The camera cuts to a side view of Dennis and the fairy and the fairy waving her wand magically ‘dings’ a new rule, to always join in games.
The fairy gives Dennis advice about joining in on games and that everyone has more fun when everyone joins.
The fairy magically disappears and the voice of a young girl says ‘’everybody get up!’
The camera cut to a wide shot of all the kids on the chairs in the living room, and as the music starts playing the kids begin playing by running around the chairs.
**edit – after class on Tuesday 10/15, I cut down a lot of the script that had to do with dialogue
Project Description
The audio description project aims to elaborate the previous creative captions project and iterate it so that a new audience can be reached. By adding audio description along with the captions, the scene and visuals are described and the audience can infer what is going on in the scene beyond character dialogue and narration elements.
Documentation
All work was done in premiere – adapting to the audio feature and voice over was super useful.
Process Documentation
Throughout the audio description process I tried to really get the bigger picture of what was happening in each scene while not forgetting about cinematic details that add to the composition.
For example, I found myself playing with details such as shadow and the wallpaper in the different homes. Theres are things that tell context that won’t be deduced from caption only.
I also found myself paraphrasing the actual conversation that was happening in the scenes – partly because I found that it gives more of a holistic viewing experience but also because ideally if it is paired with the captions, it would flow super well.
I began view the video in half playback speed to really capture the details but after about a minute or so I realized that by doing this the actual reading of the audio that would come after would not be paired with the actual length of the scene. For example, if there are too many details in a short scene then the audio would extend into the next scene, causing a disruptance in the flow.
When I began to watch the video in normal speed I was able to make certain cuts and decisions in text and detail but that would make the overall flow of audio to visual work better.
One of the harder things I encountered on this project was choosing how to navigate the dialogue in the audio description. It was very hard to have both the visual description of the scene while also keeping the dialogue real time as it was happening. I therefore took the artistic decision to almost paraphrase what was occurring between the different characters, while maintaining the integrity of the content.
Reflection Questions
What is the theme of the work?
The theme of the work is to create a more accessible version of a video by adding an audio component. This audio component allows for the same content to be experienced by a new portion of the population that was not previously able to.
How is that theme particularly expressed through the modality of the week?
This theme is particularly expressed through the visual description of the video content through the audio medium. The content is depicted and transcribed, then recorded and placed on top of the video. Through both visual analysis and dialogue interpretation, the audio description curates a list4ning expreicne that allows a listener to interpret the medium without having to actually see it.
Which elements of the work are beautifully/wonderfully/perfectly expressed through the modality?
Certain cinematographic details such as camera shots and visual details such as wallpapers and clothing design highlights certain elements about the video medium that might have gone over someone’s head when watching. Another reason for this in this project specifically is the fact that the more I watch the video, the more things I notice. Doing the audio description after the captions was a super smart and interesting order because it adds so much more analysis to our descriptions.
Which elements are lost or inexpressible through the modality of the week?
The dialogue is definitely lost through the modality of the week. I went more the paraphrasing route rather than trying to get every dialogue and conversation in the description because if not the timing of audio description to actual scene shifts would not match.
Who does this project exclude? Who would not be able to interact
with this work? Who is this modality not accessible for?
This project excludes someone who can neither see nor hear, or can only see. The modality is super useful for someone who can hear, or hear but not see.
Now that you have identified who is excluded, what is one way you could remix this piece to include another population? (You don’t have to make this part, but think about it and write about it).
A way to remix this piece is by using braille, or by adding some sort of physical element to each scene so that someone that can neither hear nor see can interpret the content as well.