Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Creative takes on image transcriptions (self.Blind)
submitted by takaperoinen-miete
I'm not sure how to word this, but how do people who need transcriptions view "creative takes" in them? I encounter a lot of image/audio transcriptions of posts I see online, some of which are comical, insightful or amusing.
As a seeing/hearing individual I’m delighted by them, sometimes a picture does not load or I don’t want to turn on the sound on my computer, and it delights me when an image description of a mother and baby hyena includes the remark “they seem to be experiencing love”, or a video of a dude fitting the pipe of a squeaky toy chicken into a trombone is described to have “the worst noise imaginable”. It is 100% within my power to actually regard the content at hand and agree that yes, those two animals do indeed appear to be experiencing love, and yes, that is the worst noise I could ever imagine.
But how do people who actually need image/audio transcriptions view this kind of thing? How do you feel about the transcriber clearly adding their own insights to what they are describing?
As a seeing/hearing individual I’m delighted by them, sometimes a picture does not load or I don’t want to turn on the sound on my computer, and it delights me when an image description of a mother and baby hyena includes the remark “they seem to be experiencing love”, or a video of a dude fitting the pipe of a squeaky toy chicken into a trombone is described to have “the worst noise imaginable”. It is 100% within my power to actually regard the content at hand and agree that yes, those two animals do indeed appear to be experiencing love, and yes, that is the worst noise I could ever imagine.
But how do people who actually need image/audio transcriptions view this kind of thing? How do you feel about the transcriber clearly adding their own insights to what they are describing?
DrillInstructorJan 4 points 2y ago
It depends on the circumstances. If it's a piece of news or a factual magazine article, give me the facts. If it's a movie and it's audio description, then I want some proper writing, just the same way as there's proper photography on the screen that I can't see. A movie is supposed to provoke emotions in the people watching it and I am sometimes disappointed in how dry AD can be.
AllHarlowsEve 2 points 2y ago
I prefer the commentary tbh. It's about letting me experience the scene as it's intended rather than making me draw conclusions from details that I could misinterpret or that are missing the expressions to let me know what's really going on.
I'd much rather be told
- The dogs are staring into each others eyes longingly as they slurp a shared spaghetti noodle until they kiss
rather than
- The two dogs eat spaghetti and look at each other. They both go for a noodle that was on both plates, and their muzzles touch as they both eat the same noodle at the same time.
I'd much rather be told
- The dogs are staring into each others eyes longingly as they slurp a shared spaghetti noodle until they kiss
rather than
- The two dogs eat spaghetti and look at each other. They both go for a noodle that was on both plates, and their muzzles touch as they both eat the same noodle at the same time.
itisisidneyfeldman 2 points 2y ago
Do you mind my asking, how do you feel about the reverse point of view? In other words, someone might prefer your second bullet point, which leaves more of the emotional interpretation to you.
AllHarlowsEve 2 points 2y ago
They're just as valid. It bothers me because I've heard audio description that absolutely ruined the mood of a movie by being aggressively neutral, but I also get that if they weren't neutral, they could push an agenda in some way and it'd feel like being spoonfed meaning to some people.
CloudyBeep 2 points 2y ago
Can you give an example of audio description that was in your view too neutral?
itisisidneyfeldman 2 points 2y ago
Thanks for sharing! I agree that both perspectives are valid, and there's always a tension between communicating form and intent. Even the facts in a neutrally worded news story are chosen by an editorial process, and a photograph is shot and framed in a certain way. Similarly, I guess audio description inserts a layer of interpretation that should reflect the context of what it's describing.
retrolental_morose 1 points 2y ago
For the same reason I prefer reading an eBook to listening to audio, having an extra layer of someone elses interpretation would irritate me in most circumstances.
But I'm quite a pedant: whenever I hear "the next morning" on the audio-description of a TV show, I want to shout "really? How d'you know? it's literally the next day?"
and of course it almost always is, but ...
I guess in the real world I filter description by who's doing it in the same way I do news media. It's an inevitable part of being described to most times.
But I'm quite a pedant: whenever I hear "the next morning" on the audio-description of a TV show, I want to shout "really? How d'you know? it's literally the next day?"
and of course it almost always is, but ...
I guess in the real world I filter description by who's doing it in the same way I do news media. It's an inevitable part of being described to most times.
CloudyBeep 1 points 2y ago
Sometimes audio description writers say "the next morning" to avoid any ambiguity that the event happened later the same day. You could just say "daytime" as some companies do, but "the next morning", although slightly interpretative, sounds a bit more natural.
bradley22 0 points 2y ago
It wouldn’t bother me.
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