Speaker 1: Described and Captioned Media Program. In the Classroom and Online. DCMP.org

Speaker 2: Words appear. Gregory Frazier, founder of AudioVision, was a key figure in the early development of audio description. Enjoy watching this historical video clip and learning from Emmy Award winner Gregory Frazier, a pioneer in the field. Introduction by Margaret Hardy.

Speaker 3: My name is Margaret Hardy and I am the director of AudioVision, a non-profit organization that provides descriptive services in all forms for the blind and visually impaired people in the San Francisco, East Bay, Sacramento, and Silicon Valley areas of Northern California. The video you will be seeing is actually an edited version of one that was created in 1991 by American Musical Theater of San Jose, formerly San Jose Civic Light Opera, and for whom I worked. While it is certainly dated from my perspective, I can't believe I ever was that young, it will give you a rare insight into Gregory Frazier's ideas about standards of quality and training for audio description. Gregory founded AudioVision in 1989 and died too soon in 1996. I was asked by the board of directors to take over the leadership, and today the staff consists of myself, Diane DeSalvo as program director, and eight describers, all of whom have been trained according to Gregory's plan and who continue to follow his direction. Two of them have been with us since we began the service at AMT in 1991. Unfortunately, we do not now have the luxury of two weeks of preparation in the theater, a critique rehearsal, and then offering six described performances with a tactile tour following a matinee. That's what we had when AudioVision worked with me at AMT's own theater, but it will give you an idea of the dream situation should you ever have the opportunity to implement something yourself. As for the future, we are continuing to learn ways that audio description can assist with disabilities that are non-vision related to educate, train, and enrich other people's lives. Gregory's standards remain our standards, and I invite you to visit our website, AudioVision.org, to gain detailed information on how to ensure good quality and consistent quality in your own efforts. About three years ago, I saw in the Theater Bay Area Callboard magazine a notice about descriptive services being offered as a college course at San Francisco State University, and they gave the phone number of the teacher, who was Gregory Frazier, who turns out to be the director of AudioVision. And I contacted him and asked him to come down and talk to Stuart and me about the descriptive services and how it works, which he did. AudioVision is a concept that was developed by Gregory Frazier, and he and his co-director, Eder Johnson, are developing ways that it can work in other areas other than theater.

Speaker 4: AudioVision is the art of describing media and the arts for visually impaired people, that is, people with low vision or no vision. It is an art, as I say, as opposed to a craft or some people, others have taken kind of an assembly line approach to it. We take it more as an art, and we stress the art of AudioVision in the training that we do. We stress it in the critiques that we do, the performances, and so forth. And it's also very personal. It's very close to me, and it's very close to Eder, my associate.

Speaker 1: Well, personal for me, it filled a gap in my life, and so now I can be a full participator and feel that I am integrated into, again, the arts. I'd never be 100 percent, but it really fulfilled a huge gap that, with the loss of my vision, I was left with a hole there, that space. For others, I think it's a long process. It depends on the age, but I think it's the same thing. Recreation is a very important part of a person's life, emotionally, socially, and part of the integration. Again, it's accessibility.

Speaker 4: There is a method to this madness. AudioVision is deceptively simple when you hear it or see it or hear it performed. People think, gee, that's easy. I can do that. They're just describing what they see. But we know from long experience that certain people have an innate ability, not only have good speaking voices, good vocabularies, outstanding command of the language, but also that they have a feeling for what's going on on the stage or what's going on on the television screen or the movie screen. What we do in the training is we try to find individuals. We audition the individuals first, just like a person auditioning for a play, a part in a play. And then we stress objectivity in the training, that people are translators. AudioVision is translating an audiovisual event into a purely audio event. And so we stress objectivity. We don't like to describe interpretations or opinions or give those. We want to describe objective, quote, reality.

Speaker 3: Bob Lowe and Madeline Devano are two of our eight describers. Bob is the president of his own computer communications company, who is also a board member of Peninsula Center for the Blind. But he auditioned like everybody else. And Madeline, who is a professional writer and deals in public relations in the media, somewhat auditioned along with all the others.

Speaker 5: Well, we start off with the script as it is given to us by CLO. And we begin to write, usually while we're still in rehearsals, by looking at the script from what we get from our meetings with the set designer and the people from the production crew. And we put in everything we would like to say, everything that would just make this absolutely great from our point of view.

Speaker 6: And there's a continual battle going on during the scripting of something like this versus, or that is, of the detail that you want to convey, because there's a tremendous amount going on on stage, especially with a show like Phantom and with the kinds of sets that there are and the costumes that there are.

Speaker 5: Finding out you can't tell them everything, and you want to, and what to cut out. And then we see the production. And then we start trimming. And we start timing. Because the critical thing about this is not to interfere with what's coming from the stage. Our audience can hear. They need to hear the lines. They need to hear the emotions. They need to hear the words to music. And if we need to speak over something, it has to be very carefully chosen not to lose any of this for our audience.

Speaker 2: A series of images of the Phantom stage production, words, critique sessions are held after a practice performance. Now, Gregory had a describer's critique session.

Speaker 4: I thought that was very, very effective. And I enjoyed it very much. And I think not only does it sound good, but I think the choices that you made as to where to put in the female voice and where to put the male voice were very well made, very well chosen.

Speaker 7: There was a moment for me, Madeline, that just really stood out compared to the other description in the show. It was at the end of the picnic where she's run off and he's pulled down everything. And you described that now his world is revealed for what it really is, a stinking sewer. Right, which is very beautiful writing. But at that moment, I was very aware that you were there and you were saying that it was almost like an editorial comment.

Speaker 8: I took that from the stage direction notes that were on there, but I guess that isn't a good idea to do either. That doesn't make it all right.

Speaker 3: Yeah, because the reality is that it's not a stinking sewer. I mean, I didn't get that by that scene, that it was in reality that. So if you're telling them that, then you're giving them a picture that isn't necessarily true.

Speaker 8: So should I back up one line before that, too, just before the revealed part?

Speaker 7: To me, just describe it. Just describe the scene, describe what he's doing, describe what it looks like, maybe how barren it is.

Speaker 4: Well, I think that's a very important point. And what happened with you, your words were, it called my attention to you, the describer. And we don't want to do that. The describer is, quote, invisible.

Speaker 3: If a person has any disability and being blind is included, you assume, A, that they are low income, B, elderly or infirm, C, recluses, for lack of a better term, but people who tend to be withdrawn and don't venture out. What we have discovered is that it's totally the opposite. There are some visually impaired people who are almost militant in their determination to be out in the mainstream and grabbed onto this opportunity and have really helped sell the program for us by their own enjoyment of it. And they've really been the salesman for it. It's just been an exciting opportunity.

Speaker 2: Margaret welcomes visually impaired patrons in a theater lobby. The theater goers intermingle in the lobby before a performance. Now Madeline and Bob sit in a dimly lit describer's booth in the darkened theater.

Speaker 5: The curtain rises on an underground lake at the deepest level of the opera house. The walls and archways of the foundation rise up from the water. Supporting beams and timbers cross overhead. Lanterns flicker at various levels. In the gloom, mist hovers over the surface of the lake. Stone steps lead down to a dock at the edge of the lagoon. A gondola in the shape of a large, white, graceful swan is tied there. The floor of the boat is carpeted with white flowers.

Speaker 6: Eric appears, still carrying Christine down from above. He is wearing a spectacular crystal warrior mask covered with jewels that flash under purple and red ostrich plumes. Eric gently places the unconscious Christine in the boat.

Speaker 2: He begins to pull the boat across the lake with a long step. Words. Audience members are invited on stage for a sensory meeting with the cast. Now a visually impaired man discusses his theater experience with Madeline. He inquisitively explores with his hands the phantom's costume, mask, and face.

Speaker 9: You're doing a beautiful job. There were a number of things I know that I haven't heard you do before. For example, you and Bob Lowe, the other describer, worked in tandem where you would be describing, for example, when there was a scene between Eric and Christine. Madeline, you would describe what Christine was doing and Bob would do what Eric was doing and it really kind of helped to keep things in focus. It just made it much more meaningful for me. I really enjoyed it. And the other little thing that stands out was that there were a couple of times, one that I remember particularly, when Eric asked Christine a question and, of course, Christine nodded in answer rather than said anything, but I heard Madeline's voice just say very softly, no. And I knew instantly that it was Christine shaking her head. My wife and I have gone to plays before and she has tried to describe this kind of thing and we wind up getting so far behind because of her trying to keep up with things. This audio description has really been wonderful and we will be back. We have season tickets and we'll probably have them for many years to come.

Speaker 10: It made me feel really comfortable with the whole show and knowing what was happening and what was going on and I didn't have to poke my companion and say, what's happening now or what's going on now because I was being told what was happening and I was prepared for it ahead of time. And so it's been really wonderful for me.

Speaker 11: I was very, very impressed with the whole performance and I can't say which part of it I like the best. But of course I'm standing next to Carlotta and I enjoyed sharing her champagne when she was drinking in the bistro.

Speaker 1: In the bistro, absolutely. We got drunk together.

Speaker 11: They kept filling her glass so they were filling mine at the same time. And the whole performance, I just felt like I could see it. My vision is practically nil. But with the description of Madeline and Bob, I was able to see the whole show and hear it with my ears, which are very good, thank goodness.

Speaker 2: Carlotta and the woman's friends smile and nod in agreement. Thanks to American Council of the Blind, California Council of the Blind, Silicon Valley Council of the Blind. And for their inspiration, Rick Boggs, Bernice Kandarian, Roger Peterson, Joel Snyder. Produced by Penrose Productions. Logo, AV, Descriptive Services for the Visually Impaired. Copyright 2012.