Directing in Reverse. Louise Fryer City University

Transcription

1 Louise Fryer City University Abstract Audio Description (AD) makes visual media accessible to blind and partially sighted people by adding a verbal commentary transforming visual information on screen into a written script, orally delivered. Ofcom Guidelines for AD suggest the primary concern of the describer should be to convey the intellectual argument of the narrative and the main visual images. There are no separate guidelines for Film and no emphasis on conveying the full filmic experience. Early anecdotal evidence suggested AD users were not interested in, and even distanced, by the use of filmic language. But this approach to AD omits crucial elements, transmitted through camera shots and movement, which are part of a specific filmic language. Directors use this language to control our visual field, manipulating our response to the images we are viewing. This paper proposes an alternative approach that allows blind people to access not only the what but also the how in terms of visual story-telling via a process which is essentially Directing in Reverse. Background Audio Description (AD) is a means of making visual media accessible to blind and partially sighted people by adding a verbal commentary. The principles were developed in the United States in the 1970s (e.g. Audio Description Coalition, 2009). AD arrived in the UK in the late 1980s and, from its origins in Theatre, has gone on to be developed for Film, TV and the Visual Arts (e.g. Carey, 2002; Hyks, 2005; Diaz Cintas et al, 2007). Early research projects, such as the EU-funded Audetel (Pettitt et al, 1996) and a study commissioned by the American Foundation for the Blind (Schmeidler & Kirchner, 2001) focused chiefly on the difference made by adding AD to TV programmes for blind and partially sighted audiences. Such projects demonstrated cognitive and psychological benefits: users could more accurately answer factual questions relating to the source material and reported viewing to be a more satisfying experience. These studies demonstrated the case for AD. In the UK, statutory targets have been established for broadcasters (OPSI, 1996; 2005) and Ofcom provides a code of practice for the handful of companies that provide TV AD (Ofcom, 2008). The audio description of Film in the UK dates back 15 years. The RNIB launched its Home Video Service in September 1994 (Greening and Rolph, 2007). Over 120 audio described films were 63

2 made available for sale or hire but the decline of video led to production ending in Meanwhile, the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff was the first to employ regular descriptions of cinema screenings, using live script readers (ITC Guidance, 2000). Cinema AD started on a more commercial scale in 2003 when 16 cinemas across the UK were involved in a trial of the DTS Cinema Subtitling System, which delivers AD to visually impaired cinema goers and subtitles to deaf audiences. With funding from the UK Film Council, the number of cinemas using this system currently stands at around 260 (yourlocalcinema.com 09). An optional AD soundtrack is also available on many films released on DVD. Around 80% of new DVD releases have AD (RNIB Nov 09). Film AD: A Re-examination of Existing Practice The expansion of AD has stimulated a growing awareness of its potential in relation to a variety of academic disciplines principally Audiovisual Translation (eg. Díaz-Cintas et al, 2007). Most papers in Translation have outlined existing practice in countries including the UK, US, Spain and Germany (e.g. Snyder, 2005; Matamala, 2005; Cook, 2006). What have received much less attention, as Sabine Braun points out, are the creative meaning-making processes involved in AD and its reception, i.e. in the comprehension of the audiovisual content and the production of the AD narrative by the audio describer as well as the comprehension of the audio described content...by the target audience. (2007, p. 3). Philip Piety (2004, p.454) also acknowledges the need to explore how, why and which aspects of the practice are most effective; and how different approaches to audio description can be evaluated and tested. This suggests the time is ripe to study existing practice with a critical eye. There are no national guidelines for Film AD which is largely provided by the same companies who supply TV and follow the Ofcom guidelines (e.g. IMS-Media 09, ITFC 09). The Code on Television Access Services (Ofcom, 2008) suggests the primary concern of the describer should be to convey the intellectual argument of the narrative and the main visual images. Point A2.29 of the code recommends that, generally, filmic terms such as camera angles should not be used. (2008, p.19) Yet a film director s manipulation of the image has long been acknowledged to be a critical part of the viewers experience (e.g. Bazin, 1967; Boorstin, 1991; Haeffner, 2005; Katz, 1991). John Izod argues that our responses to what goes on have been organised not only by the event we watch, but to some extent also by the way those events are 64

3 presented on the screen. (1984, pp. 5-6) Directors, such as Hitchcock or Lean, use a whole arsenal of cinematic techniques to control our visual field, in order to give or withhold information, manipulate our emotions and affect our relationship with the images we are viewing (e.g. Truffaut, 1994; Dyer, 1993). The current guidelines are based on findings from the Audetel Project. After consultation with a small group of blind and partially sighted people, the Audetel report concluded to many, expressions like: in close-up pan across, mid-shot, crane-shot etc may not mean anything (ITC 2000, p.8) Yet Piety (2004) points out that there is no reason why specific terms should present problems: persons with visual impairments, unlike many who are deaf, do not have a unique language. They are members of speech communities that are made up mostly of people without significant visual impairments. The language that consumers of audio description use in daily life is thus shaped by the sighted world. Only 4% of the blind and partially sighted population is born without sight. Most people develop sight problems as they get older and the majority of blind and partially sighted people are aged over 65 (RNIB 2009). This would suggest that most people would have seen films before losing their sight and would have some understanding of cinematic terms. The US guidelines for Description, set out by the Audio Description Coalition (2007), allow that although one should generally avoid filmmaking jargon and describing filmmaking techniques, sometimes the brevity and simplicity of something like, The screen fades to black is appropriate. They also advise describing the point of view when appropriate - from above, from space moving away, flying low over the sandy beach etc. (2007). These would seem to be very small concessions. In their analysis of Hitchcock s Shadow of a Doubt, for example, Bordwell & Thompson identify how his decisions about staging, camera framing, sound and editing have intensely engaged our minds and emotions in the story. (2008, p.7) Hitchcock himself explicitly acknowledged his role as arch-manipulator in relation to his film Psycho: I was directing the viewers. You might say I was playing them, like an organ. (Truffaut, 1984, p.73) Such directors create their own visually distinctive style, which arguably AD should make accessible to its audience. The Language of Film The visual code of Cinema is worth exploring. Describers can be regarded as audiovisual translators, and, as Frederic Chaume points 65

4 out, a translation that does not take all the codes into account can be seen only as a partial translation. (Chaume, 2004, p.23) James Monaco categorises Film as a technical art with inherent laws governing not only what is said but also how it is said. (2009, p.37). The picture of a rose, for example, can connote very different meanings depending on the director s choice as to how it is filmed is it seen in close-up or from far away; viewed from above or beneath; is it brightly lit, or in shadow; in soft focus or crisply picked out; are the thorns showing or out of frame? Our understanding of an image is also affected by context, by how the film is edited: which shots are juxtaposed and how we move between them. Conventional audio description leaves out details of shot sequence, so those with sight loss are unaware if the camera switches from close-up to long shot, and whether the change is achieved by a quick cut or a slow dissolve. Monaco draws a parallel with poetry where the pleasure lies in the dance between sound and meaning. With Film, the pleasure lies in the dance between the plot and how it is visually expressed; traditional AD can overlook such nuances in its concentration on narrative clarity. Filmmaker Raina Haig, who is blind, has criticised the largely amateur approach to Film description. Haig believes more attention needs to be paid to use of language, cultural concepts and engagement with the technical aspects of the medium. A describer...has to learn to attune themselves to the filmmaker s vision (Haig, 2002). This would suggest approaches might be usefully varied according to the genre of a Film. Just as Reiss advocates varying translation strategy according to text-type (e.g. Reiss, 2004), so information films, such as documentaries, for example, might need less detail on how they are shot than feature films, which rely more heavily on expressive camerawork. Concentrating more on the visual might generate a heavier processing load for the blind and partially sighted audience, but Braun (2007) quotes Sperber & Wilson s belief that greater processing effort can leader to deeper engagement with the material. While Braun advocates a style of AD that provides users with the visual evidence that allows them to draw their own conclusions, she suggests the question of how the explicatures of a visual image can be recreated in AD narrative needs to be investigated further. (2007, pp. 8-9) This call for empirical research, combined with the strong intellectual argument for creating a more filmic language for AD, led to the development of a project Calling the Shots. 66

5 Calling the Shots The original ITC Guidance suggested it is important to try to understand why a director has chosen to film a sequence in a particular way and to describe it in terms which will be understood by the majority, if there is room to do so. (2000, p.8 my italics) Calling the Shots was devised to assess whether cinematic AD is both desirable for blind and partially sighted users, and possible from the point of view of the describer. The project, funded by the London Centre for Arts and Cultural Exchange, aimed to test two major assumptions of the conventional AD model. The first is that, as AD is constrained by the dialogue, there is not time to provide information on camerawork. The second is that blind and partially sighted people are not interested in technical terms. The film chosen for the project was David Lean s 1945 classic Brief Encounter, which, as Richard Dyer points out, was made at a time when there was a widespread philosophical conviction that every art should exploit what is essential to it. (1993, p.53) In cinematic terms, that meant maximising the potential of camerawork and editing. Rights to work on the film were agreed by the distribution company, Park Circus, with technical assistance from IMS-media. A script was written in conventional AD style, translating visual information about location, characters and action. A cinematic script was then developed, incorporating cinematic terms wherever possible. This was essentially directing in reverse - noting point-ofview, camera movement, type of shot and editing style. Each script was recorded and mixed onto DVD, to create two audio described versions of the film. Brief Encounter concerns a chance meeting between Laura and Alec in the Refreshment Room of a railway station. Both are married, but not to each other. In flashback, Laura recalls their series of illicit meetings, and her inner conflict. David Lean s use of the camera influences our response to Laura s story, albeit subconsciously. The project demonstrated it was possible to include cinematic terms, even in such a dialogue-heavy film. In one key scene, for example, Laura is at her dressing table, getting ready for dinner. Her husband, Fred, comes in and she lies to him for the first time. When Fred leaves the room, Laura needs to call an acquaintance to back up her alibi. The entire scene is shot by reflection in the dressing table mirror. The original screenplay 67

6 establishes this use of reflection although the action and editing are not actually replicated in the finished film: The reflection of Fred can be seen into the bedroom. He comes forward and kisses Laura lightly.fred goes out. Laura sits staring at herself in the glass. She puts her hand to her throat as if she were suffocating. Dissolve to a close shot of Laura at the telephone. (Taylor, 1990, p.168) Having established the fact that Laura is at her dressing table, the conventional AD describes the end of the sequence as follows: He [Fred] squeezes her shoulder and leaves. Laura stares into the mirror at his departing figure, her eyes wide and troubled. As the door shuts Laura looks at herself. She puts down her hand mirror, gets up from the dressing table and sits on the bed with her hand on a white telephone. She picks up the receiver. The cinematic description explains not only what is happening but also how the sequence is shot (the bold text highlights the changes from the conventional version): Fred squeezes her shoulder and leaves - his retreating back partly obscured by the reflection of Laura's face, her eyes wide and troubled. As the door shuts, Laura's eyes fix on her own image. She drops her gaze, puts down her hand mirror and gets up. The camera closes in on the mirror, reflecting her sitting on the bed, her hand on a white telephone. Cut to close up as she lifts the receiver. On occasion the cinematic AD was allowed to intrude over dialogue if the camerawork was deemed to be of greater interest. In the first scene in the refreshment room, for example, Myrtle, who serves behind the counter, is talking to the ticket collector Albert. Their conversation continues as the camera swings away to focus on a couple that we later find out to be Alec and Laura. The conventional AD followed the Ofcom Code by not interrupting the dialogue. The cinematic AD flouted the usual convention, briefly fading the dialogue underneath the following words: 68

7 The camera tracks from Albert and Myrtle to a couple sitting at a table. The man is earnest. The woman s head is bowed. The camera cuts back. In order to accommodate cinematic information, the description could not always include as much detail as in the conventional AD. In this transition between Laura talking to her husband, and recalling an encounter with Alec in Milford, the nearby town, the conventional AD is able to add in small details of what Laura is wearing. Laura buries her face in her hands. The screen goes black. Milford. Laura crosses the road, dressed in suit and smart peaked cap. The cinematic AD concentrates on the camerawork instead: Close shot of Laura as she buries her face in her hands. The screen goes black. Fade up on Milford. We follow Laura as she crosses the road. Having shown cinematic AD was possible, the next stage of the project was to find out if it was desirable. A pilot screening of the cinematic AD took place in November 2009 at the Cass Business School, in central London. Participants were invited through a variety of routes, including websites, shots and personal contacts. 22 people with varying degrees of sight loss attended the screening and completed a post-screening questionnaire. 16 were male and 6 female, in age groups ranging from to % were in the younger age category, 60% were aged 50 or over. Half the group identified their sight loss as moderate or severe, and half as profound. 14 participants had acquired sight loss, 8 had been blind from infancy. The group was self-selecting and not representative of the blind population in general (NHS Information Centre, 2008, p.i), but were potentially more typical of the market audience for AD. 16 of the group had watched Brief Encounter before. 14 had watched it without AD, of whom 6 were congenitally blind. 8 had watched it before losing their sight. The questionnaire was designed to assess whether blind and partially sighted people found the cinematic AD confusing and difficult to listen to. Surprisingly, in the light of current assumptions, 85% of the participants agreed or strongly agreed that they enjoyed the film and 73% said they felt drawn in. Fewer than 10% found the AD confusing. Exactly 50% agreed or strongly agreed that they were 69

8 interested in the camerawork. The most unexpected result was that this did not correspond with whether a participant s sight loss was congenital or acquired. Instead there was a strong correlation between people s interest in camerawork and whether or not they described themselves as a lover of film. As these film lovers are more likely to attend an audio described cinema screening or watch an audio described film on DVD or TV, it would suggest that over half the target audience of current Film AD are not currently being served by conventional AD. Furthermore, 77% of participants agreed or strongly agreed they would like other films to have this style of AD and a similar percentage would like an option to choose different styles of AD on DVD. While these results are based on a single screening of a particular film to a small number of people, they would suggest a cinematic approach to Film AD should be tested further. Conclusion Cinema is a medium with its own visual language. In order to convey the essence of a film to people with sight loss, AD needs to translate the full visual code. The conventional approach to AD fails to address this and specifically suggests the use of filmic terms should be avoided. The Code followed by most AD providers has evolved from early studies in TV description, as there are no specific guidelines for the AD of material that is expressly cinematic. While some films may have a deliberately invisible editing style, others have a strong directorial element that shapes the way the visual information portrayed on screen is interpreted by sighted people. Translation studies suggest that translations should be tailored according to the nature of the source material. This should be as true for AD as for any other form of translation. Calling the Shots has begun to test the existing assumptions that cinematic terms are difficult to incorporate into the AD and may be meaningless to all but a small minority of blind and partially sighted people. While only a small pilot study has been carried out to date, it should certainly prompt more research in this area. 70

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