April 20, 2026 - 21:38
Reading "Audio Description, Described" with Emily Watlington and Victor Cole made me think about the personal experiences that I have had with my aunt. My aunt was born with Retinitis Pigmentosa and throughout my life, she has progressively lost all of her night vision, as well as most of her day-time vision now. She has no peripheral vision and limited straight-forward vision.
When I am with her, I have to provide Audio Descriptions similar to Victor Cole, whether it be where to look for something that I left on the table, how many stairs there are coming up or what's going on on the side of the road as we are driving by. These descriptions are not telling an entire story or play like Cole, but they are still equally as important and have many of the same important technical characteristics. The technical things that Cole shared about encouraging touch, avoiding Jargon, the lack of importance of colors, etc, all really made me think about the descriptions that I give her and how I can improve those descriptions to make spaces more accessible for her.
Comments
Response 4/21
Submitted by Ashley on April 21, 2026 - 14:04 Permalink
This is really cool that you are able to describe a lot to your Aunt. It seems so difficult to really be able to describe everything, without describing too little or too much. I really liked when the article talked about describing colors because this is something I did way back in my class in elementary school. I remember leaving that experience embarrassed about how little I could describe the color blue because there are so many shades that give off so may different vibes. Also, another thing I thought about is how you would describe a murder mystery movie. I feel like scenes will have so many hidden clues in the set, how do you describe those and not give away the ending? Anyways, I would love to hear more about this Mackenzie and maybe you can help me get better at this.
I also want to add here that this past Sunday Mackenzie and I went to the Best Buddies walk at the KOP mall. It was really nice how it was set up with raffles, some food, and a short/accessible walk. But Mackenzie and I were a little upset with the accessibility factors that were set up. They had somene signing next to the speaker which was nice, but the crowd was so big and surrounded the stage so not everyone who needed to see it could. Also the speaker was very soft spoken and the microphone wasn't loud enough so not everyone could hear. It was also extremely packed making some people feel overwhelmed and caustraphobic. The music was also BLASTING, which some people loved but a lot of other people hated it, walking around with their fingers plugged into their ears. Also, last year I heard that they had tons of different food options for people with allergies, or just different food needs, but this year they only had bananas, trail mix, oranges, and small waters. We both felt like they could have done a better job setting this up and thinking about everyone coming.