[Doug]: Welcome to Episode 34 of Feeling Through Live, where we're going to discuss all things audio description, and we couldn't be doing that with a better person than Michele Spitz. So I think before we start anything, certainly we're going to want to do an audio description of what's on the screen. So I'm going to Michele, why don't you start with the picture that we have up for you?
[Michele]: Minus my presence today? My photograph, I have long brown hair, brown eyes. I have red lipstick, somewhat of a smile and I'm wearing a black v-neck top.
[Doug]: And I am wearing a light blue button up shirt. I have short, dark brown hair, a little scruff on my face, and I'm in my dining room. So you can see a little bit of my living room over my right shoulder with some windows in the back and kind of a weird picture hand drawn picture over my left shoulder here. And we have an interpreter box at the top right corner of the screen. And on the top left, it reads Feeling Through Live episode 34, all things, audio description. So Michele, so, so thrilled to have you joining us today. And you know, I think, I think the best place to start is what is audio description?
[Michele]: The vast, large question of the world. So audio description is a secondary audio track that is attached to media. It could be videos, it's film, it's broadcast, it's gaming, so on and so forth, which describes all the visual content in between natural pauses of dialogue. And it's a very comprehensive process in which this all comes together and there are, I produce audio description. I voice audio description. I fund audio description. I've been doing this for seven years. A lot of love has been put into this work and the, the process in which this takes places, we would take a piece of media. We would then, if someone has a transcript, for example, for a film, we would use the transcript. We would cross references the transcript with time code because the media is stamped and we're looking at the stamped media time, code the transcript, or then hiring an audio description writer, does this as their profession, which takes an enormous amount of time for them to then identify all the natural pauses, define and describe all the visual content that we think is necessary. We can sort of implement and place into those spaces. Sometimes it's limited. So we have to make choices. And then that is QC by people working around me that are producing this. And I then go in the studio and I record that secondary audio track. And that audio track is then mixed into the media edited and also is used for various platforms, such as digital cinema packages in the movie theaters, all the streaming platforms, some of the broadcast networks and video content, fundraising videos, all types of different things I've worked on. So that's the short version of what audio description is.
[Doug]: You know, I think something that's so interesting about it to me, it's like, I'm fairly new to really understanding audio description. It's really within the last several years for me, that I've really worked with it and gotten to really understand it. And I think there's, there's certainly people in our audience are tuning in who I'm sure use it on a regular basis. For those who don't. I think it's really interesting to think about consuming visual content, if you are Blind or low vision and w the necessity of audio description and really the art behind it, that you were starting to get into Michele that we'll get into in a little bit. But if you think of, you know, certainly a lot of, you know, film and TV and, you know, live events that you audio described as well, Michele are highly, they're highly visual moments that really have very few dialogue cues at certain moments. And if you're Blind or low vision, you, you need this audio descriptive track to know what's happening on the screen. So you can imagine, I always like to think of, you know, something that's like, like an action, like a car chase scene, right, where there's usually very little dialogue in a car chase scene. It's this very heavy cut, you know, high action packed, very visual sequence. And in order to really experience that if you're Blind or low vision, you rely on an audio descriptive track to describe what's what's happening on the screen. And I think what's really interesting to me again, and being coming at this from the angle of, you know, being relatively new to the space is that I think if, if it's, if you're not accustomed to using an audio description track, you might make the assumption that it's just kind of this like rote kind of, you know, mechanical, like, like really sterile description of what's happening on the screen, but not if it's done well, if it's done well, it's a really engaging engrossing part of the storytelling. And I think that's something that people who aren't familiar with audio description might not understand. And something that I've gotten to, to, to understand over these last several years that I've been acquainted with it. So I guess to the point of, you know, Michele, you were starting to talk about the writing and producing of the audio description. Can you, can you go a little bit more into, you know, the process of like, let's take some highly visual scene in a, in a film or TV show that maybe it doesn't necessarily have to be an action sequence, but anything that's highly visual, what, how do you approach that? What walk us through that experience to when you first get material?
[Michele]: So, yeah, it's an interesting question and I think different people are going to answer differently. So I'm going to answer that question in the context of which I've chosen to pursue this work. First of all, I had my own sort of tone in which I execute. It's sort of my own signature tone, and I prefer to work on certain content than others. And for example, the type of senior talking about, I'm not your girl, I'm not the action voice, casting has a lot to do with this. Who are we casting? And I also hire people to work on some of my projects when I feel I'm not the right person, or for example, we have captions for characters that are hard of hearing or depth of the subject of some of my projects that I work on. Then we have foreign films and I need people to come in and voice the subtitles. I don't want to confuse the listener as to minor ration. And this is really important because not everybody understands that these are other layers of that process. And in addition to that, we have text on screen, for example, on documentaries, which I work a lot on a lot of documentaries. So I'm reading the text on screen and my tone warrants, more of a journalistic narrative broadcast tone in some ways. And then there's another layer that's very soft and engaging and comforting. So I choose content because I can, and because I give grants for these projects and I choose these projects very carefully, which ones I feel I'm best suited for. And if I'm not, then I will hire someone to do this work. But as far as for example, let's say I just finished the new BGS documentary that comes out tomorrow. Okay. On HBO. Now that audio description will not be available on HBO max, because they are not implementing it until March of next year, which is a big change and a big shift, very exciting, by the way, very challenging film. Now that moves very, very, very, very quickly, right. We have lots of talking heads, all four brothers, lots of scenes, text on screen, where they are. I mean, it's all over the map in order to do that audio description, we have to, you know, find that space where we're able to very quickly say what I need to say, describe what I need to describe, and just basically give context to what's happening now, the natural information, which anyone is going to hear, they're going to hear cars, for example, when you're talking about, Oh, cars racing. So, you know, they're intuitively going to hear that as anybody would providing, they don't have a hearing, issue on top of a visual issue. But for example, if someone's knocking on the door, or for example, someone might be kissing, you might hear someone kiss, you don't know, but those natural sounds of life, we're not there to describe them. We are there to give a visual sort of, as you said earlier, and I've always said it, we're painting a picture with words in my definition. So we don't want to give too much information. That's overwhelming. We want to give enough that leads you to sort of that picture. So you can assimilate on your own. What does that mean in the context of what you're envisioning happening? So that's part of how that works. And by the way, I'm only as good as my writer is. And I've always said that I may be able to use my voice in other ways. And I use my voice for many things, but really, truly the beauty of my work is the combination of my voice and the person who is writing that script. And then the person who is directing me in the studio and also editing that work and placing it into a mix for the consumer. So there's many parts that have to come to play here. And by the way, to your point of some audio description being assumed or having been experienced already, that might be a little bit abrupt or short or a monotone, or what have you. There's many different approaches to audio description. And sometimes that happens because it has to be abbreviated. We only have so much room and different approaches and different styles and different writers, also impacts some of that. And now that none of it is necessarily right or wrong, there are different ways. And there are certain protocols that people would like to see in place, which I think make a lot of sense, but we also have to make room for the fact that so much content has not been audio described for so long that even audio describing and getting that done is a step in the right direction. So we'll be refining that over time and we're moving in that direction. So I want to, I want to be fair to all parties involved in this, in this cause, how we're trying to make as much as we can accessible.
[Doug]: Yeah, absolutely. You know, we had Phil from AI Media on here several weeks back who has been in the captioning business for like 30 years. So he talked through, you know, when he first got into captioning to now has been just leaps and bounds, as far as how much it's been integrated into society and how much more of a demand there is. And therefore how many, how much more resources there are and focus on it. But if you go back 30 years, there was very little, if not, almost anything, almost nothing was captioned, to now where a huge amount of content is captioned by, and, you know, a lot of which by law, audio description, you know, feels to me like it's still kind of becoming more widely known and kind of jocking for more resources and more focus on it. Like you were saying. You know, I don't think HBO, max would ever put up anything, any content now that wouldn't be captioned, but they might put up content before. The audio described version goes up, maybe some point that'll change. Where do you, you know, having been in this field for a while, how have you seen that evolution to now? And where do you think it's headed as we move forward?
[Michele]: Oh, it's so incredibly exciting. I can't tell you. I am so excited about the future. If you had asked me seven years ago when I started this, this part of my life in this cause and career, I, I think for so many years, I wanted to see this move in a direction so much faster, and it wasn't moving fast enough for me and I'm trying to catch up and I'm trying to get grants and I'm trying to make more happen. And I just thought this has got it. This has got to expand sooner than later, and it is now the flood Gates are open. It's extraordinary. I think what you're going to see happen is so much more content is going to be audio described one by virtue of mandate. And of course, naturally, would we like to see that all content would naturally be audio described and captioned? You bet we're not there yet, but we're heading in a much better direction. So I have a very optimistic outlook. I'm a little overwhelmed by the flood Gates opening as much as they are now. And by virtue of a couple of things, in my opinion, other than, of course the mandate, the advocacy, all those that have contributed to speaking out loud and very proactively about obtaining more of this content in the world to be accessible. But beyond that, I do have an opinion about some of this in terms of why this has changed so much in the last several months. One being when black lives matter happened and the advocacy around that and the attention to diversity and acceptance and engagement of all people in this world at that point, all people, including those with disabilities and all others in this world, as we are as a world we're now considered. And that being said, we went into the pandemic and by default, the virtual world has brought more attention to more accessibility by virtue of the virtual world. So now, for example, the events that otherwise might be live are going to be prerecorded or going to have live audio description or prerecorded audio description. And they're going to have either open captions. They're going to have interpreters. All of this is really interestingly enough, it's a vortex that has now ended up in a place where no one has a choice, but to actually have to look at this much closer. So this has been a benefit, albeit all these horrible things that are happening with the pandemic, but something happened here where we have to pay attention. And so I'm actually grateful for that outcome. And I sit in such gratitude for where we are heading, and I think you're going to see some very exciting things unfold. I'm part of some of them. And I've been part of some of the things in the past. And I just am, really, truly in awe of where we are now, after seven years of doing this, it feels like the payoff is now finally happening.
[Doug]: You know, Michele that's beautifully put, I think particularly what you're talking about of the climate that we're currently in and how that in certain ways is actually serving the expediting and further expansion of, of accessibility, like audio description. And you don't, I think, like you said, as far as what's been happening with Black Lives Matter, and this kind of like certainly there being a lot more focus on better, more of, and better representation of disability communities and media and in Hollywood that there are I think a lot of people and a lot of decision-makers who are being who are thinking or putting themselves in the shoes of people that they may be in a, in a more, in a way that they may be, haven't had to before to put it one way. And I think there is a lot more awareness around how to make things, you know, accessible and equitable for all people to partake in them. And I think another part of this and something that often comes up on this platform is the saying that accessibility is for everyone, certainly in the past when we've talked about, and we've talked about the different layers of that, but certainly when we've had episodes say talking more about captions, we've talked about, well, certainly captions as a form of accessibility were born out of the need. You know, specifically to serve people who are Deaf or hard of hearing, but that certainly people who are hearing use captions for a number of reasons, whether they have to have, you know, the TV off, but still want to have something on or, you know, whatever that may be, that certainly use it a lot. And it was interesting because we had a gentleman from the New York city mayor's office for people with disabilities, named Walae Sabri, who was on several months ago. And he talked about how he has some friends, who are cited that use audio, descriptive audio description for some of the content that they watch on like Netflix or what have you sometimes, cause they may be, want to be washing the dishes or doing something while they're, you know, consuming a show and maybe they might listen to it that way. So it, it, it also is something that can really serve people in ways that they may be aren't aware of if they don't even know what audio description is.
[Michele]: That's absolutely true. In fact, we, you know, I do lectures and I do panels and things like that. And sometimes depending on who my audience is, some people in my audience may be familiar with this. Some people may not be familiar. And two things I always say is that the equivalent of audio description, is that a caption? So why we will, why would we leave one community out of having the joy of another art form and experiencing and indulging in an art one, whether it's, it could be anything, it could be dance, it could be, you know, film could be all types of things. Now, that being said, it definitely is very not to similar to an audio book, but it's an audio movie. So for example, beyond cleaning the dishes and what have you, you could be driving your vehicle and you might happen to want to tune into something that it gives you the visual content. And in a way, I actually think it's a really good educational curve for some people, because one, I encourage people. I have people come over to my home and I do screenings and I ask them to close their eyes and open their eyes. And what have you, and most people that are in my life prefer to have the audio description on, even though they have their vision, because they said they heard so much more than they saw on screen, and it made it more robust and more full and experience. So for some we asked, we also have to address another subject matter here, which is also very important. I have to be respectful of this community. At times audio description can be very content heavy, right? It's a lot of words coming at you all the time. So not only are you listening to the content, you're listening to someone like me narrate it, and those that are on the spectrum on neurodiversity, or what have you. This might be information overload for them and to process as much information is not ideal for everybody. So there are other ways of taking that information. If there's other ways of pausing the media, there are ways of doing screening with open audio description, open captions, for those that can manage that there are those that can turn it off and just listen to it, them by themselves, in a room, there were other ways to experience it, but we also have to, we have to respect that. So it has its benefits for some, for others. It might work for a little while, then they have to turn it off for a little while. I I've talked to different people that, you know, express this to me. And of course I read a lot about this and I think that makes a lot of sense to me and I understand it, and we're coming a long way with that too, as we learn more about it.
[Doug]: That's a really good thing to think about and, you know, something, a space that I haven't really thought too much about myself. So you're even in just you bringing that up. It takes my mind into a lot of different places that I haven't really deeply considered yet myself. So really, really great to bring that up. We, I want to go to a question here from, from the audience Judith asks well she says, Michele, what motivated you to get into this specialty? I hear the passion in your voice and wonder if it was something personal.
[Michele]: Thank you. I like the fact she hears the passion in my voice. Most people say I'm very palpable. So I appreciate that without even actually having an opportunity to sit with me. This is a very unusual journey. One of which I didn't expect to be taking, I must tell you, and I believe this was a gift to me. I don't think there's been a happier time in my life, or I've never felt so should I say anchored and grounded as to my purpose on this planet? And I will say that with all my heart. And so my journey started a little bit differently. I'm a little bit older for those of you that can't see me, but I'm actually 57, almost 57. So I'm on the older side here, but that doesn't make it any less important. My college degree was in broadcasting and it was a dream to use my voice for my career. I digressed from that and I moved into marketing. So I never really pursued voice work. I then also was a philanthropist and supporting people with disabilities and seniors and veterans and underserved communities in the arts. And in which I have always felt the arts are the healers. I've always felt that way. All of us will identify with some art form. It may not be universal art form, but something where we're expressing something beyond our every day lives. And so that being said, my goal was to be sure that people had the opportunity and the choice to participate as an artist in an art form and or as a patron and an audience, or both on my dime. So I was a philanthropist for a number of years doing this work. And then at one point in time, I was approached by a friend of mine who I will never forget. And I'm indebted to forever for my life, a sort of detour who actually teaches people with disabilities primarily a lot with down syndrome in acting and singing and performing. And what have you, many of whom are now on television and on Broadway. And he had said to me, there's a gentleman who used to do the universal distribution and he's leaving the industry at the age of 50 to go into accessible media. And I said, I'm so sorry. I don't know what that is. Just like most people say to me. And so I thought, what, okay, so I need you to meet this person. And I did. And he had said to me, would you do me a favor? This is very unique. He said, would you do me a favor and go to a studio? The proprietor is Blind. They produce audio description. Some of their engineers are blind. And would you go in and voice a short film about a boy with a disability in this film is going to be part of a submission for an award process of which it did receive. And I went into the studio and I thought, I have no idea what this is, but okay, sure. Why not? And I ended up voicing it and I thought this is very unique. I was given one more opportunity to have to do a full length film called drunk driving blind Tod Purvis, and his brother. And this film was about two brothers who have the same eye disease of which they take a road trip around the United States. And this is their story. And one may or may, they didn't know where their vision, you know, process may go. One is now I believe, blind in the other, Tod himself is not, and they didn't have the money to make it accessible, and it was to be on a panel in Los Angeles. And so I was asked, would I be willing to voice it and possibly contribute to funding it? And I did. And at that point I always tell people, I walked out of the studio. I was four hours of my life. I'd never spent four hours sitting in a studio. I thought I was going to pass out and I walked outside and I felt like the universe wrapped a big red, juicy bell around me and said, I had, I really did. I had goosebumps from head to toe. This is why you're here. And I quit my marketing career immediately. And this is where I went forward. So the, the beautiful, the beautiful sort of full circle of this, this event in my life was not only was I able to financially contribute to people with disabilities to participate in the arts. I was now able to make the arts accessible with my voice. There is no greater gift that I've been given in this life. So that's really my story. Well, that's an incorrect
[Doug]: story. And, you know, I think it's, I think it's rare for people to experience purpose in, in such a specific moment like you did that you just described there is. And I think that's why everyone can hear the passion in your voice when, when you talk about this work, because, you know, clearly it really strikes such a deep chord in you as far as per you know, it being so purpose-driven for you. And that's, it's really amazing to hear the story behind that. I can certainly relate to, you know, being someone who in certain ways kind of like backed into this space and then really found a passion for it as well in the sense that, You know, Feeling Through was born out of this chance encounter a number of years ago for me, which kind of the path of being moved by that. And following that as led me into all this space and really finding a real passion for the communities that we serve here through this platform and all the people, all the amazing people I've gotten to connect with through that, through this platform. So I've definitely can relate in certain ways to some elements of your, of your story there as well.
[Michele]: It's wonderful. It's absolutely wonderful. I mean, it does take you in other directions, right? It takes you in other directions. And, and, you know, I want to add to that we never know where some of these things are going to move into and expand, right? So that being said, I, with this cause has come many other ways to expand this cause and to reach out further to the disability community and those associated with inclusivity and diversity and really the, the essence of inclusion in every which way we can. Right? So part of doing this work is sitting behind a microphone, frankly, and being unseen. Okay. And that's fine for a period of time at which, at which point in my career, I decided it was time to get out behind the microphone and get out front and start talking to people about it. Because when you, the voice behind the audio description and the person in front talking about it, and the importance of it, the, the, the, the, shall I say, the acceptance curiosity of wanting to know more, becomes more real. So I've done a number of panels. I've done a number of classes with people that have disabilities to teach them about how they might get into the industry. Where would they fit into this, this part of what I do. And I mentor some of these young people, some are not so young, and it's really rewarding to me because I get to see where they're going with it now. And in addition to that, I have created grants for individuals that are in grad school that are in film with disabilities. I have funded part of their scholarships that they could move forward in their careers. They've learned a lot from me. I've learned a lot from them. This has moved in so many directions, of which I would never have imagined. And so we just don't know. And for you, we don't know where you're about to go to because yours makes me even greater way beyond my world. But I just know that when we leave those options open and we just don't know where we're necessarily going to end up the forest or the trees, I just, that forest just keeps going. I just don't know. So I welcome lots of different opportunities. I welcome input to learn more and to serve as many communities as I can. And part of this is also asking the community and the world to step up and start providing more funding for this work. You know, a lot of the independent films don't have this funding. And when their films go to festivals, film festivals, they may or may not make it to distribution. We hope they will, but there's a lot of content out there. So in order for media to be consumed, even on a festival level, we want to be sure that media is already audio described and captioned. So that should it take a journey. And I pray that it does pass the festival level. Then that media goes along that journey. So when I work with a client and a filmmaker, I take them on, I take them under my wings. There's no question about it. If you're not interested in getting tucked under my wings, don't listen to me further. But when you come under my wings, you're going to have a learning curve and it's going to be a lot of advocacy. So I ask everybody to please indulge this experience. Let me teach you about what it is and let me have you also advocate for your film and your artistry that it reaches all these audiences. So I actually work with every client through the distribution process to be sure the media goes on every platform. And this is a lot of work by the way, this is not work I get paid for. I just feel this is important. So when I take on a client and I get a grant for audio description production, I make sure that this film is labeled. It's promoted. It's talked about that. Filmmaker teaches the next filmmaker. It's a domino effect, so part of what I do is very unusual compared to some people. And that's why I take on one project at a time. And then I do all my advocacy work and all my other disability community work alongside with all of this. So it really comes full circle, but most people don't understand that. One other thing I want to reflect on in the beginning of the conversation I should've mentioned and forgive me for not. For those of you that don't know how audio description is utilized, when an individual who's low vision or blind chooses to go to an actual movie theater cinema, there are headsets that they use. And in the headset, they're going to hear the audio only version of the description. So when we deliver our deliverables are, you know, when we're finished with our recordings and we're delivering the assets, that audio only is in our headset. So you're hearing a movie and then you're hearing someone like me. The other version is a mixed version. The mixed version goes along with all the media that you might turn on, on your television, on broadcast, anywhere else that you are taking in your media, and it's a mix, so you can turn it on and you don't have to have a headset. You just get to absorb the, the media as its natural organic process. And on your television, you might be turning on the SAP channel, which will give you your captions or give you your audio descriptions and option and a DVD. Or Blu-ray not everybody's using those anymore, but that's okay. I'm old. I remember DVDs and Blu-rays you have the DVDs and Blu-rays have the same option provided that the audio description made it that far. Not everybody puts it onto their DVDs, but I insist that they do if they can, right? So they turn it on just like the captions or they turn on the foreign language. So I just want people to understand there are other ways to take it in. There are other ways to share it, but not have to share with everyone you're sitting with many different ways. Just like those that go to the movie that are harder, hard of hearing and Deaf. They have a captioning bar that sits well, they also have some people have Google glasses for all. There's all types of things they're doing. Now, they have an app on the phone. Spectrum is using an app now for audio description, captions, foreign language. There's many ways now you'll see much more coming, but those of you that might have ever seen someone with a catchy name bar, it sits on their arm rest, and they're looking at the captions going across the bar. And so the headset of the audio description is the equivalent to that. So that's the best way to understand it.
[Doug]: Yeah. Well, very well put, I'm going to take a quick pause for an interpreter switch. Okay. All set. So continuing here, soaps so much great stuff that you got into there. One thing that I want to mention, you know, from, from the filmmaker's perspective, cause you talked about how things are certainly headed in the right direction, but that there's still a lot of content that's not audio described in it and that it would need to make it all the way to a certain point to really have that be something that, that gets that happens. Cause it's, you know, when it gets into distribution, but for all that content that maybe doesn't get like larger distribution does still have that. The audio described, you know, I know, you know, with Feeling Through, for instance, which is, you know, one of the many films out there that was made on a budget and in our case, it's a short film. So it's a lot easier to, to make an audio description track in the sense that it's just, there's less to describe because it's a shorter piece of content, but that was a case where I took on that duty and worked with several people to do that. But certainly there was a steep learning curve since that I watched a ton of audio content before I even attempted to start to work through it, because I really wanted to understand the conventions, how, like, like you mentioned, Michele, certainly different styles, but anything and anything that was consistent that I saw across it as far as how things were described, and in what manner. And so spend a long time studying that and then, wrote out my own a script for the audio description, which I then had a couple other writers write a version as well, because I wanted to know like, and I want them, this is going to turn into a question at the end of this for you, Michele, because something, from my perspective in mind, my one foray into this was that there's such an art to it because you line up 10 different people to watch the same clip and, you know, to write audio description for it. And they're gonna, they're gonna write 10 different versions of that. Like certainly there's going to be commonalities. And certainly they're seeing the same images on the screen, but the way in which the words that they choose to describe it and how they choose to describe it is going to be different for each one. So I wanted to make sure, you know, in certain ways I knew the film better than anyone, but in other ways I was so inside of it that I wanted to get other people's perspective on what they were seeing. So I reached out to a couple other writers to write their own transcript for it. And then we kind of merged the few together into what we thought was the best version. But then again, you know, this being my first, I also had, I had an idea of how I wanted to describe things, but then there's of course the actual space that you have to work in the audio description. So I had to then go back and rework it and figure out what, how to describe everything that's happening there, but do it in a more economical way because it was too, there's too many words in the previous version that didn't work out with the amount of time that I had to say the audio description. So it was just going through one round of it was really a master class and all the things that I learned to consider in this process and certainly have a very high regard for moving forward. I think the hope is that, you know, with the more, you know, to, to your point about being more of a voice for the, for the community of audio description and the importance of bringing awareness to it, is that the hope is that the more awareness there is, the more, this will start to be something that's worked into filmmakers budgets ahead of time, and is part of the deliverables of completing a film regardless of where it ends up. And that will be something that will be a nice thing to work toward, but, you know, I would highly suggest for anyone who's creating content out there certainly work with professionals. There's a reason why, you know, this is, this is a high level profession in and of itself because there's a real balance of art and expertise, but I would suggest just as an exercise take like a one minute clip of something that you've made and just try doing your own audio description as an exercise, cause you'll have a much better understanding of first of all, high regard for the execution of it, but also an understanding of why it's important and why it can be like a really interesting and new way to experience the content that's at hand, because I've found that I looked at the film in a completely different way, having to look at it through the lens of creating, you know, the audio description for it. And it was like an amazing creative exercise that had me have to really understand the content and the images in a way that I hadn't had to prior to that point.
[Michele]: So I, and that's very well said by the way, and you're absolutely correct. You're a perfect example of what that process is. Of course you probably got involved more than most. I will tell you that. Yes, of course, much of what I also I lecture about and, and on my panels and I speak about is that we do need to find a budget line, okay. Worked into the budget in advance. It should be something that isn't a luxury. It is a must if we can make this happen. And I, I say must with grace at the same time when I say that, but yours, part of what happens when, and I'm very, I must say I'm very particular about a lot of things and I'm a, I'm a perfectionist. So when I choose to work with certain writers or directors or editors, or what have you engineers, I've looked at a lot of different scripts. I've worked with various writers. I have a very good team of writers I'm very proud of. There is nothing that's ever going to be perfect and not everybody is going to love everything that comes out of that. Everyone has a different opinion about what word should be used. Every person has an opinion about what voice they like, how much should we have said? Not said, I accept that reality. When I do feel very comfortable saying is it is a process. Each film is its own life in terms of how we develop that audio description. Sometimes it works better than others. Sometimes we have to rush things in and fit them in and squeeze them in. And boy, do I hate that? I don't think there's anything. I dislike more than feeling like I have to rush something and I sound like Minnie mouse or something. I don't know what happened. And that's like, that's the end, I'm over it at that point. Now I'm kidding. But that does happen. So what, what really has to happen is if you are working on a project, every filmmakers should be actually reading the script when it's done for corrected, it's sort of correcting any information, seeing if they like how things were described, by the way I've had people come back and say, do you think you could put this word in or do you think you could describe that Diply? Well, I then take it back. We get the time code. We might be able to mend part of it. Not all of it. We'd have to, we have to take this all into account. This is not an easy thing to do all the time. Especially documentaries in narratives. There's very little room for it. So we really, we just have to look at this right. And the best way we can, we do the best we can. And we have to accept the fact that we all have different opinions and different styles and different yeah. Things we like. And don't like, but most important isn't. And this is, if someone asked me what would be my greatest wish, what would be my pipe dream right now? It would be that it was mandated that all media was audio describing captioned, bottom line, all television, all film. The reason it's not is because it's not mandated. And it is a responsibility of those who have chosen to take this responsibility on and feel they want to include it. Some because of, for example, we know that, of course there's a number of hours per broadcast that required to be audio described, but wouldn't it be nice if everything was, we didn't have to pick and choose what was available. So we're still in that, in on that. Let you know, we're still in that lane, but from what I gather, yeah. I believe most films now are required to be captioned. From what I gather. It is not been required to be audio described. That's why people, we have to go out and talk to people and say, would you consider this? And that's an ask and not everybody is willing to do it, nor do they know enough about it. And one other thing I want to point out, you might think that the average person may not know about this in general, right. In the world. Understandably. Why would they, right then it's sort of an in-store conversation between post-production houses, maybe entertainment, entities, maybe filmmakers. There's still an enormous percentage, even in the entertainment field, in the directing field and the producing field in the post-production field. And, and by the way, much bigger way, the distribution world that don't know about this. So we're educating all of them. So what other options do we have then to keep talking about it until which time maybe one day it becomes mainstream, but that's the reality of where we are and that's why we are where we are. And so advocacy is number one, and then social responsibility is number two. Do you want to take this on or not? And it's a choice and everybody has a choice to make it, they have the funds they do, if they don't, they don't
[Doug]: You to add to your, your hopes for the, your dream for the future. You know, I think some really incremental steps that shouldn't be too hard to implement with. Just there being more awareness around this. I, you know, I'd love for plot, just widely use platforms, like say YouTube to have it easily that you can upload it as like, and have it be like a toggle button, like you would for captions and have that be something that can be integrated into the same link. So that's something that you can easily toggle on and off for those that do have audio described versions of content or are inclined to make that. I think that would be such a great, just think something that feels like it can happen immediately if there was an inclination to do so. I imagine that's not that hard compared to a lot of other things that would happen. That's already there now. Oh. So, so there, isn't like a toggle function that you can,
[Michele]: I haven't tried it myself, but I've been told that that no exist. So maybe it's in beta, I don't know stages, but I haven't tried that myself. And I think that's great. And may I also interject and say that Vimeo of all things because of the amount of media I deal with and films and what have you Vimeo absolutely should have that option. I have filmmakers I'm working with currently who are doing educational distribution. They actually have to post several versions of their film. So would open captions, open audio description one with out, this is, this is in my opinion, Vimeo, it should be an automatic, especially in the virtual world that we are right now. So I believe YouTube has stepped up. I believe Facebook has something they built in a number of years ago. I'm not quite sure what it is and everyone's going to be now including all techs, because that's what we're able to do now and bring that into the sphere. But it is not they have not made this easy. And I might add also, and I, I'm very disappointed about this and this sense, many films I've worked on recently. And I, I don't choose to identify which ones they are. They're some very large feature films I've worked on and documentaries recently. And unfortunately, during the pandemic, the very sad part about it is their distribution on a virtual platform via a distribution platform it's not accessible. So my audio description is not being experienced on the virtual platform of their distribution. So it's, let's say for example, a film has to be shown in a virtual distribution to a number of cinemas that we all know very well. Okay. And all of a sudden you might think, Oh, terrific, I'm going to turn on the mix because they have the mix. We gave them the mix. Can't do it because their technology or what platform they've chose does not accommodate. So there's a huge gap during this particular time. And unless that media makes its way to Amazon prime or to Hulu, or what have you, or to Netflix, then those films will not be experienced by those I care so much about who will want to experience these films. They'll have to wait until it comes out on broadcast and or other platforms. So I'm very frustrated with this particular time because of that. So there are advantages during this time of awareness, there's disadvantages of technology.
[Doug]: Yeah. Yeah. And certainly, you know, I I've seen definitely improvement in certain capacities during this time, because like you said, with everyone doing everything virtually, there's been a little bit more of a focus on it. So I've definitely seen, you know, more platforms instituting say like auto-generated captions and more accurate. Auto-generated captions has been a nice step in the right direction. That's really great to hear about the YouTube option with audio description. I'm going to look into that more. I haven't seen that pop-up but it may be it's in beta or maybe it's just now being instituted, but certainly like you said, should be on Vimeo too. I mean, these are kind of like, you know, when, when you're a platform, that's all about media and hosting media. These are things that at the very least, if people have these things, you should have the option to be able to, you know, have them all be a part of one link and be able to toggle things on and off. We're at a place where that feels like that's a bare minimum, you know, bottom line thing that we need to be at, for sure.
[Michele]: I agree. You know, the other thing is some interesting outcomes also during this time, and again, we have to take into account, there will be some audience that it'll be info overload for them. But for example, I worked on the ADA 30 and the end game, which are towards, you know, disability communities, employment, the anniversary of the ADA. And I just finished doing the media access awards, which is fantastic, you know, wonderful program. And the only way that we could do this is do open audio description. Well, the media access awards, there are two postings. One is with open captions and the remainder of the program. And there's another option of open captions and audio description open-ended description like mine, and with NDEAM and with ADA 30, it was posted, I believe on Facebook. And it was purposely chosen to have open audio description interpreters and open captions. And in which case, given we were serving a disability community and everybody was being honored at that time, it really was appropriate in many ways to do that. And many people in this is really important. There's a nuance here. I want to point out. So I also work on other video content, for example, for the disability rights advocates, right? And the DRA has a promotional, or I say promotion and say, promotional a fundraising video to help raise money every year. And they usually have large gallons. And I audio describe the videos in which what we do is we have built in, on, in the, on sort of the onset of this process, which by the way, it's very different. So you'll understand this. This is before we're coming in, after the media has already produced, we're coming in and producing it with them. And we're working my narrative and my audio description into one, so that all audience members find this, should I say more easily digestible because you can't quite, you can't quite figure out what exactly is it? Oh, interesting. I was told a little more than I, Oh, but isn't that the narration. So that's part of what we've done and that works quite well with certain things, but with an audience that's in, you know, asking funding to come forward at something like the DRA, why would we have a video that doesn't show them what audio description is? And by the way, the DRA, without the DRA, Netflix would never be using audio description. And they were the first to be doing it. They are the ones who were responsible for it. That's a much longer story and that's a legal story, but my point being, they also were responsible for Hulu and they also are responsible for HBO max. So I said at one point, excuse me, I think do these open audio describing, we need to tell everybody. So last year the gala was at the national history museum in New York. And I made a presentation. I got up and I said, please let me present this video. Let me explain to them before they listened to, they're not bewildered by this voice, what am I doing? Why am I doing it? And I wanted also to thank the DRA for all their efforts of why we have accessible media now in certain streaming platforms. And boy did that work when they heard the boys talking about it, then they heard the voice narrating. It, it all came together. It was a connect. It wasn't a disconnect. It was a connect.
[Doug]: That's so interesting to describe that literal just like kind of visceral connection that someone makes from hearing your voice, talk about it and then hearing it in the content itself. That's like, yeah. Cause I think one of the things about media is that it's happening in very, it's having an F a very subconscious effect on viewers right. In a lot of different ways. And I think you've kind of aptly described one way in which the connection of your voice talking about it in front of people versus them than hearing it in the media, make some sort of, kind of deeper understanding that that each one on its own wouldn't necessarily do to that same degree.
[Michele]: Yeah. And when I do presentations, I show clips of my work and I was like, I explained to them what it is. Again, they're able to assimilate this in a different way, and I say, please close your eyes and open your eyes and tell me what happened for you at that moment. Did you understand why this is so important? And everybody does only,
[Doug]: You know, you have an amazing voice. So certainly, you know, there's some genetics that play into this as well as being a voiceover artist and someone who, you know, was, was gifted with a beautiful instrument to be able to be such a great voice for the work that you do. I'm wondering, you were talking about the different styles and, and I thought it was really interesting to hear that someone like you, who also has a lot of work come your way, that you're, you're choosing what you decide to work on that, you know, both in just like maybe the team associated with it, but also the content itself, what you feel your voice is best suited for. How did you kind of find your style or approaches it's something that kind of organically happened, or, you know, how did, how did you find your, your spot in all of this?
[Michele]: Wow, that's a ver I've never, I've been interviewed many times and I've never been asked that question. That's a good question, by the way, okay, I'm going to try to answer this in the best way. I know how and I hate using the word. So forgive me. I don't think at the same time, I can't bear it when people use the word. And I just used it probably a hundred times. I want to say, okay, there is a resonance for me personally, on this level, because my background one is I'm also a singer. I don't perform. No, I used to perform. So singing is very melodic. It, there's a, mellifluous sort of tone that goes with that. Number one, number two, I am not one. Who's going to try to sell you something with my voice or make it up. I'm not going to act. And I know a lot of people say, voice actors are doing this work, and yes, they are. I am really at part more of a broadcaster journalist, I'm going to tell you the truth. So something happened when I started voicing this work, I felt an enormous responsibility to relate to someone who doesn't have their vision. Exactly what I am seeing, that they can translate by what I'm telling them. So I have a very big responsibility. So my tone is one in which I hope, and I can't say everybody loves it. I don't know, but I hope they trust my voice because that's where I'm coming from. It's coming from a place of authenticity of trust and sort of a journalistic approach. But I also know many people have told me and many enough for me to know that the way my voice translates to them is very comforting. And if that's what I've brought to this art form, then my goodness, I'm incredibly honored to think that's how they feel. And if my voice lies gently on ears of those that don't have their vision and they, they, they really enjoy that process in which they're taking in the media. Well, then I've done my job. Well, I hope, I don't think I'm always as good as I am at other times because the content and sometimes the scripts and things I'm working with, make it a little bit more dry and make it a little bit more challenging. But yes, when, when I respond to the question of how I've chosen to take on content. So I have also initiated, which is very exciting. Over the years, I've initiated programs in women, in film, New York women in film and television. I have created the first grants ever for finishing film Gramps for audio description and captions. And because of that, I see films that come past that I get to choose from. And I look at them at first, I look at them not because does my voice match them, but does the content match what I believe I want to stand behind and do I want to give this person a grant? Do I want to elevate this message to those that don't have the vision? So most of my content is about truth telling much of it, some of it not, and some of which I'm very good, well suited for in other ways, but I am hired to do this work as well. And I will often say to somebody, I don't think I should do that project. I have the luxury to do that, but many people are doing this and doing this day in and day out. I do this in combination with all my other work and advocacy work. So that's how I chosen to do it. But because I work in the field of disability awareness and advocacy and inclusion, a lot of content that I've covered also is about disability subjects or those that have disabilities that are making media. So again, I'm up close and personal. So I consider everything I work on very intimate for me. I really want to get close to the media. And there was a time by the way, when many people would go into this work and again, going to do this work, and I have tremendous, tremendous respect for them often, they didn't see the films beforehand. They're watching the films and doing the audio description while they're there and they're doing it off. You know, they're, they're very good at it. I'm not so good at that. I'm much better at having the luxury and opportunity to watch this media and say, Oh, this is juicy. I can do this. I want to do this. And so again, I'm a little bit different that way, but now because of the virtual world media, of course, some people are working with media at home and they're doing a lot of this work from home. So they're having the opportunity to watch some media. So things have shifted in that way, but I don't have that gift to go and dry. I wouldn't, I don't think I'd sound very good by the way
[Doug]: That is quite, yeah. That is quite challenging. I imagine that's a really special skill set that if you're going to do that at a high level, I, I can only imagine there's a small handful of people that would really be able to do that.
[Michele]: Well, it's going, it's like going in for an audition. Are you prepared for that audition? Are you told everything? Absolutely not. Do I want to go in for an audition? No, thank you.
[Doug]: Yeah. Well, but I'm wondering, you know, we, we've talked about how there's such distinct styles and approaches. Do you find that certain voiceover artists in this field start to get a following because people like their particular approach and, and voice and style and delivery,
[Michele]: I would imagine. So I think there are people that are more familiar that are doing a lot of content of a certain realm that are known for it, and they recognize their voice. It's like an audio book, narrator, certain people like the same audio book narrator. I would imagine some like the same audio description narrator, and they like to follow them as well, depending on the amount of content you do. So I think, again, it's very personal, it's a personal choice. And some, as I said, I have voiceover artists that I hire to work with me for certain things that I know are the right people. And I cast very carefully who those people are. I'll give you an example. I did the Ron Howard cover Roddy documentary. And that was a very laborious process in doing that from an honor, by the way, the ultimate honor to work on a project like that. But not only was I dealing with describing the entire film as a narrator and all the text on screen, which was quite a bit because we're historically going back to his career, I also have to then audio describe all the opera lyrics, as well as all the subtitles of the Italian dialogue that was taking place. So I hired two Italian voice artist, one to do all the opera supertitles and a female to do all the subtitles. And I narrated all the rest, lots of work to work. So I pick and choose those people specifically. As far as who I, who I think would be well-suited. So what's interesting for me is I'm not only a voice artist doing this, or however you want to call me, call me whatever you want, just as long as it's nice. I have worked all sides of this other than sitting behind engineering this and working in that area and editing it and mixing it. I have worked all sides of this, so I understand all the different sides, the casting, my work, everything that comes into play here. So I have a very rich, full sort of full circle experience around what this has been over seven years. And I've moved into different areas of it as I've moved forward in it, and I will continue to do so. The other thing I want to mention to you, which most people don't talk about there is also when you go, when this work is done and they're mixing the audio description into the actual media, not the audio only, which is specifically for digital cinema packages. At some point, some people use it for other streaming things, but let's just say for purposes of this conversation, my particular editor, and who does the mixing and the engineering is actually leveling out the sound so that I'm not too loud, the contents not too loud, and that we're coming in and complimenting each other. And we do the best we can. Sometimes we're also moving some of the media, they use the stems, which is part of, that's probably not for most people to hear about, but the stems is where the reading sound and we're using those stems to move a little bit of the media to give room for a little bit more. So there is an art form just in that, but that's a whole nother conversation, but I think I'll throw that in for the mix today.
[Doug]: So with the last like 30 seconds or so we have here, are there any, any closing thoughts you'd like to share?
[Michele]: Oh my goodness. I think I'd like to, first of all, thank you so much for having me and allowing me the opportunity to talk about this as much as I possibly can. And thank you for the work that you do. I don't think your listeners probably know that I did a project for Helen Keller. I took 25 students to see School of Rock on my dime, the live Broadway show with the audio description headsets. I took them to a lunch, a private luncheon with some of the actors there to tell them about careers in the world of performing arts. And it was probably the largest contribution I've ever made for one single day event. But thank you. And thank everybody who spreads the word about audio description and consumes it and shares it with those that have vision or don't have vision or low vision, anything at all. Please keep talking about it. The more you talk about it, the more we're going to learn.
[Doug] Well, thank you, Michele so much for joining us today. It was really, I mean, I've been curious to get more into a really in-depth discussion about audio description. So it's a privilege to be able to do it with you. I certainly learned a lot today, and it was just, yeah, it was just great to have you on, I hope to continue to stay in touch in the future. And absolutely. And thank you of course, to all of you who tuned in today. We will be back next week for our final Feeling Through Live of the year, being that we'll be headed into Christmas right after that, and then the new year. So we're looking forward to that and until then have a great weekend and see you next week. Happy holidays. Bye.