Methods and Technologies of Audio Description for Film and Television

An audio description is a set of techniques developed predominantly for blind and visually impaired people, in which the visual information of audiovisual material (film, play, opera, etc.) is transferred into a written text that is then presented acoustically (see also Benecke 2014a: 1 f.). The resulting product is called an audio described film, audio described theatre performance or audio described opera. The text created from the visual information should not interfere with the still available acoustic information of the original product. It has to be expressed in a way that dialogue as well as important music and sound effects (for example the arias in operas) are not compromised.