A debate continues among audio description users: Should audio description narrators perform in a neutral style which mirrors the objective quality of description or opt for a more performance-oriented cadence which reacts to each scene’s tone? There is a case to be made for either style but, despite this disagreement, AD users seem to agree on at least one thing: Text-to-Speech (TTS) narration is terrible.
I have a lot of conversations with visually impaired people about audio description. Regardless of the specific aspect of the medium under discussion or the type of person I’m talking with, folks almost universally offer a list of titles with audio description they like, without prompt. It was strange to me, when I began watching the titles they suggested, that many of them had quite poor description.
What is Audio Description? The classic question. You can find the answer on almost any post production company’s website in brief or extreme, but always dry, detail. For the fans at home, let’s do this one last time: What is audio description?
