Audio Description Services

GetBraille.com provides Audio description services for home videos along with corporate training and marketing videos. Making media accessible to all is a critical aspect of promoting diversity and inclusion. When media is accessible to all individuals, regardless of their abilities, it ensures that everyone has an equal opportunity to participate in and benefit from media content. Audio description is designed to enhance the accessibility of the media experience for those who are blind or have other disabilities.  Contact us to design a customized description solution for your visual media including films and animations. 

An image of eighties style film scenes in reds violets and yellows including humans and repeated images depicting progress.

Why audio description?

The goal of audio description is to provide a complete understanding of the program to those who cannot see it or struggle for other reasons to interpret the information on screen. It is an additional audio track that narrates the relevant visual information in a video or performance, including important details such as actions, facial expressions, costumes, settings, and body language that are often taken for granted by most viewers. Descriptions are usually inserted into natural pauses in the program’s dialogue or sound effects, and do not interfere with the original soundtrack. Descriptions are designed to be as objective as possible, avoiding interpretation or opinions that might influence the viewer’s experience. By providing detailed information about the visual content, the audio description track allows viewers to create a mental image of what’s happening, and to follow the plot without missing important details.

What types of audio descriptions are available?

Standard audio description insert explanations of the scene within natural pauses of the content. While extended audio description pauses the original content to create room for longer explanations when necessary. Extended audio description is useful when the original content has few natural pauses or there is a lot of visual information to describe. Most videos can be described with standard audio description, however training or instructional videos often lend themselves to extended audio description due to the amount of visual information to describe. 

Our team at GetBraille.com provides two categories of audio descriptions:

Audio description serves all

For training and instructional videos, audio description has universal benefits in addition to accommodating individuals with visual impairments. It can be a useful tool for individuals with different learning styles or needs, as it provides an additional means of receiving information through the medium of audio. For individuals on the autistic spectrum, audio description can help them better understand emotional and social cues demonstrated through actions or facial expressions. Auditory learners retain information best through sound, and listening is a crucial step in learning language and associating it with appropriate actions and behaviors. Audio description can be helpful for individuals who are learning English as a second language, as it can aid in language acquisition and comprehension.

For described films including TV shows and movies, individuals without disabilities are discovering that audio description can be enjoyed as a compliment and/or alternative to watching a video. It provides an immersive experience that allows individuals to fully understand the plot and not miss any details. Audio description can also help point out key visual elements that may have been missed. Some people use audio description as a way to consume video content while multitasking, converting the movie into an immersive audio book experience.

Where do we come in?

GetBraille.com is your one-stop shop for providing audio descriptions for your content. Our team of talented professionals will write, narrate, and add descriptions to your media with the utmost care and precision. Let us help you create high-quality audio descriptions that accurately portray the essential content of your media.

  • Our commitment to accuracy means that there will not be any errors in word choice, pronunciation, diction, or enunciation.
  • We understand that prioritizing content that is essential to comprehension and enjoyment is of the utmost importance. Therefore, our descriptions will only portray what is physically observable, rather than motivations or intentions.
  • Our audio descriptions will remain consistent with your media’s style, tone, and pace.
  • We’ll announce on-screen text and introduce new people, ensuring a seamless viewing experience for all audiences.
  • We’ll keep the intended audience in mind when creating our descriptions, ensuring that they are neutral, simple, and succinct. Our team understands that equal access requires conveying the meaning and intention of your content without injecting personal interpretations or opinions.

At GetBraille.com, we understand the importance of equal access to media. Contact us today for a quote and let us help you make your content more inclusive.

The History of Audio Description

Audio description was first developed in the 1970s by Gregory Frazier, a professor at San Francisco State University. In the 1980s, audio described programs were developed for live performances, and in 1987, Descriptive Video Services (DVS) was created to provide audio description for television viewers. Audio description has since spread to other mediums such as live theater productions, exhibition tours, planetarium programs, TV, online streaming services, and other media. With the increasing consumption of video, it is important to be inclusive of those who can’t access the information in the traditional manner.

Patrons fill a movie theater with red seats absorbed in an animated cartoon. On screen, a man on his phone holding a briefcase absently walks away from a shop where he's just upset a fruit cart with fallen oranges, bananas and watermelons on the sidewalk. A woman clutching a broom stares his way. The bearded shop keeper yells after the man as he picks up the fallen fruit. In the shop's window, a sign is visible reading "falling prices! save big!"