Sound Cinema: Experiencing film through audio description

Twenty Thousand Hertz

Dallas Taylor

Design, Music, Music Commentary, Arts

4.9 • 4.5K Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2021

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Matthew Shifrin was growing up, his blindness meant that trying to enjoy a movie or TV show was often a confusing and frustrating experience. But then, Matthew discovered something called video description—an extra audio track where a narrator describes the action on screen. And suddenly, everything changed. This story comes from the Radiotopia podcast Blind Guy Travels. Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced by ⁠Defacto Sound⁠. Subscribe on⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to see our video series. If you know what this week's mystery sound is, tell us at⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠mystery.20k.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Support the show and get ad-free episodes at⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠20k.org/plus⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Follow Dallas on⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠ ⁠Facebook⁠⁠, and⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join our community on⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Reddit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Hiring? Sign up at Indeed.com/Hertz and get a $75 credit to sponsor your first job post for better visibility, more applications, and quicker hiring times. Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp at betterhelp.com/20k. Visit monday.com/podcast for your free two-week trial. Subscribe to Blind Guy Travels wherever you get your podcasts. Episode transcript, music, and credits can be found here: https://www.20k.org/episodes/listeningtothemovies Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to 20,000 Hertz.
0:06.6	I've always been fascinated by the unique relationships that people have with sound.
0:11.7	And for people who are blind or have low vision, sound is a crucial part of how they navigate the world.
0:17.9	October is Blindness Awareness Month, and in honor of this, we're making a three-episode
0:22.3	series about the Blind Experience.
0:24.8	It'll start with a story from another podcast, followed by two original episodes.
0:29.6	Today's story comes from a podcast called Blind Guy Travels.
0:33.3	It's a lovely and fascinating journey into how the blind community experiences movies and television.
0:39.2	When I first heard it, I knew it would be the perfect story to kick off this limited series.
0:44.2	So without further ado, here's host Matthew Schifrin.
0:47.5	We're at the Bradle Theatre in Cambridge, and we're going to see Duck Soup by the Marks Brothers.
1:03.0	And Ben will be the one describing it.
1:06.0	Hello.
1:07.0	Meet my friend Ben.
1:08.0	A friend of Matthews for several years.
1:10.0	He's a movie buff, but with a hidden talent.
1:12.6	And I whisper descriptions of what's on the screen to him as it goes.
1:15.6	Very quickly.
1:16.6	Very quickly.
1:17.6	I have a bad habit of talking too fast, which I guess comes in useful for certain descriptions,
1:21.6	but I try to...
1:22.6	You just slow down.
	...

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