Audio Description Associates offers AD training in workshop formats ranging in length from forty-five minutes to three hours. Full training, often conducted in communities wishing to develop an AD service for live performing arts events, ranges in length from two and one-half days to five days.
I was honored to host your visit to Sofia, Bulgaria for five days of expert audio description training. Your skill as a trainer has inspired our budding describers to pursue this important access technique. Your eVorts introduced AD in my country for the first time ever and we are now planning to conduct a regional seminar for organizations from around Bulgaria, and from Greece, Turkey, Hungary, and Romania.
Jordan Stefanov
Chairman, CONCEPTS Bulgaria Foundation
Sofia, Bulgaria
Outcomes
At the conclusion of the training or workshop presentation, participants will know or experience:
- who are “the blind”?
- the history of Audio Description
- active seeing and visual literacy
- how to develop skills in concentration and observation
- the art of “editing” what you see
- how to use the spoken word to make meaning
- developing an Audio Description program
Format
The training or workshop presentation involves approximately 30% lecture, 20% video and slides presentation, and 50% participation.
Presenter
As one of the nation’s first audio describers and having trained audio describers in a dozen states and abroad, Joel Snyder will share his 20+ years of experience with audio description and services for people who are blind or have low vision including the screening of excerpts from nationally broadcast videos with the description written and voiced by Mr. Snyder.
Sample Schedule – Full Training
Day One (evening)
7:00 pm – 9:30 pm:
- Introductions and Opening Workshop
- The Visually Impaired User
- Audio Description History and Theory
- The Four Tenets of Audio Description
- Concentration and Observation
Day Two (9:30 am – 6:00 pm)
9:30 am – 11:15 am:
- Audio Description exercises – still images
- Speech, Breath Control, and Oral Interpretation
11:15 am – 11:30 am:
- break
11:30 am – 12:30 pm:
- View mini-documentaries on AD, plus other media samples
12:30 pm – 1:15 pm:
- lunch
1:15 pm – 3:15 pm
- View and analyze AD excerpts
3:15 pm – 3:30 pm:
- break
3:15 pm – 6:00 pm:
- Practicum: Individual description sessions with selected video scenes
Day Three (10:00 am – 4:00 pm)
10:00 am – 12:30 pm:
- Practicum: Individual description sessions with selected video scenes (continued)
12:30 pm – 1:15 pm
- lunch
1:15 pm – 3:00 pm:
- Practicum: Individual description sessions with selected video scenes (continued)
3:00 pm – 4:00 pm:
- Mechanics and Logistics of Building and Maintaining an Audio Description Program
- Summary
- Closing Remarks