LiveDescribe Weeks 7&8

Week 7: June 15th – 19th, 2009. Week 8: June 22nd – 26th, 2009.

We held a workshop last week to teach others about the LiveDescribe program, and audio description itself. It went well, the use of the program was received well, and many of the group members that were involved found the program easy to use. So that’s exciting, that it is found to be accessible and usable.

The Program:
- I often run into issues of cutting off my voice when recording - - I need to be sure to allow an extra moment after my dialogue during recording before clicking the stop button.

- Also, I still get the “failed description” pop-ups. Sometimes they appear, sometimes they don’t. I don’t understand why it happens.

Description Issues:
- I find that sometimes when I’m describing some things I get a bit ahead of myself, for the simple reason that I already know so much about the show. For example, I was recording description for the 1st episode of Degrassi Junior High. When the character of Yick is first introduced, for a first time audience-member, his name is still unknown. I found myself describing him as Yick, but then I had to remind myself that he is a new student, and any viewer who watches this episode does not know his name until the character introduces himself. This occurs early on into the scene, but I think that the experience of an audience member collecting information for themselves is important, and that as a knowledgeable describer, I should not mess with the series of events that lead to certain information being revealed to the audience member. It is important to remember to give information as it is meant to be received, not give the information just because I, the describer know that it is so.

- Another issue that I’m running into is the following: as I am working to find an exciting, entertaining way of describing, I find that I sometimes sound over-dramatic. This may come from a concern of sounding monotonous which I am trying to avoid at all costs. I just hope that it does not reach a point of over-doing it to the point where the description isn’t taken seriously. I need to trust that the point is being sent across without needing to over-emote in my voice.

- Clarity is extremely important in descriptions. When describing it is important to be aware of the most important words in the description sentence so that the point of the description is not missed. For example, in my Daybreak Episode, I recorded the following sentence: “Detective Hopper bends down to pick up the papers revealing a gun inside his jacket”. Listening back to that recording, the word “gun” gets lost in the sentence. I need to always ask myself: what is the important word or subject that drives the sentence that should not be missed during the description?

Newly Posted Descriptions at www.livedescribe.com:
- Degrassi High – Season 1 Episode 3 – Breaking Up is Hard to Do
- Degrassi Junior High – Season 1 Episode 1 – Kiss Me Steph