Audio Description as more than a bare minimum.
Sometimes Audio Description exists only to check an accessibility box. What if it was thought about differently?
Ideas Worth Trying
Along the lines of an idea from an interview with Chris Danielsen, Juan Alcazar suggests an informative prologue that introduces a story's elements in a way that fits the genre, rather than a generic disclaimer before the story starts.
The Voice as a Character
What if the Audio Description voice was a character inside the story, with its own point of view?
An Audio Easter Egg
What if Audio Description gave blind audiences something extra: a detail, a joke, a moment built into the track that only they get, the same way sighted audiences get visual easter eggs that reviewers write essays about.
Description as Part of the Story
Instead of layering Audio Description on top of a finished piece, what if it were incorporated as an essential element of the story itself, something built into the work from the start rather than added after?
What Description Reveals About Perception
Video can deceive all of us. Political views shape how people read the same news footage. Perception experiments show people so focused on one task, like looking for something specific, that they miss the obvious sitting right in front of them. Give someone a specific thing to look for, and their attention narrows around it.
How enriching might it be, even for sighted audiences, to have Audio Description supplementing their own perception instead of only replacing what they can't see? One version of this: the same neutral video, described twice, each track carrying a different performer's bias, so the gap between the two becomes the point.
Add to This List
These are starting points, not a finished list. To contribute more ideas, email admin@kevinsway.com.