Audio Description (part 2) - Francois Jacobs

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John Simpson 0:30
Hello and welcome to the New Horizons Summer Series. I'm John Simpson, thanks for joining us. My guest today is BCA member, and until very recently, BCA director, Francois Jacobs. Welcome back to New Horizons. Francois.

Francois Jacobs 0:44
No John, thanks for having me.

John  0:47
Francois, this year's New Horizons summer series, we're, of course, focusing on audio description, and

Francois  0:55
you made some interesting comments at a symposium organised by Curtin University that I was part of a few weeks ago. So I thought we'd talk a little bit about your work in the area of audio description and particularly what you're doing as a quality control advisor with SBS Television. How did that all come about?

Francois 1:18
It was actually through BCA, just one day on the Weekly announced this more than a year ago now, I saw an ad for SBS looking for people are blind or vision impaired to apply for the roles of audio quality, audio description, quality controller or audio described content writer or a voice artist. So then I applied for that. They gave us a test script, so we got the actual movie, and then the post production script, which describes what would be seen on the screen, and then we came up with our you know what I would have liked to be described and based on that, I was picked or was really fortunate, and yeah, that was the start of my journey.

John 2:10
So your background, of course, in providing services to people with disability in the information technology area would have stood you in good stead for that. But were they looking for any particular qualifications?

Francois  2:24
I suppose, well, definitely lived experience. There was where, you know, that's betas of it all. And I guess your ability to articulate, a feel for language to be concise and accurate, yeah, I guess a love of language, because audio description is not a scienc, it is an art form, so there's a bit of artistry involved as well.

John 2:51
Yes, and you went through some training as part of that.

Francois  2:57
Oh, yes. We both, Sally Koronaris and I, who were the two audio script and quality controllers. We got trained by the very well-credentialled and friend Matthew, which some of the users of listeners might be familiar with. So we we had a two full day training course where she sent us various scripts and talked us through the theory. We got a style guide to work through as preparation, and we workshopped various we even tested various ways in which we would do this quality control, because that's also it was also totally new for SBS. They've never done it before, so we were part of a like trial and error process, and we came up with a... way of getting the scripts in advance, quickly reading through it. 

But the main work happens in person, or, shall I say, online, but when you working directly with the audio description producer in real time, where they would read the time based audio description that was proposed for this to be used with the program, and then we would interrogate the script for consistency, for clarity. Does it make sense? How should we improve it to make sure that somebody who can't see what's on the screen isn't being confused by inaccuracies?

John 4:35
So this one might be a little bit outside your knowledge base, but what do you think SBS were particularly looking for in involving people such as yourself and Sally in this process?

Francois 4:47
Victoria Hunt, who is their disability access and inclusion officer on the diversity panel, became aware that you [indistinct] Audio Description. The industry in other countries, especially the United States, also involve people with lived experience of blind and blindness and vision impairment. The... you can't imagine what other people's lives are like, and you also can't, people don't necessarily know where their memory comes from when they see something on the screen. And the the real test is when somebody comes in, and she had a very good sense of that, that somebody who does not have the benefit of seeing what's on the screen, are totally dependent on what you say, and when what you say is suddenly inconsistent, it might confuse the person who such as me.

So she just had a very good sense of that, and felt that, I guess she also read feedback based on what was done in other countries, and she took the step to implement it with SPS. And I really think, based on feedback that we've received, it really does make a difference having people with lived experience in the roles. 

John
So at what point in the process do you get involved? I mean, the, I guess the television production has has been put together. to some extent, it might be finally edited, but it's in the can, as they say in the industry, at what point do you as a quality control advisor, get involved?

Francois  6:35
Yes, the the filming is totally complete. They... the audio description would have been written by a writer from, typically from a company such as [?Red B]. So those scripts come to the producer who then shares it with, with the quality controller, such as me. We've got the time stamps of exactly when the line is supposed to be delivered, and we line it up with the actual movie as it's playing. So we do a lot of pausing and rewinding and stuff, but it's literally, this is the last of the mixes that happens before it gets published. 

John
And what are you looking for? I guess there are some sort of checkpoints that you would you would continue to look for. I remember when you spoke at the symposium, you talked about things like continuity, and the one that I was really impressed to hear was you can't unsee something. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that theory.

Francois  7:43
Yeah, that's kind of what I meant in saying once you know something, you can't necessarily remember whether you've just seen it or did you also actually bother to write it down when you needed to... and that's where the quality controller comes in as a checkpoint, and we can immediately identify you've never, ever mentioned this one before. Where does it come from? So we make, we're focusing on the continuity in the consistency establishing the when, the where, the who, the what. It's very important that the you know that our viewers are totally engaged and not unnecessarily confused by the accidental leaving out of some crucial information and continuity. 

John
I guess that was the other point that you were making, which, of course, ties into what you've said, but I guess that's important as well. 

Francois  8:47
Yeah, it's like they're referring to a shack. So they walked up to the shack, and next time when they talking about a shed, now I'm wondering, is this the same building? It's like you could have it's like, it's the equivalent of showing a different photograph to somebody else. So why would you confuse a blind person - you know, just use the same word for the same object.

John  9:09
So once you've been through the process of identifying these various matters that need some attention, how are they then integrated back into the production?

Francois  9:21
We... on the fly, we change it. So I might immediately, you know, I would stop the reading when it's appropriate. We might, I might ask the producer to describe what's actually happening on the screen, you know. So we, it's a collaboration where we, we both agree on the lines that we would like to be recorded instead of what we received from the writer, they update the script in real time, recompile it and then send it off. 

We had a few opportunities lately where we actually send a script to back to the actual director of a show for input, for cultural inputs, especially with SBS, because I do very culturally diverse material, which some somebody like me as a white Caucasian male, I'm not necessarily, I do not know all Indian wedding customs, so that's when we get a little bit of feedback from then [?Wendy's] history. It's a bit of cultural QC as well. But in general, we change the script as needed, and that is in what's get, what gets booked in to be recorded by the voice artist. Now I think you might have just given us a hint as to one of the programs that you worked on. 

John
Would I be right in saying that you had a role with Four Years On, Four Years Later? 

Francois
Yes, Four Years Later. It was such fun to work on that I would highly recommend, not just because I've been working on it, but also for we we can only improve if we receive feedback from people. So I would really encourage our listeners to go check it out. It's currently out.

John  11:12
And what other programs have you been involved in?

Francois  11:15
One of the first ones that I did for about eight episodes... so for me, it was a big deal.. it was called While the Men Are Away, and it's set in the Second World War. It is satirical comedy, whatever. But I really, really enjoyed. It was such, such a pleasure to work on that it's, it's amazing when you... I guess it's, you know, you've... found your calling. When you work really, really hard, and after the end of the day, you think, Oh, am I actually getting paid for this?

John  11:53
Well, you're not getting paid for this interview. But thank you very much for you for your time and your insights on the production of audio description, at least as it's undertaken at SBS Television. Do you see much room for expansion of this work?

Francois  12:12
Current budgets, not in the short term, they it's a very limited budget. Of course, we all really holding out for the upcoming changes to legislation, if that happens for the minimum required hours for audio description, and hopefully standing beyond just SBS. I mean, ABC is doing a lot of content, but they don't currently use quality controllers or blind or vision impaired script writers or voice artists like SBS, so they we're really hoping that the scope would increase.

John 12:51
Francois, thanks for joining us for this week's edition of New Horizons summer series, and we'll no doubt talk to you and continue our look at audio description in future programs.

Francois
No, thanks John. It's been a pleasure.

John 13:06
And don't forget that if you want to contact Blind Citizens Australia, you can call them on 1800 033 660 - or email bca@bca.org.au ... Until next time we speak, this is John Simpson for New Horizons.

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