News

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/27650667

  Roy:

Welcome to the ADNA Presents. This is Roy Samuelson. Today we have a very special guest. Brian Gehart is joining us again, he is the director of audio description at Three Play Media. Thanks for joining us, Brian.

  Brian:

Thanks for having me back. Good to be here. <laugh>, it’s

  Roy:

Great to see you again. How would you feel about that? First question we always ask, what do you love about audio description?

 Brian:

Yeah, the things that I love about audio description haven’t changed. I still love helping tell stories. I’ve always been interested in that. I think we provide a service that people really value and I enjoy being a part of it, being a part of doing whatever we can in our own small way to make the world a little bit better, more accessible, helping people have a good time, get information, be entertained. So that’s where I come at it. I think one other thing that I enjoy beyond the work itself is you get to meet a lot of really interesting people. I’ve met some of the most creative and passionate and just fun people in the work I’ve done in audio description in the last 10 to 12 years. So yeah, I think all of those things have remained the same, and that’s been true really since the very beginning. Even with all the changes that we’ve seen throughout the industry and in the ways that content is being described, we’re still helping tell stories, we’re still helping provide an accessibility service and we’re still having fun and getting to work on interesting content.

  Roy:

That’s great and it’s so great to hear that connection. It’s always been important to me personally and also professionally to have that connection, not only between the audiences and the films that we’re providing the audio description work to, but also to be able to have that internal connections like, uh, whoever we talk to on here. It’s always fascinating and I, I feel this extra connection that makes it more exciting and at the end of these interviews I always feel like, oh yeah, let’s, it renews me. There’s a, there’s an energy there and I’m hearing the same thing in your experience too.

 Brian:

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. What

  Roy:

Are some of the, uh, opportunities or challenges that you could talk about that have changed since the last time we talked? It was during the pandemic, I believe, or right after the pandemic that we last talked. So you know, especially with 9,800 ad titles, at least for film and TV and also some changes in the actual name of the company, <laugh>. So maybe we could get into that.

 Brian:

Sure. Yeah, it’s definitely been an interesting and action packed year for me and for everyone I work with. I think the last time we talked was pretty much right at the same time or right after caption. Max was acquired by Three Play Media and I’d been in audio description for eight or nine years to that point at Caption Max and it’s been a fascinating process. You asked about opportunities and challenges. I think those are often the same thing. I think the process has been both or I think it’s been a grand opportunity. I think there are innumerable challenges kind of nestled within that, but you know, the two companies were complimentary in many, many ways and so it really did make sense at that level three play has long experience, particularly in the educational and corporate spaces. And in fact the company was founded with the idea, with the concept of trying to find a way to provide accessibility for university lectures and videos and that was kind of the founding idea and it just really took off from there.

 Brian:

Starting with captioning and then moving into audio description and other services, that’s really the core of three plays. Background. The core of caption, Max’s background was in the entertainment industry and so those are very different worlds. There’s some overlap, but the processes and the people are a little bit different. And so in those ways, the acquisition made sense because we each had knowledge that we could bring to the table that maybe the other part of the entity didn’t have. So, you know, just as an example, three plays always been driven by technology. They have a huge team of developers and engineers and finding ways to use technology to make accessibility better and to make the services better, easier to produce, produce it faster and at great volumes to meet those challenges that their customers and their users were bringing to them. Caption Max previously was always much more of a kind of manual process driven organization dealing with, for instance, if you’re working on a feature film, there are some things that you’ve gotta get in and tinker with in a very kind of a much slower and more refined way.

 Brian:

And so I think finding ways that we can utilize both sides of the spectrum there and be flexible to switch between different modes, between different processes, between different elements of the workforce. As another example, as a combined organization now we have at our disposal some amazing technology that is continually being improved that allows us to utilize a huge pool of script writers and we also have studios and experts who can get in the studios and do the recording and do the mixing at a very granular level to the extent that we need to. For me, I think that flexibility has really been key and it’s been a way that we can add value to the organization as a whole and add value to the user base and the customer base that we are serving.

  Roy:

One of the things I remember years ago is calling up three play in my audio description, narration, prideful exuberance, <laugh>, and saying You should do human voices. And I look back at that with an embarrassment, not because I’m not proud of the work I do, but because I think I misunderstood this opportunity that you’re talking about, that I as a voice talent have never had any interest to read a blind person’s text messages or calendar appointments or email addresses At the very top, you said three play came from the information and the corporate and the educational side. And you have clearly from caption max come from the entertainment side of, you know, storytelling that I think I missed that. And I see the opportunity there of distinguishing that nuance so much more clearly now. And again, that example of I got no interest in reading a blind person’s email, that’s not my gig.

  Roy:

But telling a story, there is an element there that makes it distinguished and to see how that acquisition of Caption Max has incorporated the careful work that you and your team have done on the entertainment side and have that integrated into the technology. It’s really exciting. I was laughing when you said about the challenges and the opportunities being the same. It is the same coin. It’s like how do you look at it? And I find it fascinating, particularly in audio description where the expression, the wild west, I’ve been using that for a while and it does feel like that in so many different ways that there are a lot of opportunities that can be carved out. And I’m curious if, you know, I’m not looking for behind the scenes, uh, stories that you can’t share, but are there any elements, uh, that you could specifically share that really did resonate with you that maybe our audiences would appreciate hearing?

 Brian:

Yeah, I think one thing I thought about recently, because it’s part of the ecosystem of audio description that’s been growing really, really fast is extended audio description. That’s an element that that’s been around for a long time and a variety of different providers have been doing that for a while. Three play has a really, really slick process to handle it that makes it easy on the customer and makes it a great seamless experience for the user as well. That’s the type of product that when audio description was 10, 15 years ago when it was limited to just some TV networks, just a few feature films, nobody had really thought that through. As you start to see more and more videos come through that need to be described, whether that’s product, videos, advertising, whether that’s training videos, webinars, all that kind of content that really should be described.

Brian:

And those are the types of videos where there’s usually not a lot of room, you know, not a lot of space to insert some audio description. There’s not your grand panning shot of the landscape or there’s not the character kind of brutally looking out a window that I think everybody who’s written audio description from a media and entertainment background would recognize those instances. And so finding, okay, how do we take, maybe it’s a one minute video, maybe it’s a two minute video, but it needs to be made accessible so it needs to have audio description, finding ways to do that using technology as well as the human expertise of where do you pause the video, where’s the most important but maybe least obtrusive place to place that description, even if it’s just five seconds to explain, you know exactly what’s happening here. And trying to find a balance there too.

 Brian:

You know, you don’t wanna take a two minute video, you could extend it to make it 10 minutes long if you really wanted to. There’s always more you can describe, but finding that right balance that probably a 10 minute long version of that video is not going to be a great experience or certainly not an equal experience to the original. So making it three minutes long instead, and just adding the right details at the right moment, that’s something I’ve been really impressed by. As an example of how you can leverage technology, you can leverage human expertise to make a better product overall and to serve a far bigger slice of the kind of overall media and video marketplace.

  Roy:

That message is really clear in this entire conversation that it’s not one or the other. This isn’t one or the other. This is a collaboration I hear you say about the balance that’s, that’s needed with technology and the human touch. That context matters. There’s all sorts of other factors that really do impact and your and your team’s experience I’m sure have contributed to the, uh, the process here. So it’s, it’s very exciting to hear that focus. What about the direction that AD is headed? You’ve already addressed the level of description will not end anything that’s video and it’s pretty much everything is video is just gonna keep going. Those numbers just on the film and TV side, I guess you should say, the streaming and theatrical side of just exploded. Where do you see things are headed?

 Brian:

I think about that a lot. I’ve been doing this for a little over 10 years now and to see how far we’ve come is incredible, but also to see how far we have left to go. I think we’re at a really interesting point in that sense where there is vastly more media described today than there was 10 years ago. I think 10 years from now we will have taken an equally sized jump across all facets of the landscape. Obviously video just keeps becoming a more important and more central part of our culture and so I think audio description is gonna continue to grow. Alongside that, I think that one thing I’ve started to see that I really, really loved is just more recognition across different parts of the industry. Different parts of all the related industries from on the entertainment side, working with production teams and post-production teams that now are much more familiar with audio description, what our workflows look like, what kinds of files we need, what the timelines are, whereas 10 years ago everything was starting over from scratch.

Brian:

Now many, many more people just understand that this is part of the process. Now I think the same is true at a lot of corporate and educational institutions. I talk with a lot of people at a variety of companies or universities and I often get to deal with a person in an accessibility department who’s really a champion for trying to make sure that all of their videos are described, that all of the content that needs to reach an audience. You know, people who are blind or low vision that that’s being planned for, budgeted for that they understand the processes. That’s one big change is just more and more people are familiar with what it is. More and more people in the general public I think are familiar with what it is too. Occasionally read a story in the media about it or see a clip from a news program or something.

Brian:

When I first started out, you’d Google audio description and one of the first things that would pop up, maybe the first hit was how do I turn it off? And I’m sure that still appears, but these days more and more people are interested in joining the discussion. Obviously audiences who are blind and low vision who have been part of that discussion for many, many years, but cited people too who are just interested in, Hey, this is a cool thing, or even I like to turn this on while I’m making dinner or folding the laundry or any number of ways that they see the value in it as well. So I think those are all exciting developments. We as a company, three players started to see a lot more interest and inquiry from a wide range of different kinds of clients. We’ve started providing audio description for film festivals.

 Brian:

We’ve started providing more audio description in Spanish. We’ve started doing a few projects where it’s a foreign language original that’s perhaps being brought to the US for a streaming platform and we’re actually using multiple narrators to both localize and audio describe that project. So I think the reach kind of continues to broaden in that direction. One last example there, I know I’m kind of really coming at you, but I think live audio description is something that people have been interested in for years. I think it’s finally starting to happen. It’s finally starting to get some traction. I’m starting to see a lot more awards shows, sporting events, live reality shows or contests, all that kind of stuff. Corporate events on site or offsite. Those are all examples of where something just basically didn’t exist 10 years ago and now it’s really starting to get a foothold and grow from there.

  Roy:

That’s wonderful. It’s uh, I’m thinking about that last mention of the live ad that a few years back the performers with disabilities committee and myself worked with the SAG awards to bring AD to the screeners and we wanted to publicize it and to the credit of SAG awards, they said it’s not going to be enough if we just publicize our screeners have it, we should have live ad for our show. Let’s go across the board. That was their suggestion. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And with that we crafted a lot of different ideas and as it’s continued each year it’s gotten better and better and each time they find a new way to do things a little bit better and maybe try this approach versus that there’s a real growth. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it’s not this perfect thing and it’s always going to be an opportunity to get something more. I’m also thinking about our A D N A wishlist. It’s got films and TV shows that the audience wanted ad for and we’re removing titles left and right Every time it’s like, hey, this title already has ad so we take it off the list, let’s kill the wishlist. That would be wonderful.

Brian:

<laugh>. That’s awesome. It’s,

 Roy:

And you know, you think about the audio description project that lists nearly 10,000 films, it’s, I said 9,800, so let’s round up 10,000 films in series and now what would happen if that list was so inclusive and expansive that it had to flip to the ED that isn’t available. So that becomes the wishlist, you know, it’s like, oh, everything has it except for these, you know? Right. It’s, that would be a shorter list. And that seems like what I’m hearing from you, the film festivals, the Spanish, the dubbing with non-English films and live ad in coordination, all of these things, it’s making this work less of a checkbox to be checked after the film’s done. That integration, that goes back to what you said at the very beginning that the connection that you have with your team that you work with and also now with three play, that those connections are evolving and growing in such a way that audiences are gonna win and the experience that you provide for the audiences brings your company to even greater levels. And I’m, I obviously I’m very excited about all this.

 Brian:

Yeah, I mean I think that, just to reiterate the point that I made, there really are people embedded in every major company, every major university, every major media organization that are championing the work that we do and they’re fighting to help get as many titles as many videos as possible made accessible. Obviously there’s always a give and take. There’s always going to be a push and pull, uh, at some level, but that’s something I’ve seen in the last several years that I think is the beginning of a major sea change from where we were 10, 12, 15 years ago. I can remember hearing from ad users 10 years ago that if they tried to access something that was supposed to be described and they were having trouble finding it or figuring out how to turn it on or maybe it, they did everything correctly and and it just wasn’t there, they might have to contact somebody who kind of only was vaguely familiar with what ad is, or maybe they had to contact the closed captioning representative or something. I think that’s something that has definitely changed over the years, that there are people embedded in all these organizations that understand audio description, that understand its importance and that are absolutely pushing to try to make everything as accessible as possible.

  Roy:

And also with that everything accessible. There’s a message that I’m hearing and I’m wondering if we can vocalize it underneath all of this, is that it’s not simply about checking the box, that the you address the enemy of time is what I like to call it when it comes to film and tv, that with extended audio description, it’s not just slapping on an extra six minutes to a two minute video or whatever, that there’s consideration made. There’s decisions that are being made, there’s choices that are organic that are strategically useful and practical, that there’s a lot of thought and even more to it. Is there a way that we could kind of break away from the flight path of every single ad project does this and this and this and this and this, that there’s those extra things. We alluded to it earlier about the human element. Could you expand a little bit about that and and the creativity or, or quality of audio description beyond just, Hey, it’s got it.

 Brian:

Yeah, I think we are starting to see more and more producers, people involved in the production process wanting to hear about that quality control, wanting to hear voiceover samples, wanting to give feedback on the script that we wrote. I think that’s another one of those things that we saw a little bit in previous years, but that’s really increased more and more feedback coming from our customers saying, yeah, this description I think could be better. Or saying, well, this wasn’t really the intent. And I love seeing those things because it means that they’re reviewing our work, they’re listening to it and taking it seriously. I think that’s been a big thing. I think also absolutely just staying engaged with our audience and that’s something that obviously you’ve been working on for a long time. I think having recognition through various awards, having the Facebook ad discussion group that I know everybody involved in the industry keeps an eye on and follows up on, you get a little thrill when you see a title mentioned that you worked on. I think all those things are incredibly important.

  Roy:

That’s great to hear that. I’d imagine if someone is new to audio description, whether they’re in the entertainment industry or outside, that they come with a lot of assumptions of what audio description could be or should be, that might not be exactly useful or aligned. And I know that that happens in my experience with my own ignorance that when I’m starting something new, I think it’s this one thing, but it’s actually something else. And by listening I can adapt. Without naming names and without pointing any fingers, I’m curious about that general experience of guiding the entertainment industry specifically to, Hey, you know what, I hear you, but when it comes to ad, it’s a little more like this, and how receptive they are to maybe undoing some of those assumptions so that they themselves can also grow into audience. And it sounds like they’ve helped you a lot too, that their feedback is absolutely essential. But I’m curious if it’s a two-way street where you can give feedback and say, this is what ad is, and they’re like, oh, okay. I don’t have to say he shoots the gun if he is the only person in the scene and we hear the gunshot

 Brian:

<laugh>. Yeah, that’s a great point. And it’s kind of a nuanced one, right? Because there are cases where there may be onscreen text in a scene, but there may be other things happening in that scene and you have to make a judgment call, right? Uh, do I read the text or do I describe the action that’s happening? And it could be a different choice depending on what’s the most relevant. And from the perspective of an audio describer, from training, from experience, from listening to and talking to ad users, you sort of start to get those instincts built up over time to make that determination. Sometimes we do get feedback that maybe says, you didn’t read this bit of text, or, you know, perhaps you didn’t read this subtitle. There’s a subtitle on screen here. And we say, well, the subtitle might be on screen, but the person’s voice is also perfectly understandable as is.

 Brian:

And all things being equal, we would much rather let the character or the interview subject or whatever it is, speak in their own voice. Uh, we don’t want to cover over them with narration to read the subtitle unless it’s unclear and is necessary. There’s definitely notes like that where there is a bit of a give and take. There’s questions of when do you cover certain sound effects, when do you cover lyrics in a song that’s playing in the soundtrack? Obviously the song has importance in and of itself, so all things being equal, we’d like to let that song play through, but songs often cover important visual action as well. So you know, we wanna describe all the important visual things that are happening. So maybe we choose to cover some number of lyrics but not others. And so some of those nuances that does become a back and forth often. And the thing that I’ve seen is that usually on those kind of content-based decisions, creative decisions, most of the people we deal with are very receptive to at least hearing and having that discussion. I’ve really only very, very rarely, I mean, hardly ever do we get just a hard no that shuts that down. That really hardly ever happens because I do think most people understand that ad is a creative process that runs in parallel to the creative process of creating the content itself.

  Roy:

I think we just found our money quote for the entire episode here. <laugh>

 Brian:

Only took us half an hour to get there, so that’s, that’s pretty good.

  Roy:

It’s the buildup that’s all necessary the whole way through. Is there anything else you’d like to cover that uh, we haven’t addressed yet?

 Brian:

I guess I would just finish by saying that we love to hear feedback. I follow the ad discussion group on Facebook. I definitely try to keep abreast of any stories and things that percolate up, and so I just hope that audience members and people involved in creating the original content itself are all kind of participating and contributing and hearing from one another. Because I think it should be a conversation, it should be a dialogue. I do think it’s developing in that direction.

  Roy:

Oh, that’s great. How can we follow you or your company on social media websites?

 Brian:

Three play media.com, that’s the company’s website. Go there to learn more about the things that we do, all the services we can provide. I am always happy to hear any feedback you can email me at be BGebhart@3playmedia.com and that’s three. The number three. I’m on LinkedIn. I’m not super active on social media, but I do check LinkedIn and try to keep up with things as best I can.

 Roy:

Oh, thanks so much for joining us. Brian.