Spectacle Artefact

The research for this artefact is in my workbook, however I will provide a summary of what has led me to create this piece…

During my research I realised how much the media relies on spectacle, and as people become more and more desensitized to what we see, visual medias have to constantly improve the ways they shock and awe us.

I looked at how both television and film rely heavily on special effects with many television programmes now having effects that are on the same scale os blockbuster films: ie ITV’s The Flood when it showed london submerged under water.

This made me think about how people who cannot see these programmes and films would be able to appreciate them. This is what lead me to research Audio Description. I firstly watched a high action film- Die Hard 4.0- with audio descrition turned on. By doing this I managed to pick up on some of the techniques used by audio describers to help those who are visually impaired experience and appreciate the film. I also found myself enjoying the film more with audio description, not only because it allowed me to be able to do other things while not missing any of the action when I wasn’t looking, but also because it provided me with information which I would have otherwised missed if I was watching the film normally.

In order to understand audio description better I decided to interview a professional audio describer so I contacted Di Langford who is the audio describer for all of the Harry Potter films, and has also been involved with other genres such as theatre, radio and galleries. From the interview I was able to understand more about the techniques used to provide audio descritions as well as things I was unaware of such as the difficulties they are having with modern films as the pace increases, and the special effects get more and more intricate and advance.

After looking at audio description I had realised how important sound can be so I looked at other exhibits which rely on sound rather then spectacle such as Bruce Nauman’s exhibit at the Tate Modern a few years ago.

In the end I decided to base my artefact on audio description. I wanted to show how much we rely on spectacle, and to highlight the difficulties people with visual impairments have experiencing and enjoying medias that we take for granted. I decided to film something quite basic, but which relies heavily on being able to see what is going on in order to understand it.

I filmed cheerleaders simply training and practising stunts, I then blurred the footage so you couldn’t make out what was happening and could only hear them counting. I then looped the blurred footage but also added my own audio description. This allowed people to realise how much they rely on visuals in order to see what was going on, and then how important audio description is…

I am pleased with my artefact, although obviously there are elements that need cleaning up. For instance, I would improve the blending between each scene. I would also experiment more with camera angles so I could work that in to the audio descrition as well. The audio levels would also need to be adjusted, I would try to loose more the background noise and focus more on the important sounds such as the coach’s advice and the counts which were being used. This would mean though that i’d have to work in the audio description better as it cannot overlap or drown out any dialogue or important sounds.

I think I’d also create a stronger narrative rather then just filming a succesion of stunts and training exercises and running them one after another.

However despite this I think that overall the artefact does do what I intended it to do. It shows how reliant we are on images, and how we often forget this. Also it shows how important audio description is to those who can’t see, and so can’t fully appreciate, visual medias; and how it can help those who can see understand even more what is happening on screen.

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