Hearing the sights

Five years ago, 19-year-old Sathit Jekjuntuen was a teen like any other, spending hours in front of the television screen watching his favourite movies. Then disaster struck. One day, as he went to collect honey from a beehive, he was stung by the frenzied insects in and around the eyes and has been partially blind ever since.

While he walks without a cane and can use a mobile phone without too much trouble, his visual problems mean that he cannot really focus. Like most 19 year olds though, he enjoys being entertained, which is why he applied to be part of a vision-impaired group attending a performance of the musical “Hom Rong” (“The Overture”) with audio description (AD).

Like the rest of the group, Sathit wore headphones for the show and says that the AD was more than adequate in turning the blurred images on the stage into a lucid and thoroughly enjoyable performance. 

Organised by the Thailand Association of the Blind for Research and Development, the event was part of the pioneering audio description project that is designed to grant the visually impaired access to information and fun.

Association director Kittipong Suthi, who is also non-sighted, says that the idea for audio description in Thailand was first discussed a few years ago.

“Like any country, our main audio description target is television. We waited for the coming of digital television because that would allow us to broadcast the AD sound channel,” says Kittipong, who also watched the musical.

Audio description was initiated in the US decades ago and has since spread to many other countries. Thailand introduced the additional narration track earlier his year with support from the National Broadcasting Television Commission.

Costing about Bt80 million, the AD is part of the NBTC’s pledge to help the visually impaired gain access to information. The association is the key organisation in creating the tools and the software, as well as in seeking the collaboration of both the public and private sectors.

It’s already successfully running the 1414 hotline, which provides news and information as well as audio books for the blind. Right now, the toll free hotline is receiving more than 10,000 calls a day. Other association projects include audio books online at www.Tab2Read.com and online radio programmes at Radio.Tab.or.th daily from 10am to 4pm. Audio description is the association’s new baby and, says Kittipong, it’s the most complicated and the most expensive. 

The project got underway last year, when the association invited leading audio describer Joel Snyder to train around 40 volunteers in the AD technique and script writing.

Experimental projects followed, among them the making of audio description tracks for the horror flick “Nang Nak”, “The Legend of King Naresuan Part 5” and “Feel Good”. 

All the tracks, including that of the musical “The Overture”, were done by volunteer Thippatai Pirompak, a musician and composer who was nominated for the best score for 2010’s “Bang Rajan 2” at the Subhanahongsa Awards. He’s long been interested in making audio descriptions and has been teaching himself along the way.

Before writing the AD, he watches the movie several times to allow him to narrate all the visual elements – from action to costumes, settings and images – in words that are concise, vivid and imaginative, and precisely timed to occur only during lapses between dialogue and other significant sound elements. Once he’s completed the script, Thippatai passes it on to co-worker Montri Wongbut, a professional voice-over artist who narrates with moods and tones that suit each situation.

Thippatai says doing the live AD for “Hom Rong: The Musical” was something new and despite all good efforts contained a lot of mistakes, even though both he and Montri sat through the show several times. “Improvisation was required and we had to continue without pausing even when the mistakes showed up,” he says.

As XP reported last year, the GTH film studio debuted their first audio description with the DVD of “The Teacher’s Diary” and continued later in the year with the top-grossing comedy “I Fine Thank You Love You.”

Kittipong says that GTH’s AD style is different from what they are doing but he is glad to see others with the same mission.

 “The differences are not important. I really appreciate their work as it helps to spread the notion of AD to the public. Once it becomes more widespread, the different styles will be finessed by the users,” says Kittipong.

The association is not only planning more AD, but is also seeking cooperation from TV channels and production companies in integrating AD with their shows. There’s also a focus on promoting the programmes already equipped with AD and explaining how to access it.

In the meantime, the NBTC, Thai PBS and Thammasat University’s Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication, which handles the recording, have been working together to provide audio descriptions for certain programmes. Visually impaired viewers simply choose the AD channel from the remote control to listen. 

“Blind people don’t have different tastes from sighted people. They love soaps, game shows and blockbusters too,” Kittipong points out.

However, they are facing prejudice in terms of priorities. When the public hears that AD helps the visually impaired to get access to entertainment, the common response is “why don’t they focus on more important priorities such as education and careers?”

“I disagree with this priority judgement,” says Kittipong. “Who has the right to decide that cultural access has less value than education and career? Why don’t we do them simultaneously, now that we have the people and tools to handle both?

 “But audio descriptions for entertainment shows is what the visually impaired want the most. It helps them access information that’s useful for daily life. They don’t want to listen to serious news all the time.”

Some of the shows with AD are uploaded to the Internet. And while it is more convenient to simply put the AD shows online, Kittipong says that the association’s priority is providing the service to live broadcasts so that the visually impaired can watch with everyone else.

 “There are blind people outside Bangkok and the Internet doesn’t reach everywhere. Television is still our priority,” he says.

Five months into the AD initiative, Kittipong laments the slowness with which the project is moving. “It’s new and people tend not to be overly concerned about it.”

Kittipong has approached every TV station about bringing AD to their programmes and while he hasn’t been rejected outright, he says the enthusiasm is just not there.

“They think it’s more appropriate for public TV like Thai PBS to do it. They just don’t see the big picture,” he says.

“I hope that they will be more interested when there is more AD. Our goal is to have at least one hour of TV programming every day on every TV channel. I have no idea when we will be able to reach that goal,” says Kittipong.