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Documentary DVDs: how accessible are they?
Transcript
8 September 2013
Roberta: DVDs are one of the most popular forms of home entertainment and through the addition of audio description, available through the setup options in the menu, the blind and vision impaired can enjoy this pastime along with their family and friends. Ally Woodford from Media Access is with us today to take a look at the documentary genre and how accessible is it. Welcome, Ally.
Ally: Thank you, Roberta. Hello, everyone.
Roberta: Now, it’s been quite some time since we last spoke about DVDs but we’re on a diversion today from the usual entertainment releases, looking at documentaries. Now, first up, as a genre, is it as accessible as standard entertainment titles?
Ally: Well, I scoured the shelves of a couple of retail DVD stores, so not the rental ones I usually go to, and as much as there are some great titles out there with audio description, as well as captioning for the deaf and hearing impaired, the documentaries seem to rate significantly lower than entertainment titles when it comes to audio description.
Roberta: So in finding these DVDs, Ally, is their access information presented any differently to entertainment rental releases?
Ally: Generally not. The information is still on the back of the DVD cover, generally towards the bottom of the case, and it’s represented by the well-known AD logo for audio description. What is different, though, is that documentaries are more often released solely as retail items, so for sale as opposed to rental. So don’t expect the rental place down the road at your local shops to have the titles. You may need to head to a store like JB Hi Fi or Myer or David Jones.
Roberta: So let’s get to the titles. What are the accessible documentary DVDs available to us.
Ally: Well, first up, we have Life in a Day and that was made for future generations, taking a look at what life was like around the world on 24 July 2010. Food Inc. looks at America’s highly corporate controlled food industry. The very simply titled Happy takes us from Louisiana swamps in the US to the slums of Calcutta, India, looking at what really makes us happy. More Than a Game follows American basketball superstar, Lebron James, and some of his teammates through the high school basketball program and, for some of them, their journey then onto fame. Fame and fortunate, I should say, with basketball. Now, the last four I have here, they’re all about very well-known people around the world. There’s Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel and it looks at Hefner’s fight over Playboy Magazine.
Roberta: These descriptions, Ally, don’t seem to go together, do they, for Hugh Hefner?
Ally: Yes, playboy, activist and rebel, he’s a bit of everything. Yeah, but it looks at Hefner, how he took Playboy to the heights that it is today and the fights that he had to have with government, religious groups and feminists. We’ve also got George Harrison: Living in a Material World. It’s one for Beatles fans, obviously, and it focuses on his spirituality. Second last we’ve got Facing Ali and that’s where 10 of Muhammad Ali’s opponents pay tribute to him. Lastly we have Marley, which looks at reggae singer Bob Marley’s life, music and legacy.
Roberta: Well, that’s eight titles there, so less titles than accessible entertainment new releases. So why do you think that is?
Ally: Yeah, it is less titles. Admittedly there were a few more titles out there that I haven’t mentioned today but, yeah, it is less titles. I could put the reason for the lower number down to the fact that, the distribution processes for most documentaries, it’s different to a movie. How that is, is that a movie will come through a film-buying process of the distributor and often the access features are standard deliverables with that. Documentaries, they often come from TV production companies, so not cinema. So the creation of the audio description at the source, the source being the TV production company, is just not happening. So distributors often simply release what’s delivered directly to them. There are some distributors though, for DVD, like Roadshow Entertainment, for example. They’re really good at adding the access features to their products and it’s simply by chance most of the ones I read out today, that I found in the store the other day, are Roadshow titles.
Roberta: Well, all these documentaries plus thousands more can be found in Media Access Australia’s Accessible DVD database on their website. That is www.mediaaccess.org.au. Ally and her colleagues are available to answer any questions that you have and you can contact them on 02 92126242 or, if you’d rather email, info@mediaacess.org.au. Thank you, Ally, for all of that today.
Ally: Thanks, Roberta.
Roberta: I’ve been speaking with Ally Woodford from Media Access Australia. Media Access Australia is a supporter of this program.