First Dog On The Moon (as the cartoonist likes to be known) takes a cast of animal characters and has them play out the political stories making headlines. In this universe, Prime Minister Julia Gillard becomes Power Fox and Senator Barnaby Joyce a talking pumpkin scone. The cartoons, while visually simple, involve many frames and long exchanges of dialogue.
Speaking on the video, Get the Picture – making television easier for people with a sight loss (below), audio description user James Risdon says that the service “is absolutely fantastic for someone like myself who hasn’t got enough sight to see what’s happening on screen”.
The public service announcement, which can be viewed on YouTube, depicts two scenarios which would only be comprehensible to a blind or vision impaired person with audio description (called ‘described video’ in Canada).
I want you to sit back and imagine something if you will. Imagine coming home from a long day and settling down in front of the TV like everyone else does of an evening. You switch on the set and find that The Big Bang Theory is on. Sheldon has just done something crazy as always and the results are causing the audience to laugh hard and clap loudly. But you have no idea what is happening and it is never explained in a way that will allow you to enjoy the wonderful visual comedy that others are able to view.
