With support from the FIFM Foundation, audio description of movies for Moroccan audiences will continue through the year with a further six movies slated for the service. With the addition of audio description, which adds a secondary soundtrack of narration of a movie’s visual elements, blind and vision impaired film fans can feel part of the full cinema experience.
As in many countries, Ireland has a system of access targets for different channels which generally rise by a certain percentage each year. One of the proposals in BAI’s Access Rules Review Public Consultation is that, instead of having a single target for each year, there be a range of targets.
Audio description, which provides access to television for the blind and vision impaired, is well established in the UK. The main channels must do a minimum of 10% of programs, although some, including Sky and Channel 4, have volunteered to do 20%. It is a free service available to anyone who has subscription television or a digital TV or set-top box enabled to receive it.
One title, Pinnacle’s Larry Crowne, was captioned and audio described internationally but not released here with access features, and a further seven titles were captioned internationally but not here.
The DVD titles released in Australia since November 2011 with audio description include:
