The study involved two focus groups consisting of 10 blind and partially sighted people who regularly watch audio described programs on TV or DVD. Clips from 3D movies were shown to the groups and the history and process of 3D explained.
The participants were unanimous in saying that that they did not believe that they would benefit from 3D effects being described, and that doing so might mean that other important information was left out. “3D is visual and if you’ve not got vision or not a lot of vision then it’s not necessary,” was a typical comment.
The focus groups were also given a list of 11 elements of audio description, and asked to rank them in order of importance. Describing what characters are doing and on screen information such as supers identifying time and place, were considered to be the most essential elements.
These were followed (in descending order) by descriptions of facial expressions, location of the characters, other actions taking place on screen, who is present in the scene, how old they are, what they are wearing and what they look like. Program credits and identifying the genre of the program were found to be the least important elements.
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