Greetings,

        I know this response is a bit late, but I've ben away for quite some time
and am just getting back.

        Back in February I was fortunate to have an opportunity to see the movie
Titanic with audio description.  I saw the movie in December without audio
description so I can tell you all with no lack of confidence that I missed
an enormous amount of important detail that the audio description was able
to provide!  About 15 blind and visually impaired people got to see this
show when I did, and every one of us was very impressed!

        In June I got married.  We had a big wedding with about 195 guests.  My
wife and I are both blind.  It is likely that, between the two of us, we
missed a great deal of what was going on in the room.  Frankly, I'm not
unhappy about this in the slightest.  We had a photographer, videographer,
DJ, waiters and all sorts of other people around us.  The idea of having
someone else around to describe the action in the room is just more then I
can stand!  In the first place it would have been total information
overload.  In the second place it would have detracted from the enjoyment of
the other sensory inputs.  In the third place it would have inappropriately
placed a third figure in the spotlight (my wife, me and a describer).

        This article is the first I've heard of audio description on reality.  It
is also the first I've heard of an audio describer believing that
descriptions of reality were part of her job.

        I think that blind people have been dealing with reality without audio
description quite nicely and, while it might be beneficial in certain
instances, it is certainly not the proposed task of audio description
services to follow blind people around describing everything they pass.  If
I want audio description at a sports event I'll bring my radio.  Other then
this (or some other similar event)   I can't imagine actually wanting
description!

John



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