Hi John,

Couldn't agree more with what you just said.

Regards,

Thian.



On Thu, 16 Jul 1998, John Mattioli wrote:

> 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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>
>