‘Audio Description’ (AD) is a form of audiovisual translation. It is a professional description technique. Describers use concise and vivid language to translate images into verbal description for visually impaired people to assist their comprehension. Take Film AD as an example. Describers should try their best to avoid overlapping dialogue, sound effects and background music when inserting descriptions of change of scene and facial expressions and action of actors/actresses etc. AD production requires remarkable effort. It takes around 70 to 80 hours to write an AD script for a film of 1.5 hours long. AD is mainly classified into:

In Hong Kong, most of the film screenings for the visually impaired provide live AD, so describers have to rehearse the delivery of AD for couple hours. The application of AD is very broad and it can be applied on films, TV programmes, exhibitions, visual arts, performing arts and visits etc.

An AD demo prepared by our Founder, Dr. Dawning Leung, is available on YouTube:

‘Losing Nemo’ described by Dawning Leung