VITAC is thrilled to once again provide captions for the American Council of the Blind’s Audio Description Awards Gala.
In its second year, the Audio Description Awards Gala celebrates outstanding achievements in audio description in media. The gala also recognizes the best of television, streaming, and the film industry’s commitment to accessible media for blind and low vision audiences in the form of audio description.
Audio description is an isolated audio track that describes onscreen actions, visual cues such as characters and costumes, and text appearing in graphics or a video. As with captions, which now are used by people who are hearing and deaf alike, the popularity of audio description is expanding beyond its original audience and also caters to a world of multi-tasking TV watchers who want to understand action on TV without focusing solely on the video.
“The Audio Description Awards Gala will celebrate the best of the best within the art and science of inclusive audio-described media,” said Eric Bridges, Executive Director at the American Council of the Blind (ACB). “Together we will work to expand awareness of the transformative value that audio description brings to the lives of people with disabilities.”
People’s Choice Award
This year’s event features ACB’s first Audio Description People’s Choice Award. The award celebrates the inclusion of audio description in all types of media and entertainment and is designed to recognize the importance of audio description and the entertainment industry’s role in providing access to television content for people who are blind or have low vision.
Ten Audio Description People’s Choice Award finalists have been named to the inaugural class, reflecting a diverse and varied sampling of entertainment content from broadcast television, cable providers, and streaming services. Nominees were selected by a panel of leaders in the audio description community that included consumers of audio description programming and several professionals in audio description.
Among the finalists is ABC’s “Celebrity Family Feud,” which contains audio description provided by VITAC.
Audio Description Project
The 2022 Audio Description Awards Gala raises money to support the ACB’s Audio Description Project (ADP), which promotes and advocates for the use of high-quality audio description in television, movies, performing arts, museums, educational materials, and other venues where the presentation of visual media is critical to the understanding and appreciation of the content.
The awards gala will be held online on Tuesday, Nov. 29, beginning at 7:30 PM EST.
