Advancing Accessibility Podcast: Episode 5

The fifth episode of our limited podcast series is live, with host Steve Saylor and guest Jennissary, Producer of live and interactive audio description at Descriptive Video Works.

Listen on Spotify, or watch on YouTube.

Transcript of Episode 5

Steve:   (0:00:00):
Welcome to Advancing Accessibility, a mini podcast series focused on the great work done by individuals pushing for accessibility in the gaming industry and answering the question, what’s next? The show is brought to you by Player Researches Advancing Accessibility. To find out more about what player research and this initiative, you can go to the link in the show notes or go to Player research.com. I’m Steve Saylor, accessibility consultant, content creator, Twitch Ambassador, and host of this series. Today’s episode is all about audio descriptions and games, and my guest today is Jenna aka Jennissary, producer of live and interactive audio descriptions at Descriptive Video Works, Accessibility Advocate and also just Awesome friend. Hi Jenna, welcome to the show.
Jenna:   (0:00:41):
Thank you. Oh my God, you nailed that intro first try. That was awesome. You know what?
Steve:   (0:00:45):
Hey, it’s it’s what? It’s what I do. It’s what I’m hiding for unironically.
Jenna:   (0:00:50):
First try. I’m not saying that sarcastically, by the way. For for for for the studio audience, that was not like, oh yeah, we’re on the fifth try. We’re sick of it already. I’m already. I’m already grown tired of Steve’s presence. No, no, no, unironically. First try.
Steve:   (0:01:03):
Keep talking because it helps me get more gigs. That’s what it is.
Jenna:   (0:01:06):
Oh, bro. I’m. I’m such a sucker for compliments. I know, I know how it is. Like, anytime someone wants to gas me up, I’m like, I’m here for it. So that’s why I agreed to be here. Secret. Ulterior motive.
Steve:   (0:01:18):
Yes. All right, well.
Steve:   (0:01:19):
Let’s get over to the comprehensive going. So you do amazing work at DVW. Uh, and, like, we became friends. Uh, a kind of sort of apart. I think we got to know each other a little bit before you started at DVW.
Jenna:   (0:01:32):
So just through streaming, maybe.
Steve:   (0:01:34):
I think so, yeah, I think so too. It was sort of like we, you know, obviously we’re in kind of similar, uh, circles. There’s a lot of overlap. Yeah, yeah. Uh, and uh, and I like I just remember, yeah, it’s like, I think I remember you when you started a DVW, I was like, oh, cool. Yeah, we got one of us in there. So that’s that’s awesome. But you know what? Why don’t you, uh, tell the audience, uh, you know, a little bit about, uh, about yourself?
Jenna:   (0:01:54):
Yeah, sure. So, um, I’m a producer at Descriptive Video Works for live and interactive content, and what that mostly means is that I’m sort of the gaming specialist. I’m the gaming know how. Around the time that The Last of Us Part II released as the first Triple-A game with professionally produced audio description I was also sort of looking to get into audio description professionally. So from my perspective, my dream job fell in my lap, and from DVW’s perspective, the perfect person for this new position fell into their lap. So it just ended up working out really, really perfectly. Since then, we’ve also produced audio description for Spider-Man 2, Mortal Kombat 1, uh, The Last of Us part 1. And now I can say that we’ve also produced for the upcoming Star Wars Outlaws for Ubisoft. Most of our stuff that we do is, uh, most of our biggest customers are like, uh, large major streaming services for movies and TV shows, But out of all of the games that have professionally produced audio description, we’ve done all of them. So it’s a lot of fun to sort of be an industry leader in pushing for more in this area specifically.
Steve:   (0:03:08):
I love that sort of that right place, right time, sort of when jobs are sort of a line like that, like you were looking, they were looking and you’re just like, hey, I want to try this. They’re like, yeah, we need you. Come on in. Yeah, I love I love that those, those kind of stories. So because that was the thing with like I remember hearing about DVW getting into the gaming space, uh, I believe their first project was an Assassin’s Creed trailer that they did audio description for, uh, during one of their Ubisoft Forward. And I remember, uh, our mutual friend David Tisserand, uh, reaching out to me being like, hey, did you listen to the audio description for this? And I was like, wait, there’s an audio description?
Jenna:   (0:03:43):
Audio description for it. Yeah. And I was like, what?
Steve:   (0:03:46):
And I listened to it. It was like, this is it. This is so great. And then and then it was kind of quiet for a couple of years, a little bit. And then obviously, you know, with the with The Last of Us kind of part two remastered, coming out with a full audio description, I was like, okay, now we’re now we’re cooking and and I love seeing that, that, uh, DVW has been kind of a big part of it. Um, but before we kind of get into the nitty gritty of what DVW does for audio descriptions, uh, obviously I want to learn a little bit more about, uh, about your gaming background. So what got you interested in video games?
Jenna:   (0:04:17):
Oh my gosh. So my parents raised me as like, the video games will rot your brain type of thing. So they really allowed. Yeah. It’s how ironic that we both work in the gaming space now. Like how? Look at me now, dad, but, like, um. It. I didn’t have any consoles in the house growing up. Like, I would go over to friends houses or, like, you know, play their Game Boy game boy at school. But my first, um, foray into gaming proper was, I think I was 12 or 13 years old. A friend of mine, uh, she was obsessed with the God of War games, and it was either God of War 2 or 3 had just come out and she needed to share the experience with someone. So over the course of a holiday weekend, I went over to her house on a Friday after school, and I went back to my house the following Monday evening. And during that time, she and I just sat on on her bed in her room, um, playing through, I think, God of War one, two and three continuously just handing off the controller to one another. We stank so bad. I don’t remember if we showered. I remember eating an entire tray of brownies at one point. Um, I remember standing up so quickly that I got a head rush once because I’d been sitting there for so long, and I loved every minute of it. And that was when I knew, like, wow, this is really cool. And I love gaming. This shit is awesome. And how prophetic that years and years later, I think one of my first like games that I that I ended up streaming on Twitch was God of War Ragnarok. Loved that, loved the new God of War series really helped me reconnect with it. And it was like it was a great blast from the past with the, uh, the Valhalla DLC.
Steve:   (0:06:01):
Oh, I love that. Uh, yeah. For me, it was like when I, when I started, like, I, I was a Nintendo kid, uh, grew up in the 80s and so I like, I remember, uh, the only time I ever was like, in that sort of, uh, where I would pass the controller back and forth between, uh, anybody was I was actually playing, uh, we were playing Super Mario Brothers, uh, the first one with, uh, my myself, my brother and my mom. Uh, and we would anytime we would die, we would pass the controller, uh, back to or to to the next person. I didn’t get a chance to play that much because I would basically like, play for like a couple of seconds and then I die, and then it’s like, okay, gotta pass the controller. And I kind of was a little bit upset about that, but it was just like, whatever. I still had fun, just I. How old were you at this time? I probably was oh, God. I probably like, uh, 6 or 7 somewhere around there.
Jenna:   (0:06:48):
Okay, so you.
Jenna:   (0:06:49):
Probably didn’t really have much of the dexterity required at at the time.
Steve:   (0:06:54):
But that’s the thing, because like video games were so new to anybody, it was like, we’re like, okay, wait, how many? Which button do I push? Whatever. Even with just the, the D-pad and the A and B button like that was a kind of complicated. But believe it or not, I remember it was like we couldn’t get finished the the game, just the three of us when like until, you know, we had to go to bed. But I remember waking up in the middle of the night and I could see from downstairs the TV going, and I kind of like, kind of crawled down to, like, uh, down the stairs just to kind of see what was going on. And I saw my mom, like in the middle of night sitting like, in their chair playing Super Mario. And she was like near the end. And I remember I just sat there and just, like, watched her finish the entire game.
Jenna:   (0:07:35):
Like, secretly.
Steve:   (0:07:37):
It’s kind of secretly. Yeah. And I was and I and I told my mom this like much later and I just because, like, I knew she could have been a gamer today if she didn’t get lost in the in the NES version of monopoly, because that’s pretty much the only game she’s ever played since, uh, really was like, yeah, I could I could swear that my mom totally would have been a gamer today if she just, you know, wanted to keep going.
Jenna:   (0:07:59):
Nintendo games to go down the rabbit hole for. I would never have pegged monopoly as the one to, to get sucked into.
Steve:   (0:08:05):
Oh, totally.
Steve:   (0:08:06):
She would play that for like hours and like she if there was a timer for, you know, old Nintendo games how long you played for. She probably would have been in the hundreds. Like it was.
Jenna:   (0:08:17):
Hilarious.
Steve:   (0:08:18):
Yeah, yeah. And to the point where we would try to play monopoly with her, like in person, like either through the game or as a board game. And it’s like, I only beat her once and she still and to this day she does not acknowledge that I actually did beat her. She’s like, I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I. I’m like, I beat you. And it’s like.
Jenna:   (0:08:36):
She’s on a. Whole nother level. Oh, another echelon of monopoly.
Steve:   (0:08:40):
Exactly. I love that.
Steve:   (0:08:43):
Uh, so like with with regards to gaming, did you stick with it? Uh, even past, like, you know, 12, 13 or did you kind of like, you know, come like, off and on as as you grew older?
Speaker S3:       (0:08:53):
Yeah.
Jenna:   (0:08:53):
No. Not really. I mean, I kind of just slowly, gradually got into, like, having my own game console and stuff, uh, when, when I, uh, moved out for college, but, like, I didn’t even then, I never envisioned myself as, like, this is something I’m super passionate about. I want to do this for a job. I want to involve this in, in my work because, like, my background is all over the place. Like I have a degree in neurobiology with a minor in Spanish. I worked in pharmaceuticals for eight years. After I graduated, I was in the Army Reserves and then did a complete like 90 degree turn for for a career shift, because by that time I was really starting to it was just a gradual ramp up of me being more and more interested in different types of games, to the point where we’ve just sort of my husband and I have gradually collected, like each of the major gaming consoles over the years for one reason or another, like we bought the switch during quarantine because Animal Crossing had just come out and we decided to get the the Series X but I can’t even remember what game was the trigger for that. And then, you know, I’m like, maybe, maybe we’ll get a nice gaming PC because there’s a couple of things that are only available on PC and then and now, by now, I’m just, uh, sort of sitting on my mountain of reference material when it comes to being able to do my job. Well, I’ve accumulated, uh, these, like, thousands and thousands of hours of experience in dozens of different types of games. And I’m so grateful for it. I’m so grateful that all of the the hours that I wasted spending, uh, having tons of fun is actually coming in in very, very handy for my day to day work. Now.
Jenna:   (0:10:42):
Of course, I couldn’t know that.
Jenna:   (0:10:43):
At the time.
Jenna:   (0:10:44):
But exactly.
Steve:   (0:10:45):
Like I love like to go back in time to like, tell our younger selves like, hey, you’re going to make a living playing video games. And I’m like, what?
Speaker S3:       (0:10:51):
Like, no, this.
Jenna:   (0:10:51):
Is worth it. Make sure you make sure you remember this.
Steve:   (0:10:54):
Exactly.
Steve:   (0:10:55):
Exactly. Um, so with all that, you know, obviously, you know, you had your interest in gaming, especially even during the pandemic, kind of picking that up. Like, so what got you interested in the accessibility side of gaming?
Jenna:   (0:11:06):
So I’d kind of been like passively interested in accessibility advocacy since, um, since, uh, college, when I was the president of a student disability advocacy group that was sort of like part connecting people with resources and part, uh, like social club kind of thing, just to, just to kind of kind of break down barriers, get people hanging out outside of classes. And um, after that, uh, it was actually sightless combat on the God of War subreddit, who got me interested in audio description because he made a post asking like, hey, during this one pivotal scene about midway through the game, could someone describe what’s going on? Because there’s a lot of visual storytelling with not a lot of dialogue. And like, I’ve kind of looked it up and I’ve watched reaction videos, but it doesn’t really give you all of the details. And that’s how he and I got connected and started the Transcribing Games project, where we audio described, like all of God of War 2018, all of the like narratively relevant cutscenes. And back then I didn’t know any of the audio description rules. I wasn’t even like watching any media with audio description, but it was sort of the start of like, wow, this is a really cool, uh, field of writing. This is creative and fun. And there’s like, there’s a lot of rules to it, but there’s also a lot of really cool creativity that you can work in there within the confines of those rules.
Steve:   (0:12:37):
I love that. So when when diva started to kind of come into the picture, like was it sort of like something that you were seeking out, being like, oh, maybe like this is the thing I kind of, you know, like you mentioned a little bit of just kind of the connecting of the right place, right time, but it was sort of like, did you think that this was a thing you could do for a career, or was it something that, you know, was approached to you being like, hey, there’s a like there’s a market for this. Like, we would like what? Like, would you want to be able to jump into it?
Jenna:   (0:13:02):
Yeah. It was, it was sort of it was kind of both. I did have like multiple different voices by then telling me, hey, you should try doing this professionally. And a lot of people that I knew were already connected to DW in some way or another. So that also just ended up working out. I started out doing, uh, just some contract work for them. Um, and it was pretty quickly afterward that Reese, who’s now my supervisor, offered me a full time position, and it really didn’t take much convincing for me. I was like, you know what? This is so much fun. Being able to to do it full time would be my dream job, and it is my dream job, and I’m so fortunate to work in it.
Steve:   (0:13:40):
I love that. Um, but so before we get into the, uh, the sort of, again, the nitty gritty of of of the work that you do, the last question I kind of have is like, is there, um, any accessibility that you use when, when playing games yourself, or is there like certain accessibility that you, that, that you kind of like use as sort of like it maybe not necessarily that you know, that that you, that you actually need, but it’s like, you know, it’s a benefit to you when you’re playing games.
Jenna:   (0:14:06):
Oh yeah. Yeah, all the time. I mean, it’s working in the accessibility space means that I do pay attention to it. Not just like on on stream or for games that I’m directly working on, but also just in my own personal time. I am always going through, like all of the settings, all of the accessibility settings, menus. I don’t have any like visible disabilities or anything that usually requires me to go into the accessibility settings menus. But I still do it because I’m always going to find things that make gameplay less frustrating for me, and it also either diminishes or improves my opinion of certain game developers when I see or don’t see certain things in there. So like if if it if it hits me with a photosensitivity warning with that first loading screen, I am immediately disappointed. I’m like, man, mum could have done better, but you chose not to. Or on the other side of things, if there are way more granular options like, uh, God of War Ragnarok High Contrast mode allows you to select different colors for different things and toggle it on or off with a swipe of the touchpad. I only have, uh, bosses and, uh, environment interactables on high contrast mode. So with the swipe of the touchpad, I can sweep the environment and go, did I miss any vases? Did I did I miss any any things I can throw my axe at? Also, if I’m mad at a boss, I make them pink.
Speaker S3:       (0:15:33):
But like any any time.
Jenna:   (0:15:35):
Yep. I’m like, you know, I hadn’t.
Jenna:   (0:15:36):
Even thought about that.
Steve:   (0:15:37):
Like changing the color of it’s like, if you get mad, mad or frustrated, man, that would be so good in Elden Ring.
Jenna:   (0:15:42):
Uh oh my God, don’t get me started. There’s.
Jenna:   (0:15:46):
There are many reasons I don’t like FromSoft games, but that is the big one is they are ten plus years behind the rest of the industry when it comes to accessibility and yet pushing for innovation in so many other fields. And they just choose not to. But yes, I do. I do end up using a lot of accessibility features. I always turn on like full subtitles and closed captions, crank up the UI scaling, crank up the text size like I’m, uh, all optional audio sound effects. I find that I tend to react better to like, visual cues that are reinforced with sound effects of some kind. So I’m cranking those up. I’m turning those on not just so that people on stream can follow along. If you are either visually or hearing impaired, but also just so my dumb ass can absorb the information a little better. It’s always helpful.
Steve:   (0:16:36):
Yeah, that’s what I feel with. I mean, you know, we we within this sort of the accessibility community are always talking about, you know, how to build to make obviously games more accessible for disabled players. But, um, I think it’s like, even like I feel like I’ve myself I’m kind of like in that, in between. Yes. There are a lot of accessibility that I need in order to be able to personally play. But, um, there’s a lot of also accessibility that I think is just good quality of life. Uh, like when playing a game in general, like as he mentioned, with high contrast mode, being able to oh yeah, know where interactables are. Like I when I saw that in The Last of Us for the first time, I was like, oh, I can finally like if I really if I really wanted to be that, you know, that that that treasure gremlin collector and just basically go and find all the, the coins and all the cards and last of Us, I can you discover.
Jenna:   (0:17:23):
An inner loot goblin that you did not.
Jenna:   (0:17:25):
Previously know existed? Yeah, because.
Steve:   (0:17:28):
I thought it was kind of boring and I was like, I’m not going to be able to find these anyway, so what’s the point? And then it’s like, yeah, oh, this is actually achievable.
Steve:   (0:17:35):
I need it. Oh yeah. What if.
Jenna:   (0:17:37):
It’s more. What if it’s something you need though. What if it’s. What if I need that later.
Steve:   (0:17:41):
Right. Exactly. Like I think that kind of also sort of translated into my real life because, you know, I’m into Dungeons and Dragons now, and I’ve totally become a dice goblin as well. Like, I’ve literally have, uh, my friend of mine, I don’t even remember the show Firefly. Um, yeah. Did you ever watch? So do you remember Jayne’s hat?
Jenna:   (0:17:57):
So much so. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Steve:   (0:17:59):
My friend, my friend used to crochet and she gave me for, I think, my birthday one time, Jayne’s hat. And I’ve literally used that as a dice bag ever, ever since.
Speaker S3:       (0:18:10):
And I don’t even think of that. That would make a.
Jenna:   (0:18:12):
Perfect dice.
Jenna:   (0:18:13):
Bag. Exactly.
Steve:   (0:18:14):
Because a little tassel to tie up together and it’s such a like I use that everywhere I go. I put all my dice.
Steve:   (0:18:19):
In there and collect.
Jenna:   (0:18:20):
All the cool, all the cool dice colors and.
Jenna:   (0:18:22):
All the sets. Oh, believe.
Steve:   (0:18:23):
Me, I do. And I actually like. I also color coordinate them to being like, okay, these are my attack dice. These are my saving throw dice. Like it’s the whole high contrast mode being like red is attack, blue is is high dice prison. Uh, no. But I should, uh. Yes, I’ve been for the.
Jenna:   (0:18:40):
For the naughty.
Jenna:   (0:18:41):
Dice that are.
Speaker S3:       (0:18:41):
Rolling. Exactly.
Steve:   (0:18:42):
There’s a few. There’s a few that I. That I kind of like. I just sort of let you know, bury the bottom of the bag that I just, you know, don’t use anymore. Um, there was, but also there was one there was one dice that used to light up whenever I would roll a critical 20. But then once when I. Once the battery died for the light, it stopped rolling 20s. And I was like, no. So it just died altogether.
Jenna:   (0:19:06):
Died? Died in multiple ways.
Steve:   (0:19:08):
Exactly. Um, but that’s the thing I again going like, I love about like what accessibility can do is that it can benefit every like everybody even if you don’t have a disability. And it just I think it kind of again, it’s just that quality of life improvements that are made and it’s like, you know, I, I get it like, you know, like when you talk about like Fromsoft Games or Elden Ring, it’s like, yes, they would benefit from, you know, removing some barriers to it. But there are certain things that, you know, I think would just could be just good quality of life that would improve the game for those who really do enjoy it. Um, that I think would be considered technically accessibility. Um, but yeah. No, I love that. Um.
Jenna:   (0:19:47):
Anyway. Agreed.
Steve:   (0:19:49):
Yeah. If we go into the Elden Ring discourse, we’re just like, that’s going to be the whole episode.
Jenna:   (0:19:53):
Benefit from a.
Jenna:   (0:19:54):
Cohesive.
Jenna:   (0:19:54):
Narrative to. Exactly.
Steve:   (0:19:56):
Yeah, exactly. Um, so let’s talk about, uh, the work that you do at DVW. So you do live and also produced, uh, content for DVW. I want to talk about the live stuff first, because you’ve been doing a lot of live narration for, uh, some really cool, uh, sort of events, slash projects. Could you, uh, if you can, can you talk about some of the things that you’ve done, uh, worked on, uh, with the live audio description?
Jenna:   (0:20:22):
Oh, gosh.
Jenna:   (0:20:23):
Yes. Well, I mean, you and I just got to see each other in LA for, uh, for Ubi Forward. So that was that was really cool. That was a lot of fun. Um, so I’m. Yeah, I get sent to a variety of different locations, or sometimes I’ll do the live narration remotely. But what it means is it’s almost like having an interpreter there for visuals. Um, the entire goal is to attempt to speak in between dialogue, to describe on screen visuals. And that can be done a variety of different ways. It can be, um, pre-scripted in the sense that, um, myself and potentially another writer or narrator have access to all pre-recorded materials before it airs. Um, and we get the chance to write ourselves a script for it that was done, uh, for the Oscars, I believe. I wasn’t on the team for that one, but it was a combination of a blind narrator and a sighted narrator. The blind narrator was reading all of the pre-scripted content, and the sighted narrator was doing stuff like red carpet portions live on stage portions. In the case of events like, like the Xbox Developer Direct or like you be forward, we might get access to the pre-recorded materials ahead of time and can write a script for ourselves. And so once that video comes up, I’m reading from a script and it helps take the cognitive load off me. But when that video ends, I’m just sort of live improvising and doing my best to kind of slip things in between when people are talking. But you don’t always get it right. There’s things can go wrong in live audio description. It’s not a perfect science. It’s much, much more. It’s much more like cooking. You can riff on things a little bit, you can take some liberties, but some of them might also be, um, fully scripted, where we know everything that’s going to be there ahead of time, and we might have time to write a script. We might not. We might be able to only watch it through once without having the access to the time and the facilities to write a full script for it. It just depends. Um, for other events, I might not be given any information at all because it is a highly, highly confidential event or they don’t have any pre-recorded materials. So for those, I would just kind of have to rely on my own research, my own suppositions, maybe, maybe go to the rumor mill, see what people think might be aired at whatever this particular event is. But in all of these cases, it’s me sitting at a microphone watching the live feed and then narrating and audio describing the visuals whenever the opportunity presents itself. That is then mixed with the feed audio and sent to the live audience or a broadcast audience in the form of a live stream or on TV, or both. This is different from traditional audio description because it is live improvised. It’s it’s happening live and it’s not, uh, scripted pre pre-recorded narration that is then mixed down.
Steve:   (0:23:25):
Okay. So like uh, when you’re kind of going into those like live situations and like you’re kind of running not necessarily or either a rough script or, you know, an outline or like, like like you said, like you’re you don’t know anything. What what’s what’s happening. You’re just kind of describing it when you are kind of in those sort of improv moments. Um, do you like. It’s actually something I’m personally curious about. Is that, um, is that when you like. Like, do you try to add as much description as you can, uh, like, uh like, uh, or are you trying to be able to just give kind of like the bare minimum because so that you can react when things happen that you may not, uh, like, uh, you may not know what’s about to happen. Um, what’s the sort of the balance between, like, describing everything versus, you know, describing just the minimum that you need to.
Jenna:   (0:24:15):
Yeah, that’s kind of a balance that applies to all aspects of audio description, because there’s usually rules that are do not under describe so that people can’t follow what’s going on. Do not over describe. Don’t feel tempted to fill every moment without dialogue, with a description of some kind. You can let the music breathe. You can let the silence speak for itself. You can let tension build. So yeah, that absolutely applies to live description as well. But there’s sort of a hierarchy of rules for what is more essential to describe and when it is more permissible to talk over people. So things like on screen text or titles, subtitles, you always have to read those out and you’re going to be talking and dubbing over someone effectively. Um, things that are in, in in the gaming industry, I always want to describe, uh, aspects of gameplay which have the potential to either lend itself to an inherent level of accessibility, or which give clues to the player that it is not going to be accessible. So things like if I notice a target snapping and aim assist, I’m going to mention that if there is an infinitely scrolling menu or a cursor based menu, I’m going to mention that, um, if it’s like 2.5 D, top down or a 2D fighter, I’m going to mention that specifically, outside of those very specific things that I know, the community who’s listening is going to want to know about. It’s it’s all about balance. Um, there are times where there’s like some really cool visuals happening in a trailer, but there’s also a narration going on in the background that has nothing to do with the visuals, and I really want to describe those visuals. So I think of a cool phrase, and I kind of have it ready to jump in whenever I can, but by the time I jump in, it’s been 30s and that’s not what’s on screen anymore. So I just have to let it go and move on. It’s always there’s always going to be something else that you need to like, come up with a phrase for. Sometimes the words just don’t come for what is. What is that weird axe thing called? Oh, it’s it’s a it’s a, uh. I don’t remember the word for Viking axes. This is so weird. There’s always going to be. It’s it’s a live performance. It’s like improv to some extent. So there’s always going to be things that you fumble. There’s always going to be things that you wanted to use but can’t. Um, but yeah, you kind of have to learn the pacing and the balance of live narration being too much versus too little. You do have to give enough information for people to follow what’s going on, but not so much that someone is listening to you going like, just, oh, just stop talking for two seconds, please.
Steve:   (0:26:56):
I hear that especially when there’s like a trailer that’s just all dialogue and there’s like no room to be able to describe really, like anything or at least enough to to kind of add that visual element, uh, to it.
Jenna:   (0:27:09):
JRPGs tend to do that a lot. For some reason. They’ll just be showing cool visuals of gameplay, and then it’ll be like character voice lines or narration voice over the entire time. So, you know, you have to read out the subtitles for that, but it never leaves time to describe any of the visuals, which is such a shame.
Steve:   (0:27:27):
Yeah. So when like when you are, there are those moments, you know, I’m not trying to build focus on, like when you screw up kind of thing, but like when those when those are those moments where you know, you’re trying like, uh, definitely the best you can to be able to, to narrate. Do you find that, um, the community response is kind of like, yeah, you know what, hey, you did your best. Or is it sort of like, do they always want more or is it, do they want less or like how? Like. And do you take that feedback whenever. Like when you move on to like the next project being like, okay, yeah, we did this, this and this. It would be much easier or much better for for the for the viewers.
Steve:   (0:28:00):
You know.
Jenna:   (0:28:01):
The community is much more forgiving than I am, uh, when it comes to my own performances personally, any time I like reach out to anyone for feedback, they’re like, you did great. It’s a live performance. There’s going to be stuff that blah blah, blah, blah blah. But like, I think it’s important to always sort of be striving for higher quality, um, especially when it comes to accessibility or when it comes to your own performances or your own skills. So I, I find it very important to not get up my own ass about how, you know, how good I could have been or how I don’t want to, you know, inflate my own ego so much to think that I am the greatest. I am the best live describer, and I always know best when it comes to X, Y, and z. Um, so it’s yeah, it’s it’s important to always kind of be looking for things you can improve upon, but with the caveat that live is live things are going to happen and you can’t always control all situations.
Steve:   (0:29:02):
I think it also in other compliment thrown your way is as I feel that it’s like you’re kind of like one of us. So it’s like, you know what, hey, you’re doing your best. It’s like, hey, we just appreciate you doing what you’re doing. And it’s like, because I think it’s kind of in a sense, it’s like we don’t have like that as a regular occurrence just yet. Um, audio description is just kind of part of everything and can be expected in some, you know, with some companies it is like with, you know, with Xbox and with Ubisoft, I think are probably the two, uh, biggest ones that have used it quite often. Um, and then with Sony obviously doing it with their, with more specifically on the gaming side than necessarily their sort of event side. Um, but I again, it’s sort of like I’m glad that it’s sort of like that. You’re there to kind of like be that you’re one of us. It’s just like, okay, good. We know that. Like, if.
Speaker S3:       (0:29:52):
It ran on the inside.
Steve:   (0:29:54):
If it was, anyone else would be like, well, you know, it could be like, it could be better or whatever. But I think it’s like, okay, good. You know, we got we, we got we got someone in the inside for that one, which is, which is pretty great.
Steve:   (0:30:05):
Um, oh.
Jenna:   (0:30:05):
Yes. Fellow gamer slash Twitch streamer.
Steve:   (0:30:08):
Exactly.
Steve:   (0:30:09):
So let’s like now let’s kind of move into because you mentioned about some of the, you know, the times you, you’re, you get like those trailers and you get the kind of the, the pre-recorded content beforehand whenever you do a live events. I think I want to transition into when you do get those pieces of content, uh, we’ll talk about the gaming side, like the actual like including into the games themselves in a bit. But I want to when it comes to like the video content, um, what is sort of the process that you and DVW kind of goes through when you’re like, okay, here’s like a four minute trailer, uh, like like, what is it that, like when you kind of start that relationship with that studio being like, okay, we’re going to provide audio description for this particular piece of content. What is the process that you go through to to try to be able to add the audio description to it?
Jenna:   (0:30:56):
Yeah. So the recorded pre-recorded video workflow is pretty simple and straightforward. We do need like the finalized audio and visuals for it because we will be looking at those visuals, interpreting them, and we want the visuals to be accurate to what the intended final product is going to look like, and then the finalized audio, because we’re going to be mixing it. And what that looks like is we take that video, we send it to a writer who writes an audio description script for it that is timed to the video, and that adheres to all of the extensive audio description rules that are present in the industry right now and are always evolving and changing. But the point is that we are experts and at the forefront of those rules, and we want to make sure that we know them and live them and practice them. That script then goes through quality control so that someone else looks at the script and makes sure that it adheres to the rules. It then gets sent to a narrator, either in studio or remote, who will narrate the script, and then it gets mixed with the source audio so that the, uh, like the show audio or the the video audio gets ducked slightly whenever the narrator is speaking. Um, to the point, uh, not not to the point where you can’t hear any of the background, uh, music or any of the dialogue that’s going underneath the narrator, potentially just so that you can hear both intelligibly at the same time. There’s a lot of standards and quality practices when it comes to this. Um, but that’s our job. That’s that’s our job to worry about from, like, the client side perspective. You give us a video, we give you back the final mix of audio or, uh, lay back with the video. And that’s your audio description. Um, there might be client review steps with the script or with, uh, casting the narrator, but those are optional. That might be something that the client really, really cares about. It might not be something that they really have time for.
Steve:   (0:33:05):
Okay, so you mentioned some like uh, there are definitely rules for for audio description. Obviously I want to have to go through all of them. But what are some of the rules like kind of like a I guess like kind of the basic rules that you need to abide by when you’re writing a script for audio description.
Jenna:   (0:33:20):
It’s I mean, yeah. So we’re always trying to stay conscious of what current industry norms are, but also what cultural norms are and what, uh, how to be socially and culturally sensitive, for example. Um, so we have a, uh, an advisory council comprised of entirely blind individuals, many of whom are also narrators or qsrs or, uh, full time employees for DVW, who, um, we try to meet. We meet at least once a quarter in order to ask our advisory council about anything that might have come up in our line of work recently, or for any recommendations they might be conscious of in the industry or in the viewership as a whole, anything that might need to change or update. So some examples of rules include don’t describe over dialogue, don’t over or under describe like we mentioned, but also try not to draw conclusions on behalf of the viewer. Rather than imposing your own opinion and your conclusion that you as a sighted person came to. The idea is to try to give your audience access to exactly the same information, so that hopefully the viewer comes to the same conclusion you did, but they might not. So if I say that someone looks really, really angry in a scene, I might think like, wow, she’s going to murder this guy. She looks like she has murderous intent. Um, but that’s my opinion of her. All I know is that her brow is furrowed and her lips are drawn into a snarl. And we know everything that, like, led up to that murderous intent. But I should only be describing the facial expression and the body posture so that a viewer might also think she’s going to murder this guy without me directly telling them she has murderous intent or something like that. Obviously, in writing, every rule is kind of flexible. It’s probably going to get bent or broken at some point, but like any other form of writing, you have to know the rules before you can know when or how it is appropriate to bend or break them. It’s it’s a balance. Um, you obviously want to try not to break those rules as often as possible, but the rules aren’t the end all be all for things. In writing, our most common constraint is time. So if we don’t have time to say everything we want to about a description, unfortunately we might have to draw conclusions and summarize. Sometimes that’s the only way to really say something. But ideally, you want to give viewers access to the same information that the sighted audience has so that they have a parody in their experience. That’s the entire goal.
Steve:   (0:36:03):
Okay, so, uh, the kind of the example that I was kind of thinking in my head, as you were saying, that, uh, is so it’s very much kind of like because we think of, like narration, we sort of think of it like from the literary standpoint, from like reading a book. Uh, so in in audio description case, it’s just like if it is sort of like using the narrator of of within a book, it’s all the narrator is doing is just describing what’s happening then necessarily what we normally would get, which is also kind of the character’s inner thoughts, as you said, like with murderous intent. We would know that if it was, you know, we’re reading it as a book is that we get to know a little bit more about what’s in there, what’s in their mind. But all it is for audio description is for narration is literally just what is actually being shown on on screen.
Jenna:   (0:36:48):
If we were to do from a if we wanted to classify it from a technical literary standpoint, it would be a non omniscient, uh, third person narrator. So the narrator does not know, um, all of the characters, any of the characters internal thoughts. Um, you are supposed to only describe what you see, not what you think.
Steve:   (0:37:15):
Okay. Has there ever been, um. And I’m jumping ahead into the into the gaming side because I’m starting to think of because I’ve always liked the idea of using sort of accessibility, uh, to help with story narrative. Um, if, uh, and I like for I’m gonna try to not spoil it too much, but there is a particular moment, uh, in The Last of Us, part one, where there is a particular character that, uh, is like an ally, but then turns into a bad guy.
Steve:   (0:37:46):
Oh, yeah. And that was like a whole.
Jenna:   (0:37:47):
Debate for the high contrast mode. Right.
Steve:   (0:37:50):
Exactly. And that was something that I was that I, that I loved that it was sort of using high contrast mode because for those who don’t know within the story, is that like the if you’re an if a character is an ally, they are a shade of blue, and if they’re an enemy, they’re a shade of red. But when this moment happens in the game the entire time, they’ve been blue. But then once that kind of camera switches and turns around, then you see that character as red and it’s very much like, yeah, now this person’s a bad guy when it comes to sort of the audio descriptions of that. If like, has there been times where you’ve been given, uh, a story element like that that you could be able to use the audio descriptions to help sort of push the narrative? Because as you use the example, as you said, with like someone that’s with murderous intent, have you ever had that or have you ever requested that when it comes to particular story, a beat within, within a game or within the project that you’re describing?
Jenna:   (0:38:44):
Yeah. So sometimes we will have access to more information than the player would at that point in the story. So we might know more about like a person, like a character’s titles or their relationships with, with other characters or presumed relationships. So like one, one good example is this is not specific to any game, but like a trope in media, might be two characters who think they are related to one another. So like they’re siblings or a parent or something, but then it later gets revealed that they are not, in fact related to one another or something like that. So even if we, the describers know that in the plot, later on it’s going to be revealed that they’re not actually related at that point in the story, they do think that they are. So if we say, like John looks at his sister, that would be appropriate, because at that point in the narrative, everyone does think that that’s his sister or you, the viewer might have your suspicions for why that isn’t, but it’s not like it’s not known to any of the characters yet, so you can’t use that future knowledge to influence your past descriptions. Now, that might not be the case. If, for example, you know that there’s an item or object or aspect of someone’s appearance that later becomes significant, like let’s say those two characters who aren’t related like their hair color when introducing them, we might choose to include that if it becomes relevant to the plot later, and we might prioritize that over other aspects of their appearance. Um, in Mortal Kombat 1, there was a an object that a character interacts with early in the story while they’re just kind of have, like having like a side conversation, he’s just picking stuff up and looking at things on shelves. And we had to mention one object in particular because it becomes relevant to the plot later. So we would prioritize that one object over the others in the scene, not because it’s like inaccurate, or because none of those other objects in the scene are significant. It’s just we need to we need we need people to know that it was there so that when it gets a callback later, we it’s it is actually a callback. And not just the what what is he talking about? Yeah. So sometimes you would use your knowledge of future events or your knowledge of like, character names or titles or pronouns or like, if it’s a reveal for who they are. Um, you don’t want to use that that future knowledge to do the reveal early. You just want to give the audience access to the same information, right?
Steve:   (0:41:23):
Yeah. So you basically when you’re describing, you’re just trying to be able to be the, the like essentially the eyes of the audience, uh, in a sense of like, yeah, the how like when this is revealed, you want to basically be at like, uh, be like, you.
Jenna:   (0:41:37):
Want it to actually.
Jenna:   (0:41:38):
Be a.
Jenna:   (0:41:38):
Reveal. Yeah.
Steve:   (0:41:39):
Right. Okay. Yeah. Because and I like that when you mentioned about like, just, you know, there are certain things that, you know, will be call back a little bit later. Um, so I wanted to kind of, uh, to talk like, kind of, uh, talk a little bit about that side. So when you do get a project where you’re going to describe, um, like the audio descriptions for the full, uh, for the full game and all the and all the cinematics. What is the process like for that? Like, do you get everything all at once? Do you know the story beforehand so you can be able to offer suggestions on how to be able to write the audio description for it? Or is it just like, here’s everything, just add in like, like like how you would with a live version or like a pre-recorded trailer. Just like, you know, insert in as need be. Like, do you get to like, with the projects you’ve worked on? If you get to work with the narrative team on on that kind of stuff?
Jenna:   (0:42:26):
Yes. Um, but every game developer is different. So of course the the process isn’t going to be the same between any two games. But overall, um, most of our work is done very close to the end of the development cycle, so very close to release. Reason being, the visuals have to be at or almost finalized, and the timing and audio have to kind of be locked down in order for us to know how much time we have to describe and what we are describing. So we would receive, um, uh, like captures, uh, like video captures of gameplay footage or of those, uh, those cinematics or both to help give us some additional context leading into the cinematics. And if there’s any storytelling dialogue that happens between them, we might get gameplay captures, we might get the full script, we might get an outline. Um, I’ve also received things like concept art for character designs in the past, because in game it’s not quite completed yet. Um, I we might also receive environmental art or just notes from the narrative team. Um, anything that can help us know who’s who, what they’re supposed to look like, what other things are supposed to look like, or any notes that would help us fill in the gaps for other things that are unfinished are really helpful. And then the process is similar to other pre-recorded forms of media, but the deliverable is. Instead of us giving a fully mixed video back to the client, we just give them the clean, timed narration for them to insert, because that is usually an option in a menu that might have its own volume slider, so we’re not mixing it with the rest of the game audio. The game’s engine is doing that. Um, so we, we receive video captures in much the same way that we would for any other videos, but we deliver back just the narration, mono stems. There’s also usually a lot more client review when it comes to in-game audio description, as opposed to other forms of media, which from our perspective can be both a bad and a good thing. It’s great to get more detailed feedback from clients who are actually paying attention to things and ensuring accuracy, and making sure that you have gotten all of your character names and pronouns and titles correct. But it means we also kind of have to teach the clients what the rules and practices are for audio description, so that we can kind of get ahead of suggestions that might not fit the rules of audio descriptions. It’s really cool to kind of be able to do that. Um, on the positive side of things, there are clients who pick pick it up really, really well. I have no doubt that Sam Schaffel, for example, could be a really good audio describer or QCer, because by the end of working on Spider-Man 2, he had excellent suggestions for any scripts that needed to change because some part of the game changed or got updated or something got retimed and he’s like, hey, we got to make this phrase shorter. How about we do this? And I would basically by the end of it I was like, yeah, no notes. That’s great. Great suggestions. Um, but then it also means that on the client side of things, you’re having to review these scripts that adhere to all these rules, but you might not be sure. Did they do that because of an audio description rule, or did they do that because they don’t know that this character is actually supposed to look like this? I don’t know, it’s always a collaborative effort. There will be a lot of back and forth, but it’s always really cool and really fun because you might learn some things about the game or about the characters that you might not have necessarily thought of before, like that example of, uh, does this friend switch to an enemy in the high contrast mode? I don’t know, I’ve never really thought about that before. Does this character, uh, does this ethereal entity have a name? Do they have pronouns? I don’t know, I’ve never really thought about that before, but there are things that it’s always kind of helpful to think through all of these things and look at it from a perspective you might not have considered before, and you also learn some cool stuff with it too.
Steve:   (0:46:36):
Cool.
Steve:   (0:46:36):
So like when you are, um, working with the, uh, with the sort of the narrative team, I guess, uh, in regards to a lot of these cinematics, like, do they um, like when you’re scripting everything out, do you try like do they try to be able to like here’s the tone of what the game is like, the trying to like, do you try to match that or do they kind of give you here’s what the game is like, or do they kind of try to be able to come up with like, here’s like how we wanted how it described to kind of fit with like our narrative. Do they do that or is it just more of like, no. Do they they just trust you? Here’s here’s what we got. Uh, and then, you know, record it and then we’ll give you feedback like along the way.
Jenna:   (0:47:13):
Um, so it’s mostly they give us feedback on the scripts. Um, they usually don’t give us feedback on the narration unless something is, like, mispronounced or, uh, or unless the tone is, like, wildly wrong because both the writer and the narrator are going to be really good at picking up what the tone of a scene is supposed to be, because we’re interpreting it based on, like, what the what the direction of it is when we actually watch through it. Like, what are the vibes? What’s our impression of it? That is sort of where we do get to insert. I wouldn’t say our opinion, but like, um, we’re supposed to pick up as a viewer. What, like why did they pick that shot change? Why are they focusing on this one thing particular? Um, the music is really sad here, and we’re really lingering on this character’s expression. It’s it’s clearly supposed to be sad. So those are the sort of vibes that we will pick up just from watching it through. We don’t need to be told that, um, what the what the mood of a scene is supposed to be unless there’s like, hey, this cut scene happens like right at the end of this really climactic fight scene. Unless we don’t if we don’t have that information, we might need that extra information. But we don’t need to be told that the cinematic itself is climactic, if we can just see that from watching through it. So we might make vocabulary choices that are, uh, in the vibe of the scene. Um, if we want the narrator to read things a little slower and more sensitive, we might give a larger time window. If we want things to be a little snappier and quicker because it’s an action scene, we might give a shorter time window. And vocabulary choices are always going to lend themselves to both the setting and the tone of the scene.
Steve:   (0:48:57):
Okay. Um, so when when this is the kind of the question that that I’ve kind of I personally kind of had for, for a bit, uh, was.
Steve:   (0:49:05):
Because you’ve done some.
Steve:   (0:49:06):
Some narration for.
Steve:   (0:49:08):
For DVW.
Steve:   (0:49:08):
In the past.
Jenna:   (0:49:09):
Yeah, yeah, I’ve.
Steve:   (0:49:10):
And I’ve enjoyed every second of it. I love to be able to do more. Um, uh, the thing that kind of fascinated me the most was so like, because obviously, you know, trailers or videos or cinematics or whatever, the often they’re, you know, as it still is, and pretty much even in film and TV, they are edited in a way that, you know, makes sense for the visual medium. And like if it’s edited in a specific way, it’s edited in a specific way. Um, the, the how the dialogue comes in and you know, how quick a certain shot is and stuff like that. So I want to know, like, because obviously the challenge is trying to be able to insert the descriptions within the confines of the of the way it’s like currently edited. How do you handle that? Like is it kind of one of those sort of like you just kind have to be like, again, that improv of just like, okay, well, we only have like this much here. We can’t really don’t like, when is it like do would we not describe it. Do we, do we do a limited description. Do we do a full description or do you even have the opportunity, even in games to be able to potentially request like hey, if we given like maybe an extra second or two, it would be it would make it much better for the description. Uh, like, do you have that even that feedback, uh, like are allowed to give that feedback or is it just like, nope, you got to work within the confines of what we give you?
Jenna:   (0:50:29):
Yeah.
Jenna:   (0:50:30):
I mean, um, I don’t think we because we’re coming in so late in development, it’s usually too late to make changes like that. So, I mean, as much as I would God, I would love the opportunity to have like a fully collaborative sort of side by side integrated audio description alongside a game developer. I don’t know if that’s ever been done before, like with extensive audio description or where the description itself affects the timing of other aspects of the game. I don’t think that’s ever been done, and God, I would love for that to happen. That would be so cool. But for the most part, we’re just trying to be there as an interpretive presence and not as like a prescriptive presence. So we’re there to try and like, interpret or translate the visuals, and not necessarily for us to have any sway over those visuals themselves. Um, aside from like, you know, if we, if we happen to like, catch an error or something, um, in, like, oh, hey, this, uh, character says goodbye character name, but they’re actually talking to character name B or something. Then that might be if if we catch something that’s obviously an error, we’ll give feedback to the client. But we’re not asking for like, I just need two more seconds to slip in a couple more descriptions. Now we’re we’re accustomed to you work with what you got, and if you can’t describe everything that you want to, then that’s that’s just the name of the game. That’s how it is.
Steve:   (0:52:03):
I love that.
Steve:   (0:52:03):
I love that that description of like it’s interpretive instead of like prescriptive. Like I think that that’s something I hadn’t thought about before. I’m like, yeah, you’re absolutely right. Descriptions are essential. Yeah. Interpreting what is being presented. Uh, and you just do the best you can with it.
Jenna:   (0:52:17):
Because there is such.
Jenna:   (0:52:17):
A thing as extended description where the describer chooses when to pause the media and describe things, and then the media resumes, and that’s usually for things like where there normally is no time to describe things. Otherwise it’s not used very often because there’s rarely a need for it. Reason being, ideally, you want to keep with the pacing and the editing and the direction decisions of the original source media, and you want to keep with the vibes of that, because again, you want to have as close an experience as possible.
Steve:   (0:52:51):
Yeah.
Steve:   (0:52:51):
That’s that. I like that too. That’s that, that’s great. Um, so with DV kind of like being sort of at the, at the forefront of basically integrating audio descriptions of like for games, uh, and with obviously, you know, the, the resume speaks for itself. Um, without obviously like you’re spoiling what projects like are upcoming. Where do you see the future of audio description uh in games going and like where do you see areas of improvement that should be addressed? Is it that we can be able to be a little bit more prescriptive in our descriptions, as you as you mentioned, or is it are there other things that, you know, this could be better in gaming because gaming allows you to be able to do this, right?
Jenna:   (0:53:31):
Yeah. So I mean, we I look at games as an inherently interactive medium, yet there are we haven’t really tapped into the full potential of audio description as an interactive portion of that interactive medium. To date, most of the audio descriptions have been for pre-scripted events that have a set timing, so things like qtes finishers and cinematics. I would love to see the scope of that expanded to things like describing, uh, character cosmetics in a menu, describing an environment as a sort of optional extended audio description that plays when you enter that environment, or optional extended descriptions of like the menu UI layout, like if that looks really, really cool, if a journal entry has some handwritten notes and like little squiggly drawings in the margins, I would love to be able to describe that in addition to just describing the text of the journal. If there’s this really cool, like sci fi sort of layout to the menus, and they have like this really cool font and, and like they’ve spent so many hours on the visuals of that. I would love to be able to describe that. So I want to see, um, I want to see an expansion in the scope of what is described. But mostly I just want to see more games hopping on board with full accessibility and with full audio description. Right now there’s a few superhero game studios that are leading the charge. I would also like to see that sort of come from the top down publisher level, encouraging more studios to hop on board with audio description. I also want to see more live industry events get on board with it. Like you mentioned, we have a couple superstars who are, um, consistently audio describing all of their major live stream announcements, but I want to see I want to see the other major studios do that too. So I just I just want more. I could see a lot of potential, um, for expanding the scope of audio description to be things that are to some extent procedural or which are optional at player prompting. Um, and I think it could be really, really cool and really, really helpful.
Steve:   (0:55:59):
I, I like that and especially that, uh, that descriptor aspect of, like the menus and stuff, kind of almost like adding alt text into into games. Yeah.
Jenna:   (0:56:07):
Exactly. Yeah yeah, yeah. Oh, that’d be really great.
Steve:   (0:56:10):
Oh man. I love or.
Speaker S3:       (0:56:11):
Actually I.
Jenna:   (0:56:12):
Have so many ideas, but.
Steve:   (0:56:13):
Like. Yeah. Same actually.
Steve:   (0:56:15):
So have you ever played, um. Uh, Cosmo? Yes. Hi. Like the VR, uh, game from the.
Jenna:   (0:56:20):
So they actually, they had a. Yeah.
Steve:   (0:56:23):
Yeah, they have the alt text as far as there or alt descriptions for their stuff. And that was like, yeah, that was that. I wish more visual descriptions.
Jenna:   (0:56:30):
Yes. Yeah. I would.
Jenna:   (0:56:31):
Love that. Yeah. Or just like I don’t know, menu layouts, things like, uh, there’s, there’s just so many cool things that developers spend hundreds and hundreds of hours designing. Like when it comes to like even even little things like character animations, when you select them in a menu or something, like there’s so many hours that go into that, and yet it’s if you can’t see the screen, it might as well not be there because it’s, it’s it’s invisible.
Steve:   (0:56:59):
Oh man. We I that would be great. Oh I would love to see that happen.
Jenna:   (0:57:03):
You imagine if.
Jenna:   (0:57:04):
You opened up a photo mode and you could cycle through different aspects to select and be like, describe this, describe that. What’s this character look like?
Steve:   (0:57:10):
Ah, that would be dope.
Steve:   (0:57:12):
I, I.
Jenna:   (0:57:13):
Would love to do this.
Steve:   (0:57:14):
You should work on games. I know I should, I should do games. What is what. Yeah. Like sheesh.
Steve:   (0:57:21):
Wow, you’re really good at that, huh?
Speaker S3:       (0:57:23):
I got ideas, I just need someone to buy him. Getting into.
Steve:   (0:57:26):
Video games.
Speaker S3:       (0:57:29):
Um, you know, man, that’s not a bad idea. Steve. Yeah, Yeah. You seem to have opinions on it.
Steve:   (0:57:34):
Might as.
Speaker S3:       (0:57:34):
Well.
Steve:   (0:57:36):
Um, so, speaking of opinions. Like what? In your opinion? What? What must game developers like? What should they understand? Uh, understand about about audio description. Um, and when should they start, like working with, like a company like DVW to add audio description into their games?
Jenna:   (0:57:53):
Oh, I love this question. This is great. Yeah. I mean, one thing to keep in mind is that audio description is just one of dozens of potential accessibility options that might go into a game. And it helps not just players who are visually impaired, but also those who are cognitively impaired or who are streaming or have someone in their household who are visually impaired and also wants to follow along with the story. But it is. Audio description is not going to make your entire game accessible. It is going to make the narrative accessible to those who need audio description. But it’s not going to cover everything that you need to think about. So I would say definitely get in touch with an organization like Player Research for a more holistic look at what might be required for, um, for greater accessibility within the game. And as far as timing goes, there’s never it’s it’s never too early to start talking to a company like DVW about audio description. Obviously, many accessibility features need to be integrated as early as possible in order for them to be much easier and save you time later. Um, I want to emphasize that audio description is the exception. Um, as for when we come in very late in the development cycle, that is not the norm when it comes to most other accessibility features, so don’t wait till the last minute to consider those. But audio description is, uh, a little easier or simpler in that aspect, in that there is an optimum window of time closer to the release where we want to start the bulk of the work, but we can also start preparations way earlier in the sense that, like we have resources set aside, we already have a narrator cast and set in stone. We’ve already run some tests with some mono stems that we’ve sent back to you. You guys have a framework so that once we actually start writing and producing the audio for it, it’s just plug and play. So we will do most of our work very close to release, but we can integrate with other accessibility, uh, add ons and options like those that Player Research and QA testers might suggest pretty pretty closely.
Steve:   (1:00:10):
Okay, cool. Um, and you, uh, you mentioned resources. What are some of the, uh, like, like Player Research? Like, what are some of the resources that players can or developers can be able to visit to find out more about, uh, like the cool accessibility stuff that’s being done at DVW or just audio descriptions in general.
Jenna:   (1:00:26):
Um, gosh, I think, um, Player Research for the accessibility, QA, um, being involving them early in the development process will be a much, much easier way of going about it than, uh, than sort of being like, well, shoot, what do I do? I release next month. They’re going to give way more information than I could ever know about, way more accessibility features than I ever knew I needed or that existed. Um, they’ll have a ton of resources for any type of game at any point in development. And they’re I would also say, just keep up with you on social media for any cool new things that we’re doing, any time that we can announce it. Because NDAs. Because NDAs.
Steve:   (1:01:16):
Yes.
Steve:   (1:01:16):
And you got to keep protect those NDAs with with your life. Otherwise, you know, snipers. Um, yes.
Jenna:   (1:01:22):
Snipers. Start talking about.
Jenna:   (1:01:24):
Something. A little red dot appears on your forehead.
Speaker 23:       (1:01:26):
That’s how I imagine it. Yeah, yeah, believe me.
Steve:   (1:01:28):
I’ve.
Steve:   (1:01:29):
I have seen that before.
Steve:   (1:01:30):
Uh.
Steve:   (1:01:31):
So. Well, thank you, Jennissary, so much for joining us. If people want to be able to follow you and what you’re and the work that you do, where can people be able to find you online?
Jenna:   (1:01:40):
Oh, yeah.
Jenna:   (1:01:41):
Um, I am unfortunately still on Twitter, but I am also on, uh, yeah. I’m uh, also on LinkedIn, YouTube, and I stream live on Twitch a couple times a week. Uh, you can find me everywhere as Jennissary, two N’s, two S’s, and, uh. Yeah, just trying to. I try to stay on top of things, and I try to. I try to be conscious of things, but if any like anytime someone like reaches out and DMs me and they’re like, excited about if they have like specific questions about audio description or they’re like a student or if they have feedback. Any time I hear from someone about like specifics related to my work, it’s it’s universally awesome. So like if you have if you’re listening to this and you have some weird question, but but you’re like, nah, that’s probably really stupid. Or she probably gets shit like that all the time. Like, no, ask it. It’s so fun. I love talking about this.
Steve:   (1:02:35):
I absolutely love that. Yes. So please reach out to to Jenna and, uh, thank you again so much for for being here. And thank you, uh, for all who are watching or listening. If you have any questions, you can either contact myself or as Jenna said, you can contact her for any, any and all questions. No questions. Too dumb. Uh, we love answering those questions. Um, or of course, you can be able to reach out to the folks at Player Research as well. If you’d like to learn more about what we talked about today, check out the rest of the series on Advancing Accessibility. Thanks again and have a great day and go play some games.
Jenna:   (1:03:09):
Yeah.

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