Northern Ballet: Merlin in Cinemas with Audio Description from 24 April 2022
Season 1, Episode 1190, Mar 31, 2022, 09:30 AM
Northern Ballet, the Leeds based ballet company who have been providing access to their productions for over 20 years for blind and partially sighted people with live through audio description along with their In Sight dance workshops/touch tours, will have their first cinema screening of one of their productions with audio description when Merlin is released in cinemas from Sunday 24 April 2022.
RNIB Connect Radio’s Toby Davey caught up with Pippa Moore from Northern Ballet and Audio Describer Jo Myers to find out more about the film screening of Merlin with audio description.
Pippa began by giving Toby a bit of background to Northern Ballet and their audio description offer for blind and partially sighted people and why they wanted to add description to the film screening of Merlin following on from their Covid 19 lockdown digital offer with audio description.
Jo explained a bit about her background as a Describer, working on her first film with audio description back in 1997 with Howards End for the RNIB, her AD work in theatres and other arts and heritage events over the years. Jo continued by saying that how as a Describer she and many of her colleagues during the pandemic had to move from working on description of live performances to online performances and events with support from ADA (Audio Description Association) and VocalEyes.
Jo then talked about her approach to describing Merlin as a film compared to a live described performance in a theatre and how the wonderful music of Merlin with musical motifs for some of the characters helped to add to Jo’s description, taking a visually impaired viewer through the journey of the story of Merlin as it unfolded in the filmed version of the stage production.
Pippa and Jo also talked about the audio synopsis which will be played out as part of the screening just before the filmed performance starts giving visually impaired viewers a bit of background to Merlin as well as the more in-depth introductory audio and text notes that are available from the VocalEyes website.
To find out more about the audio described cinema screenings of Northern Ballet’s Merlin do visit the Northern Ballet website via the following link -
(Image shows RNIB logo. 'RNIB' written in black capital letters over a white background and underlined with a bold pink line, with the words 'See differently' underneath)