Roy Samuelson

Author, coach, speaker, performer

narration

Audio Description, News

Nation’s Blind Podcast

March 4, 2020 – Audio Description: A Professional Perspective (Part 2 of 2)

This episode of the Nation’s Blind Podcast is the second of two episodes exploring the topic of audio description. Chris Danielsen chats with Roy Samuelson, voiceover artist and audio description narrator for hit shows like NCIS and Star Trek, Picard, and major motion pictures like the Oscar-nominated 1917. Roy talks about how he discovered the field of audio description, his evolution from narrator to passionate advocate, how collaboration with the blind people who make up the audience is essential to quality audio description, and how blind people can and should become involved in its creation and production.

https://www.nfb.org/sites/www.nfb.org/files/2020-03/nations_blind_podcast_march_4_audio_description_1_0.mp3

Audio Description, Audio Samples, Clients, Uncategorized

Elizabeth Warren Campaign Ad

Original Elizabeth Warren video, and Audio Description mp3 below with script.

Audio Description Script

00:00
An image of Mark Zuckerberg. if she gets elected president, then you go to the mat and you fight.

00:04
Text: The rich and powerful are afraid of Elizabeth Warren

00:07
They’ll tell you themselves

00:22
An image of a newspaper headline: Wall Street is freaking out at the thought of President Liz Warren

00:43
Liz Warren speaks at an interview

00:50
Warren – join the fight. Text Warren to 24477

 

Audio Description, News

MPAA “The Credits” interview

https://www.mpaa.org/2019/08/voice-over-artist-roy-samuelson-on-bringing-films-like-us-spider-man-far-from-home-to-the-blind/

The Credits: Profiles Below The line

Voice over artist Roy Samuelson has been heard by millions of blind and low vision audiences in some of this year’s biggest films. Samuelson’s job is to narrate a special audio track in which he voices the visuals that are relevant to the plot. There are currently 26 million adults in America who are blind or low vision, so the work folks like Samuelson is doing is crucial. Streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu currently include audio description, and Apple and the upcoming Disney+ will likely include it, too.

“It’s almost like a sports announcer on the radio giving the play by play,” Samuelson says. “We provide the essential elements of what’s happening on a screen.”

Samuelson’s work requires a form of visual analysis on the part of the folks who write the audio scripts. They need to figure out what visual elements are necessary for Samuelson to describe to the audience, and, just as crucially, what parts to leave out.

“It’s usually in between lines of dialogue when I’m doing most of my narrating,” he says. “Little inserts of what’s happening on screen. The way people move, when they’re saying one thing but doing something different, or if there’s a visual joke I need to explain. I’m usually just adding brush strokes because there’s not a lot of time to give specifics of everything. The scriptwriters are incredibly crafty. They’re able to take the filmmakers intentions and create an entirely new script.”

Samuelson says that his goal is to describe what’s essential and then get out of the way.

“The spotlight is on the story,” he says. “I try to go along with the tone, with a touch of emotion. I don’t want audience members taken out of a scene when they hear my voice. There’s a way to do it where it isn’t jarring. The narration takes the audience member on the ride. If it’s a sad scene and someone’s dying, I’m not going to read it like it’s just words.”

Here’s an example of how this works, taken from Quentin Tarantino’s iconic Pulp Fiction. The first is simply the audio of the scene when Samuel L. Jackson’s Jules and John Travolta’s Vince pay a visit to some bumbling would-be two-timers. The second includes Samuelson’s narration:Audio Player

Samuelson has worked on some of the year’s biggest films. For Jodan Peele‘s sensational Us, he was blown away by the writer/director’s visual brilliance, and he wanted to make sure his listeners would be able to live inside Peele’s meticulously crafted world.

“Us feels like a radio play,” Samuelson says. “I’d worked on Get Out, so I already knew Peele’s got a lot of humor, a lot of surprises, and he’s unique. Going through the script, there are definitely moments where the ride changes from something incredibly creepy and spooky to action, and then again to levity and humor,” he says. “Being able to track that, without screaming into the mic during a jump scare, is important. There’s a way to do it to allow the audience to experience the scares without going overboard. There’s an audio cue, and we find the best fit for that particular scene.”

How Samuelson actually does his work sounds like a masterclass in multitasking. He’s watching the film, listening to it on a headset, and reading the script while he’s performing his narration. It’s a bit of a hire wire act, especially for a film as visually rich and action-packed as Us. Take the scene in which the Wilson family’s vacation home is broken into by their creepy doppelgangers. Not the easiest thing in the world to narrate.

“What happens for the audience is they’re hearing things timed out to what’s happening on screen,” he says. “So [Shahadi Wright Joseph]’s character kicks someone in the face, runs to the end of the room and locks the door. You’d hear the impact of the foot to the face, hear her footsteps, then the lock of the door. The script itself has audio cues, timing cues, and visual cues.”

Samuelson has done enough narration to get into a kind of zone where he’s not overwhelmed by everything that’s going on. This was especially true for Us, considering the moment the doppelganger family arrives there’s essentially nonstop action for more or less the remainder of the film’s runtime.

“I’m not necessarily consciously thinking of what’s happening. I’m reading the words and feeling the film’s flow, at the same time watching the timing cues,” he says.  “So if the script says that at 4:30:15, I say this sentence, I have to do it briskly because I’ve only got three seconds before a line of dialogue. I do try to time it out to make it as easy as possible for the editor. If I’m chasing the action, I try to be consistently one second behind, or, if I can, I do my best to stay right on track. The excitement isn’t just the technical reading and writing, but also knowing that blind and low vision audiences are able to experience this film the way the sighted person would watch it.”

[Listen to Samuelson narrate a scene from Us here.]

For Spider-Man: Far From Home, Samuelson found that the action was so heavy and nonstop, he wasn’t able to look at the film while he was narrating parts of it.

“There were some points where I only had time to read the script and see what was happening with the next cue,” he says. “Everything that I needed was in the script. It was literally a page-turner.”

One of the most important aspects of Samuelson’s job is allowing blind and low vision audiences to experience the same jolts and joyous “ah-ha!” moments as everyone else.

“When we do get granular, it can often be something that gets reincorporated later on the story, something a sighted audience member would casually notice and then remembers it when it comes back to pay off,” he says. “The blind and low vision audiences get to have that same experience. I’ll drop a little nugget of something that seems kind of random, and in most cases, it’ll pay off. There’s something incredibly satisfying about that. It feels like I’m part of the film, and literally, I am for blind and low-vision audiences.”

Audio Description, News

That Moment in interview

Voice Over Talent Roy Samuelson Talks With Us About Audio Description For The Visually Impaired

Voice Over Talent Roy Samuelson Talks With Us About Audio Description For The Visually Impaired
On Jul 31, 2019
Roy Samuelson is a seasoned Hollywood voice over talent who has worked extensively in commercials, series promos and radio. Keeping up with the ever changing voiceover industry, Samuelson is leading the way as one of the top voices for audio description, enabling the blind and visually impaired the opportunity to enjoy both film and television. We caught up with this talented artist to learn more about his work in this field and constantly growing arena.
How did you get started in your career as a voice over artist?

Roy Samuelson: I started my career as a voice over artist at Disney World on an attraction called The Great Movie Ride. Sixty or so guests rode a moving vehicle going through the movies, different sets with audio animatronic characters. I had a microphone and narrated the script in between sound and visual cues. I then was the gangster, who takes over the vehicle, shoots bad guys, and gets blown up every 8 minutes. It was great practice to be on mic, and see the reactions to audiences in real time, so I could adjust my deliveries and see what worked best.

You do radio work, television promos, commercial voice over work and audio description. Do you have a favorite and why?

RS: I love all types of voice over. Each one has a specific special charge to me. Radio work, specifically commercials, gives me the ability to tell a story in 15 seconds, 30 seconds, or 60 seconds. I love delivering what the director and writer intend, and get at the heart of the emotion, and the story, and find some surprises. Television promos to me is very exciting for similar reasons, plus matching timing, so the technical aspect of it adds an extra fun layer. I find my biggest passion right now is in Audio Description – it combines all these other elements into one long form experience of showing a story.

What is audio description?

RS: Audio Description is like listening to a baseball game on the radio – you get the play by play of the visuals. For TV shows and movies, Audio Description is a special audio track where a narrator voices the visuals relevant to the plot. It’s for access to the main visual elements, and the narrator works around the audio or dialogue. Mostly it’s narration of the actions, settings, body language and graphics. I like to give it a slight emotional element so I can help carry the story along, without getting in the way of the story.

How does one access audio description in a movie theater?

RS: Movie theaters are great about complying with access. There are special areas for wheelchairs, closed captioning devices for deaf or hard of hearing audience members, and amplified headsets too. For Audio Description, a special wireless headset puts through the audio description track, so you can hear the movie, and also hear the description. Those headsets don’t make the movie louder, it’s a whole new voice to the movie.

How does one access audio description with television and streaming?

RS: TV and streaming services have all kinds of ways to turn on audio description. Apps for smartphones are usually just a few taps away. TV on cable boxes have special audio settings for accessibility. There’s no one way to get to it, and the Audio Description Project, and a few facebook groups, exchange information on how to access it, or who to call to figure it out. In most cases it’s pretty easy to turn on or off.

Do all television series and films utilize audio description?

RS: There are mandates from the FCC to require so many hours of programming per quarter of network shows, and that requirement increases. Most companies recognize the value and market share of blind and low vision audiences, and opt in to do a lot more. Sometimes the community makes a request or a demand, and companies are smart to heed those for everyone’s benefit.

What is the difference between audio description and descriptive narration?

RS: Audio Description is the preferred term to describe this service. There are some companies that use “Video Description” too. It means the same, so I’ve learned that staying with Audio Description keeps things a little more clear.

What is the difference between a narrator and a describer?

RS: A narrator of Audio Description is the voice you hear. She usually reads from a script that was written by a describer. The describer watches the original TV show or movie, and writes the script, to make sure essential elements are there, and that the words don’t get in the way of the story. That script usually has to fit perfectly, so there are a lot of challenges to writing for describers. It’s an amazingly crafted talent.

What sort of a market is there for audio description?

RS: Right now, the market for Audio Description, at least in the US, is around 26 million blind and low vision people. The number varies based on demographics or sources, but that’s a pretty high amount of people. With aging populations, it’s likely more people will be using Audio Description. It’s also great for sighted audience members; commuting for long times. Cooking. Or giving your eyes a break after staring at screens all day.

What advice would you give to a young voice over talent who wanted to get into audio description?

RS: Young voice over talents have a lot to choose from to get their information. It’s always useful to turn on Audio Description and get a sense of what you like and don’t like. Live performances sometimes also offer Audio Description. Explore the internet and see what comes up for Audio Description. The Audio Description Project is a treasure trove, and facebook groups like the Audio Description Discussion group, can be great places to learn from users and creators of Audio Description.

Where can people find you on social media?

RS: I’m on twitter and instagram @RoySamuelson – I use alt text in my Instagram images – and also on facebook at RoySamuelsonBiz.