[220/366]

[cosmolinguist]

Today a guest blog post I wrote went up! It's about how different it felt to watch Hamilton on Disney+ with audio description when I had to see it live in London with no audio description.

I volunteered to write this when I was feeling lots of deadline pressure already, but actually I think it worked out really well to do this at the same time I was writing academically about audio description. It was good for me to get to write about the emotional and personal side of the subject that was missing from my academic writing.

Comments

Top notch!

[jesse_the_k]

You managed to convey the crucial emotional valence without being at all weepy or "inspiring."

Re: Top notch!

[cosmolinguist]

Oh I'm so glad to hear that because earlier drafts were much more, if not weepy, at least "woe is me" and then the inevitable (well, inevitable for me) backlash of defiance. Which is not to say there's anything wrong with defiance at unequal access, but a disabled live-show blog didn't really seem like the best place for that. So I tried to take out a bunch of the complaining and bitterness.

Re: Top notch!

[jesse_the_k]

Hey! You're a good writer and advocate.

just so you know.

Re: Top notch!

[barakta]

I concur. You conveyed the unfairness of there being hardly any AD live shows, they were delayed and super expensive showings without whining or being unappreciative of getting to see it live at all.

I also enjoyed the user perspective where you recognised how challenging it was to describe and so much info had to be dropped to fit in but still useful etc.

Re: Top notch!

[cosmolinguist]

Heh I think that latter bit is the academic brain seeping in.

I ended up not talking much about the actual mechanics of the AD in Hamilton, but I thought this was long enough already and I can always do that some other time. :)

Re: Top notch!

[cosmolinguist]

Thank you! I definitely think both of those things are where my skills lie.

[sfred]

<3

[silveradept]

That was a good guest post. Framing AD as "I get to enjoy this in the same way that everyone else has been" helps quell the reactionaries that think of any accommodation as a special additional burden they have to do as a chore, rather than as something they should be able to do as a matter of course.

I'm still curious about the technical aspects of doing the AD, especially for something as frenetic as Hamilton is.