On Wednesday, March 25, Scribit.Pro organized the annual Expert(ise) Day in Utrecht. During this meeting, Scribit.Pro employees and the target audience for accessible video meet.
This allows our organization’s permanent team, freelance video describers, and end- users of audio description to exchange knowledge and share experiences. Traditionally, the Expert(ise) Day is one of the ways Scribit.Pro continues to examine the quality of its services with end-users.
Audio description Blind Sherlock
During the expert(ise) day, we discuss visual description using practical examples. This time, we discussed the Flemish/Dutch co-production Blind Sherlock. This Netflix crime series is about a blind man who starts working for the Rotterdam police in the department that deals with wiretapping criminals. The series is based on the true story of a blind employee of the Antwerp police. Lead actor Bart Kelchtermans became blind himself four years ago. The discussion of Blind Sherlock yielded fascinating insights: not only regarding audio description, but also regarding the representation of people with visual impairments in media productions.
Audio description VRT
We stayed in Flanders for a little while longer. Jan-Willem van Hoof, audio description coordinator at VRT, the Belgian public broadcaster, gave an insight into his work. It was very interesting to learn how things work with our southern neighbors when it comes to the accessibility of audiovisual productions. At the same time, it was a confirmation that good audio description always remains a custom job.
That was also the conclusion reached when discussing the latest developments in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) in the profession of image description. For the past three years, Scribit.Pro has been investigating the performance and capabilities of AI in audio description. The expert day also offers the opportunity to share our findings regarding the applicability of AI in our field with our employees and our target audience. The latest ChatGPT models show interesting developments, but the quality delivered by Scribit.Pro is not achieved by current AI models. Artificial intelligence could, however, offer practical support to our audio describers – just as it can already be a tool for people who are blind or visually impaired.
Developments AI and audio description
A practical example of this was immediately available on March 25. Expert and enthusiastic YouTube user Ferry Molenaar gave a demonstration of a new plug-in developed by Scribit.Pro. This plug-in makes it possible to request an AI-generated image description for a YouTube or Vimeo video at any time.
Our PROs and experts together
What made this day particularly valuable? As one of the participants put it beautifully: ‘A meeting like this makes me feel valued and involved in the organization.’ That is exactly what the Scribit.Pro expert(ise) days are all about. Thanks to all the PROs, experts by experience, and Jan-Willem for their valuable contribution.
It is incredibly educational when the creators of accessibility features and their users exchange their experiences. In this way, Scribit.Pro continues to test and improve its expertise in collaboration with experts by experience.
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