Ep. 27: A Movie Trailer discussion with Kensuke Nakamura

Lee and Alex discuss the accessibility and history of movie trailers with special guest Kensuke Nakamura. He discusses his process when making audio described trailers.
NOTE: This episode resulted in the Alien Romulus trailer getting described by Kensuke, you can find it, along with his other trailers. at the link below.
Kensuke's Audio Described trailers: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?app=desktop&list=PLKtLt6a4OKA-xipFD_DRi_02-iF00F70d&si=qKBI3LBSlGhisv7Q

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Transcript

Woman's Voice
Spoiler warning for the following movies. Terminator: Genesis. Desire Lines. Avengers: Infinity War. Godzilla (2014). The following is a discussion about movie trailers by the Dark Room podcast with special guest, Kensuke Nakamura.

Lee Pugsley
Happy April, everyone, and welcome back to episode 27 of The Dark Room, where two blind cinephiles illuminate the sighted. I'm Lee Pugsley.

Alex Howard
I'm Alex Howard.

Lee Pugsley
And this is a podcast hosted by two legally blind guys for film lovers of all abilities. So today, we thought we would have a little bit have fun and talk about movie trailers. It's one of those things that has a really interesting history, which we'll get into. But as we get into the history of how trends in trailers have changed, it also has affected the way that me, Alex, and other people in the blind and low vision community are able to take in the content of movie trailers. So we are going to go ahead and discuss all of those things, and we actually have a very special guest with us today. I want to go ahead and introduce Kensuke, who is a freelance audio describer who has done quite a few different audio-described trailers. Kensuke, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here.

Kensuke Nakamura
Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here, and I love the topic.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, I really appreciate your passion for movie trailers and really look forward to your insight. So Alex, I'm going to go ahead and pass it over to you now. And why don't you just walk us through a brief history of how trends in movie trailers have changed over time?

Alex Howard
As far as the history of movie trailers go, I know movie trailers have been around forever, I think since the '20s. But with the invention of Internet, that's when things really changed. I think the most notable thing pre-Internet in terms of trailers was the Phantom Menace trailer. When that came out, people bought tickets to see Meet Joe Black in the theater just to see the Phantom Menace trailer, the Star Wars: Phantom Menace trailer. And then they'd leave the theater after that. So it got pretty big box office for Meet Joe Black just so people could watch that trailer. But then with the invention of the Internet now, things have really changed. Trailers have become more of a phenomenon with trailer reactions, people making videos about that. Comic-Con has really bumped up the importance of trailers, especially after, I think, Ironman was the first huge trailer to premiere at Comic-Con. And since that got so much pop and really started the whole MCU, people have been making a trailer premiere a big deal for a big tent pole movie. A lot of times you'll have a teaser the day before saying, "Trailer tomorrow," or even at Comic-Con, everyone's expecting this world premiere trailer, to be in the room when that trailer shows the first footage of this movie ever. So I think since the Phantom trailer came out and the invention of the Internet, trailers have become a pretty big deal, especially in fandoms like Star Wars and Marvel and things like that.

Lee Pugsley
It's been interesting to see how trends have changed with trailers. And going back to what you were saying about the Phantom Menace, that really seems to be the first trailer that made watching a movie trailer an event. Before that, people just passionately watched them and didn't have as much hype or expectation over a movie trailer as they did when Phantom Menace came out. And I think that just raised the bar for expectations of what people were hoping for in a trailer, and also increased the level of excitement that people had for movie trailers moving forward as well.

Alex Howard
I think other trends in trailers have been like, Don LeFontaine was the "In a World." 1970s, '80s, and '90s movie trailers, it would always be like, [imitating the deep movie trailer voice] "in a world..." You know, the big voiceover, deep voice, reading the text on screen, all of that. I think for us, that was much more accessible because the text was being read out loud. But now the trend has moved away from that. I think whenever something's popular for a long period of time, at a certain point, it becomes cheesy. So now we've moved away from that. But there have been other trends, like when the Inception trailer dropped and you had that horn sound in the trailer, I think a lot of trailers started doing that. And then there are trends, even with horror, where you have a happy song playing and it'll slow down and slowly become creepy. So I think certain trailers have changed the game and people try and copy certain trends that work really well in marketing.

Lee Pugsley
Definitely. Kensuke, I want to pass it over to you for a moment, and just wanted to hear any observations you might have on how trailer trends have changed over time.

Kensuke Nakamura
I definitely remember when trailers used to be a lot more talky and they just have the announcer, whether it's Don LaFontaine or whoever, would give a lot of expedition. I have a strong memory of the trailer for Golden Eye, where they're just explaining like, "Oh, James Bond is back, and he's here, and he's up against his worst foe, 006." And you're like, "Oh, you just gave away a major plot point that would have been a really nice surprise." And I remember the trailer for Flight of the Phoenix, too, which would just... It didn't have as much voiceover narration, but they were just explaining the entire plot of the movie from beginning to end. And I saw that, I'm like, "Oh, I don't even have to see the movie now." There was a trend towards more artistic trailers. I remember the trailer for The Watchmen was one that was super beautiful and set to this music by the Smashing Pumpkins, and it was very haunting, and the imagery was really beautiful. But that was one [where] there was text on screen, and then there was barely any dialog. So I can imagine that's difficult for accessibility because all you can get is a mood, but very little information about what the plot of the movie is. And yeah, so I feel like there's ebbs and flows, where there's trailers that give way too much information about the movie or even sell you a movie that you don't actually end up seeing. It's like, "Oh, they emphasized these aspects that were not really big parts of the actual movie." And then you end up getting a product that you weren't expecting. And another big thing for me was when they would always put trailers on VHS tapes. But when DVDs came out, you would get in the special features all of the trailers for the movie that you bought. And I loved when that came out. And I remember watching The Matrix and then watching the trailer for The Matrix and I'm like, "Okay, I've got five minutes. I just want a condensed version of all the coolest parts of this movie."

Alex Howard
Yeah. Speaking of what you're talking about with spoilers, the biggest spoiler for me in the trailer was Terminator: Genesis. I'm a big Terminator fan. And they had the whole twist that John Connor was a Terminator in that movie, in the trailer. And I was like, "Are you kidding me? This is the whole thing." And yeah, I would have been mad in the movie. Going into the movie, I was like, "Okay, this is probably not going to be that good." But then, like you said, there's misleading things that they do. The MCU will have things in the trailer that aren't even in the movie, like with the Hulk running in Infinity War. And I remember Paranormal Activity 3, they had things in that trailer that was not in the movie. Which I actually love it when they do that because it leaves you on your toes and it makes you surprised in the actual movie.

Kensuke Nakamura
When I was younger, I would try to watch trailers as much as I can. I remember specifically, when trailers started coming out on the internet, that was really great for me. But also the trailer for Spider-Man 2 came out, and I watched that trailer so many times, just like dozens of times, and really ruined the movie for myself. And I think at some point during probably phase two of the Marvel movies, I tried stopping watching trailers. It's just like, if it's a movie that I know I want to see, I just put my head down in the theater and just try to avoid watching it. I try to cover my ears because I'm like, "I want to know as little about the movie going into it as possible." And then sometimes after that, I would watch the trailer. I'm like, "Man, that trailer is really good, but it would have ruined so many surprises for me. So I'm glad I didn't check it out." It's a balance. And I like sometimes when they show things that aren't in the movie, and I'm like, "I feel like that was really misleading and just sold me a movie that was different than what I thought the trailer was showing me." But then in cases like in the Infinity War trailer, I was completely fine with them showing the Hulk because they didn't want to give away that spoiler about, "Oh, Bruce Banner is not able to be the Hulk in this movie." I felt like it didn't alter the spirit of the movie or even of the scene. Bruce Banner is there. The important thing is that everyone's there fighting. It's just that little detail was specifically changed to prevent us from getting a spoiler. So it can be a delicate balance.

Lee Pugsley
It's really interesting. In preparation for this podcast, I was watching back trailers from some of my favorite movies growing up and just some movies that I've been very fond of. And I noticed a fair amount of lines of dialog or just moments that were in the trailer that were never in the movie, or there's a line of dialog that changed a little bit. And I'm like, "Oh, that's fascinating," and something that, when I was younger and I was watching trailers, I didn't pick up on it, or I didn't think about it, or maybe it's just because I wasn't as familiar with these movies as I am nowadays. It's also crazy, I'm looking back at trailers from the '60s and '70s, let's say, which were really long. I mean, some of those trailers are over three minutes, and the pacing of them is pretty slow. Now, granted, attention spans and what people want from a trailer now have changed. But it's just very long and drawn out. Then when you get into the '80s and the '90s, they do have so much narration, which for a blind and low-vision is very helpful. But to the points that both of you guys are making, they tell you the entire movie, including the twist, and there's really no element of surprise at all. And... I guess when I was younger, I didn't really think about how much was being given away in a trailer. But watching some of these trailers back from the '90s, I was like, "Wow, they literally told me everything about this movie. Why would I need to watch it at all?"

Alex Howard
Yeah, I think even -- like Lee and I were talking the other night -- there's always one trailer at AMC that they show in every single movie. Then when that movie comes out, they'll pick another one to show over and over and over. I think one of the big ones for me was when they had the Smile trailer. That movie got delayed, so they had that in every movie for months. And then when you go see the movie, you know where all the scares are. You're watching for certain things that were in the trailer. So I didn't really like the movie Smile because I felt like all the were ruined for me in the trailer that I saw probably 50 times.

Lee Pugsley
Here's a good question for both of you guys. In your opinion, what makes a good movie trailer?

Alex Howard
The music definitely plays a big part. I think not showing too much, selling it enough, but not too much, and giving you the elevator pitch, but not plot points, if that makes any sense.

Kensuke Nakamura
Yeah, for me, I think, give me setups, don't give me payoffs. Ideally, the trailer would just be taken from the first third of the movie. Give me the basic premise. Where does the story start? What is this adventure they're about to go on? And give me mood. Is this going to be a slow-sweeping epic? Or is this going to be really frenetic John Wick style action? Just give me an idea of what the mood of this movie is going to be. And just give me a little plot. One convention that I really hate that happens in a lot of movie trailers, especially for action and horror movies, I think, is like, they'll show you the bits and pieces of a scene leading up to a moment. And you're like, "Oh, this thing's going to happen." And then they show the title of the movie. And then they show a quick snippet of the payoff. And I'm like, "You didn't need to show me the payoff. Just let me get the payoff in the movie." So, tell me as little as you can about how the plot is going to play out. Just give me a set up and mood, I think, is very important. But yeah, music goes a long way. And sometimes-- I heard long time ago on this video gaming podcast about-- there was a trailer for Gears of War that had, I think it was the Gary Jules' version of Mad World. It's just a very haunting, quiet, beautiful song set to this action video game about killing aliens with chainsaw bayonets. And it was just... It was such a weird contrast between the things. But they were saying that the movie can elicit an emotional response, that it can earn a a lot faster than if you're actually having to explain the characters and get you invested in them. But I feel like music can be a shortcut to these emotions. So sometimes that can be used very effectively, and sometimes it feels cheap. Like, "Oh, this trailer is a lot more emotional than it has any right to be."

Alex Howard
Yeah, I think there was somebody that cut the Solo trailer. I can't remember the original music they used in it, but what I do remember is, someone recut the Star Wars: Solo movie trailer to Sabotage by the Beastie Boys. And it was so much better. I was like, "This is... Yeah." The music definitely plays a very big part. The Batman trailer also had really good music--

Kensuke Nakamura
Oh yeah.

Alex Howard
--when that came our.

Lee Pugsley
Was it the Joker trailer, Alex, that played the song Smile, or was it the movie Smile, that trailer that played it?

Alex Howard
I think it might have been the Joker one, yeah.

Lee Pugsley
Because I remember thinking that's such an interesting juxtaposition of playing a song that contextually doesn't fit and it's almost more happy, but putting it in this more abstract movie that's a little darker. I know that you had mentioned the other day that you really like it when horror movies do that, where they play a happy song that's juxtaposed with the horror-type tone.

Alex Howard
I think that's always really cool making... I mean, making something happy is scary, I think it can be really hard to do, but if you can do it right, it's very effective.

Lee Pugsley
To speak to what I think makes a good trailer, I agree with everything you guys are saying so far. Music plays a huge part in what makes a good trailer. I think sometimes when studios are putting together trailers, they can underestimate how much of a difference a piece of music can make. Because I've definitely seen some trailers where they choose a piece of music that I'm like, "Why did they choose that? That makes no sense at all. They're not even trying to juxtapose one thing against another. They're just..." I just don't ever know what they're thinking in those moments. But beyond that, I think that a good movie trailer should pose a lot of questions, just make you wonder what's going to happen without answering any of them or giving you a lot of clues as to what the outcome of any given circumstance is going to be. In that, posing those questions within the way that they choose to edit the trailer, it should also create a level of excitement, just leaving you as a viewer wanting more. I guess that would be my criteria for a good trailer. Leave us wanting more and give us very little, but give us enough to raise questions in our minds about where things are gonna go.

Alex Howard
I definitely agree with that. For us, it's funny because, like we mentioned briefly earlier, trailers have become less accessible. When the voiceover thing started going out, where they were reading the text on screen and all of that, I think for us, it's become a lot harder to even know what trailer we're watching. In the theater, if it's one that we haven't seen online or haven't seen before, a lot of times if it's quick cuts, or the contrast where the title pops up is bad, any of those factors can play into... When they play a trailer that's not part of a franchise, a lot of times I'm like, "Wait, I don't even know a movie that was." And I remember AMC used to have a title card at the end of each trailer a few years ago. They'd have the title card and then the release date. A lot of times that would help me be like, "Oh, that's what that movie was. That looked good. Okay." And I can bookmark that date in my head. But since they got rid of that, watching trailers in the theater is... Because when we get the audio description devices, they don't work during the trailers, so we have to wait for them, for the trailer to end to know if they're working or not. So it's great that you make the trailers accessible. I know you haven't done it a lot lately, which, I mean, you're doing it in your free time, so it makes sense. I think it was during the pandemic, I used to message you and say, "Hey, can you audio describe this trailer?" Just because I know it's probably so awesome and I want to get the full visual scope and what everyone else is experiencing. Even the Alien: Romulus trailer that came this week was so great, but it was super, super fast cut. And everyone's talking about the facehuggers, and I'm like, I couldn't even see the facehuggers in it because it was so quick, the cuts in it.

Kensuke Nakamura
Yeah, it came up because early in the pandemic, I was unemployed, and I was like, "Oh, I've been thinking about wanting to do audio description. I should try it." So I just tried writing some audio description for some movies that nobody asked for. And I was just like, maybe I'll try sending these out and apply to some jobs. And I didn't hear anything back. I want to keep developing this skill, and I want to figure out how to get my name out there. And it was around that time that the first trailer for The Batman came out. And I saw that trailer, and I was like, "This trailer is really awesome. It looks like a very different take on Batman in a lot of key ways." And I was just like, "This is something that should be audio described." So I wanted to do that. And I knew right away that I'm going to have to pause because like most modern trailers, there's a lot of quick cutting. There's a lot of information coming really fast. They're jumping between scenes. There's dialog from one scene that's being put over another scene. So I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to do this." As you know, the first time I go through it, I just do it standard audio description where it's real time and just fit it in wherever I can. But that's very little information in a trailer. And then I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to do it again. And I'm going to pause whenever there's a new bit of information." And I felt like it was especially important for that trailer because I want to describe how the Batman suit is different from what we've seen before, or how different the Batmobile is. And there's a lot of information in that trailer that was telling us how this is going to be different from any other Batman movie that came before it. And at the time, it was something where, I think, if I searched for an audio-described movie trailer, there were maybe less than I can count on both hands how many trailers. And it was very... I remember there was, I think, one of the Ice Age movies had an audio-described trailer, but it was an animated film, it was just one scene from beginning to end, and there was no dialog. So that was something that was easy to audio describe. But that's very rare for a movie trailer to just be one scene. So I was like, "Okay, this is something that I see a need for." It's something that I have a passion for because I love movie trailers, and I felt like I had a new angle on it. So I started doing that. And another thing was that it was something... It is copyrighted stuff, but it's available. And well, they did monetize it, but they weren't taking it down because it's a trailer. We don't care how many websites repost it because we just want to get it out there. If I can just offer it to an audience that doesn't have access to it, then that's great for everyone.

Alex Howard
Do you just write it or do you sometimes write and narrate?

Kensuke Nakamura
I started off doing writing and narrating just because I didn't have anyone with me to do this. But I did a few of them, and then somebody reached out to me and was like, "Hey, I'm wanting to get into audio description narration." That was Barbara Faison, and she was like, "I want to do this. Can I voice your trailers?" And I was like, "Oh, yeah, absolutely. I would love to not voice them. That's not where my passion is. So if you could take that off my plate, that's even better." And then I had a different person who was a blind narrator, Caitlin Walsh, and she reached out to me and she was like, "Hey, I'm also wanting to get into narration. Can I do some trailers with you?" And I'm like, "Yeah, absolutely. Just tell me what you need to make it accessible. I usually write in Google Docs, is that accessible to you?" And just, "How do I make the script work for you?" And we came up with letter prefixes. If this needs to be read like a title, it's got a capital T. If this needs to be read quickly, it has a capital Q. And so we did it that way. Just a team grew out of that with people reaching out to me and being like, "Hey, I want to do this aspect of it." And I was like, "Yeah, absolutely. Love it."

Lee Pugsley
That's great that you had such good reception from audio describing these movie trailers, and that people were reaching out to you to be a part of it, too. I think it's so valuable what you did during the pandemic and what you started with audio describing trailers, because the only two studios that do audio described trailers are Apple and Disney, and that's only for their movies, not for any acquired properties that they may receive. So we have very little access to audio described trailers. I mean, in an ideal world, it would be great if more studios would start making trailers accessible, but we still have a ways to go before that happens. So anyone like yourself who takes the time to describe trailers, it's very meaningful and really enhances our viewing experience as blind and low vision individuals a lot.

Alex Howard
And I think one thing that, like you said, Disney describes their trailers and Apple does, too. Disney, this week, they put up the Acolyte trailer that came out on Disney Plus with audio description. But one thing that they don't do that I like that you do is, yeah, they do the trailer in real-time and they describe, but then you'll break it down, like you were saying, almost frame by frame or scene by scene, and really get into the nitty-gritty detail of each thing. And that's something that those studios don't do. So I really appreciate that.

Kensuke Nakamura
Like I said, I love trailers, and I used to watch them so much that I was breaking it down in my own head and trying to pick out every detail. And I think for me, the accessibility of the trailer is so important because not only is it... Everyone should be able to make an informed decision about whether this is something that I want to spend $20 to go see in the theater or if it's something that I'm going to wait for streaming. The more information you get out of it, the better idea you have. But it's also, I feel like, a cultural competency thing, where when... Sometimes I would go to school or go into the office after a new Marvel trailer just came out, and I'm talking with my friends, "Hey, did you see that trailer? Did you catch this detail? Was that this person's costume? What do you think was going on with that?" And there's so many movies and TV shows that I can give you a pretty good idea of what the plot is, having never seen the movie, but I've seen the trailer, so I have an idea of what's going on, and I can participate in that conversation. And I feel like that is something that should be available to everyone. I really wish I still had time to do that. But part of doing those trailers was wanting to get a foot into the industry. And now I have that. And I have the team of people that came together to work on those trailers are now doing professional work, which leaves us with less time to do trailers, unfortunately. But honestly, it was also something where this is something that people should be doing. And I was hoping to just lead by example and be like, "Hey, I'm doing this to your trailer. You should be doing this yourself. You should have your in-house team that's making the trailers, doing the audio description." And I just naively assumed that these companies would see that that's happening, and see that it's valuable and just start doing it on their own. And I'm kind of bummed that that never happened. There are other people who are working on making expanded audio description trailers here and there. So it's good to see.

Alex Howard
For me, what I would like to see is I know when you go to the theater and watch a movie, the last one or two trailers usually are hooked onto that movie. Everywhere you go see it, it's from that studio. Usually, if it's, let's say, the Batman or if it's WB, it's usually one or two WB trailers right before the movie starts. So if that trailer is always going to be there, it'd be great if the studio would make an audio description track for that movie so we can hear it in our headphones if we're wearing it in the theater. I know the other trailers before that, they can mix and match in different theaters, and those aren't always the same. So I see why that would be difficult to have an AD track paired with those. But having the ones that are always with the movie with AD would be so great if they started doing that.

Kensuke Nakamura
Yeah. And like you said, it's a great tool to know before the movie starts, "Oh, hey, this trailer should be audio-described, and it's not, which gives me a pretty good idea that the device isn't working, and I need to get the manager to fix this before the actual movie starts proper."

Alex Howard
That's true, too. Yeah, because by the time the AMC intro starts after the movie, we have about 60 seconds before the actual movie starts. So if we have to run out and switch out the device, there's very little time to do that.

Kensuke Nakamura
And it's not going to be done within 60 seconds. You're going to miss the first part of the movie, almost guaranteed.

Alex Howard
Yeah. But Lee, how do you experience trailers in the movie theater? Are you able to make out the title sometimes, or do you just rely on looking it up after if there's something that intrigues you?

Lee Pugsley
Nowadays, as my vision has decreased, it is really hard for me to take in trailers that are not dialogue-driven in the theater. I can sometimes see the titles if they're in really big font and depending on what the contrast of the lettering and the color scheme is like at the end of a trailer. But oftentimes, I'm leaning over to a friend if I'm going with someone and I'm like, "What's the name of that movie?" Or I'll remember different character names from the movie trailer or different details, and then I'll go home and Google "movie trailer with Peter and Katie going to Malibu" or whatever the premise might be to see what comes up. Going back to how I used to experience trailers as well and talking about how times have changed for us, even though the narration for trailers was really cheesy in the whole "in a world," or "he came from a poor background; she came from the upscale hillside" or whatever you want to say. Even though some of those trailers were overly narrated, it was actually pretty helpful for me to be able to pick up on what was going on because they pretty much told you every beat that was happening. And then at the end of the trailer, they would be like, "A Walk To Remember, coming November 2000" or whatever date it was. Just having all of the information read, even the words, it's like [dramatically] "intrigue, passion." They would always read everything, and now they don't. Whenever I see words flashing across the screen, I have no idea what those words are. And then if you're in a trailer like A Quiet Place: Day One, or Furiosa, or any of those trailers that are more action-driven than dialogue-driven, then it really puts me at a disadvantage because I can pick up on a few different things, but definitely not enough to give me a lot of intel to have that cultural conversation after the trailer. So that's where I'm at currently.

Alex Howard
Yeah, I'm really hoping that trend to voiceover comes back. I don't know if it will. It almost seems like we're getting into less dialog is cooler now. I would say there's more trailers than there used to be where it's just straight music and scenes, especially for those action movies, like you're talking about. Furiosa, Alien, ones like that where it's just straight, words popping up, quick cuts, action, explosions, whatever. And then, like we said, we have no clue what the movie titles are.

Lee Pugsley
And then if we get international films that are all subtitled trailers, it's a lost cause at that point in time for us. There's absolutely no way that we can know anything that's going on because it's all subtitled. Kensuke, I have a question for you in terms of your process with writing audio description for trailers. I know that you had mentioned that you have done some other audio description on longer projects. When you started doing audio description for trailers during the pandemic, how easy or challenging was it for you? Because you had mentioned you always would break down the trailer beat by beat in your head, even when you were younger and you got into watching movie trailers, and you were just watching them dozens of times, and you really loved them. So was writing audio description for trailers more of a natural thing that came to you easily because you had already been breaking down trailers in your head? Or did it some time to really get used to the format and everything.

Kensuke Nakamura
I feel like there was definitely a learning curve in terms of first deciding, "Oh, am I going to name these characters or am I not?" And that came down to, "Okay, if it's an established property, I might name all these characters." If it's not an established property, I might look up IMDb and learn the names of some of the characters, if I didn't feel like it was going to break the narrative. If there's some character that's supposed to be mysterious, I might leave the name off there because I don't want to ruin that. If it's just a named character that didn't have a chance to be named in the trailer, I might go ahead and put that name in just to save some time and make it easier identifying characters from scene to scene. And then, yeah, just learning a lot about what really needs to be described and what might be extraneous and not necessarily giving much useful information. I definitely felt like there was a big learning curve, and also just learning about conventions of audio description, about how you describe groups of people, or what words are most evocative or what words might become repetitive. So in terms of viewing and studying the trailer, I feel like that came very naturally to me. But in terms of how to put that into words, that was something that I I had to learn.

Alex Howard
How did you get into audio description? Because I know you're sighted. How did you discover this and what made you want to start working in it?

Kensuke Nakamura
I met this person at a party who is blind, and I was attracted to them, and I was like, "I want to get to know this person." So we were Facebook friends, and right away, they're like, "If you're going to be a Facebook friend, you have to post image descriptions." And they, thankfully, put a link about what that is. So I learned about that. So I started doing image descriptions. And then they're like, "Hey, I just watched the OA, and I need to talk to somebody about it." I'm like, "Oh, okay, cool. I can watch the OA, and be someone to talk to about it." So I watched that show, and then we were talking about it. I'm like, "Hey, do you want to watch some other movies?" And they're like, "Yeah." I think it was Aliens. I was like, "Do you want to watch Aliens?" And they're like, "Uh... Does it have audio description?" I'm like, "Let me look into that and learn about that." And then we'd watch movies together, and if we were watching old movies, sometimes they just didn't have audio description. Or as you know, a lot of times the audio description device just isn't working at the movie theater. So I ended up doing a lot of extemporaneous description in their ear. And especially with Marvel movies, I felt pretty comfortable doing that because I know the world, I know the characters' names. So it's pretty easy to be like, "Okay, I know how to describe what." So I'd had that experience of just describing to a person sitting next to me. And I was like, "I am interested in maybe doing this professionally." So that's how I got into that.

Alex Howard
So you did the trailers on your own, freelance, but what other things have you worked on? What other projects?

Kensuke Nakamura
The first big project we got was the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Reached out to a friend of mine in audio description, and he was too busy with other projects, but he gave them my name. And it was after I'd already been doing trailers with a small group of people. So when they reached out to me, I'm like, "Yeah, I have a group of people." And they're like, "We wanted to have audio description for these webinars that we have online." And I was like, "Okay, perfect." And they were our first client. And I was like, "Hey, so these webinars, there's a lot of talking, and then there's things being thrown on screen. This would be a great opportunity for expanded description because they'll just throw up a slide and keep talking, but I don't have any space to describe that." So I was like, "Can we do that?" And they were new to audio description, so they were very open to it. So that was a really great opportunity to take the skills that we had learned doing movie trailers and applying it to this project. We also work regularly with Alyscia Cunningham, who's a black director, producer, writer. And so she makes short films, and we've done multiple of her films. And I've done comedy shows. I wrote the audio description for Desire Lines last year.

Alex Howard
Which I actually saw that at Sundance, and I actually wanted to bring that up and tell you that. I think I mentioned it on the Sundance episode that we did. I really appreciated that the writing didn't hold back on babying the blind audience. I know there's a lot of times where they try and make the things in the movie a little tame, but it's like, "No, if I'm watching an R-rated movie, the audio description track should be R-rated." So I really appreciated the detail that you gave in Desire Lines.

Kensuke Nakamura
That really warms my heart because that was something that was very important to me. When that project came to me and I saw it, I'm like, "Oh, this is a very important project for this community." Sexuality is an integral part of this story, and we need to describe things as they are. There's genitalia, there's sexual things. We need to be able to describe this. I wanted to describe it in the tone of the movie, and there's some scenes in the movie that are very leering and lustful, and so I didn't want to use clinical language for that. I know that's been a discussion in the past in the audio description community about some of these movies that are just very horny, but the audio description isn't matching that because, like you said, they're infantilizing the audience. And so I was very aware of that, but I was also very aware of, I wanted to make sure to use language that feels right for the community. And that could be slang words that people in the community would be very familiar with, and it resonates with them. So I wanted to make sure to use language that's authentic to the narrative. So when it got received well, that was very affirming for me. So I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Alex Howard
Yeah. And for anyone who doesn't remember Desire Lines, it's like a documentary, but it's also not. Blends the narrative and documentary genres about trans gay men. So it's very educational as well.

Lee Pugsley
Kenske, you've done a fair amount within the audio description realm, and that's really awesome. Do you hope to continue with audio description, and would you like to expand the work that you're doing with AD?

Kensuke Nakamura
To be honest, I had a lot of momentum in 2020 because I had all that free time during the early pandemic, and I was really into it. And I did a lot of trailers, and then I started doing the paid gigs, and that was really great, and helped start the Social Audio Description Collective. And that group is now self-perpetuating and doing all these projects. It grew out of a bunch of us that were wanting to get into audio description, and I started doing the trailers, and then people started reaching out to me, "Hey, I'm trying to get into the narration aspect of audio description. I'm wanting to get into quality control writing for audio description." So as they reached out, I started incorporating them into the trailers, and then we started getting paid gigs and working on short films, long films, documentaries, all kinds of stuff. So we're a non-hierarchical collaborative. It means that any member of the group can take on any number of roles. I primarily do writing and audio editing, but people can do writing and narration or narration and editing, project lead. And anyone can step step in to a project and say, "I want to do these roles on it. Who else can fill the other roles?" And we just all work together and try to keep it very collaborative and non-hierarchical. What I love about Social Audio Description is that we try to be very adaptable to each client. And so we can talk to them about, "Hey, this movie might benefit a lot from expanded description, or this project could use pre-description at the beginning of the movie to set up how the animation style is or what the world is going to be like, what the costuming is going to be like." And then the rest of the audio description is going to go a lot smoother. And so we work with projects of all different sizes and lengths and media. So I like that we have that flexibility, and I do like continuing to work in that space and keeping those audio description skills. But it is something I'm not pursuing super hard, but I do like still being able to do it.

Alex Howard
And if someone wanted to get involved with that, did they need to apply or how would that work?

Kensuke Nakamura
We're on a break from taking new members right now because we're working on a lot of projects, but also trying to figure out how to grow as an organization in a way that is sustainable.

Lee Pugsley
Awesome network. And I love how collaborative it is and how you guys all search for roles and positions for everyone so that they can feel a part of it. They can feel like their voice is heard.

Kensuke Nakamura
I believe half of our members are blind, and there's also other intersecting identities and disabilities in the group. We just try to let anyone do whatever they want. If we have a blind member that wants to try writing, we just say, "Okay, how can we help you in that? What can we do to make that possible for you?"

Lee Pugsley
I love that.

Alex Howard
That's really awesome. But I wanted to ask both of you how this issue of blind and low vision people not really being able to get the same thing out of trailers that other sighted people do. What are some actual possible solutions you guys can foresee for solving this problem?

Lee Pugsley
I think a really good solution would be, whenever trailers drop online on YouTube, let's say, if there were two versions of a trailer, one of them that had audio description, and we could even throw in closed captioning on there as well. Then the regular trailer, too. I think that would be really awesome if they had two different versions. Let's say you're looking up from Disney Studios, one trailer said "Inside Out 2 official trailer," and then the other one was like, "Inside 2 accessible." That would be really great. Disney is probably a bad example because they already do audio describe their trailers, at least on Disney Plus. But if other studios would get in the game and were able to do two trailers like that, one original and one accessible, I think that would be a really good solution.

Kensuke Nakamura
Yeah, I think it's... Unfortunately, it might just come down to the consumers lobbying or trying to make themselves heard, reaching out to these companies and saying, "If you're making movies that are accessible, you also need to make trailers that are acceptable." I'm not sure if that means going to Disney or if that means going to the company who's making the trailers for Disney and saying, "Hey, you need to do this." And I know that Daredevil was a big flash point for getting Netflix on board by saying, "Hey, you've got a superhero show about a blind protagonist, and that isn't accessible to the blind audience." So maybe next time when the new Disney Plus Daredevil show, when that trailer drops, if we need to try to mobilize a critical mass to reach out to their social media team and saying, "Hey, you just released this trailer. This audio description could be a lot better because we're just getting snippets of what's happening here and there. But there's a lot more that's going on that's not being described."

Alex Howard
I think that would be great. I think another answer would be, like we said, only Disney and Apple does it on their streaming services. But if Max could do the Penguin trailer that came out this week, I looked and they don't have description. But I think, like you mentioned, Lee, YouTube would be great. But I think all these studios, they have their own platform. If they could just even put up the trailer on their platform. Furiosa, eventually it's going to be on Max. So you could have a Furiosa page on Max, click on the trailer and have the audio description option there like Disney does right now.

Lee Pugsley
I think that probably would be the first step of progress was going to be made in the area of movie trailers, is to put those trailers on the streaming platform. The only thing I would say about that, though, is for people that can't afford to subscribe to every platform, it still puts them at a disadvantage if they are blind or low vision because they can't just go online and have free access to those trailers that are publicly available available like everyone else in an accessible way.

Kensuke Nakamura
It's definitely gatekeeping of Disney to release the trailer with audio description on Disney+, but not have it on YouTube. How is somebody supposed to know whether I want to sign up for Disney+ to see the new season of Echo if I can't adequately experience the trailer?

Alex Howard
That's very true because we've talked about the blind tax on here before. If a movie is streaming on Hulu for free, but it's only streaming on Prime with audio description, then we have to pay to rent it even though everyone else can just watch it for free. So yeah, that's true. I mean, this is a piece of marketing. Having this stuff be accessible and free will only help the studio sell more tickets to the movie. It's not beneficial of them to have a piece of marketing behind a paywall.

Lee Pugsley
Exactly. And then speaking of movie trailers in general, I'm curious to know, what are your favorite movie trailers?

Kensuke Nakamura
There's so many of them. Like I said, The Watchmen was a really beautiful one that I saw, and I'm just like, "I can't wait to see the movie." When I actually saw the movie, I didn't actually enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the trailer.

Alex Howard
I agree with you about the Watchmen trailer. That was an awesome trailer. The movie was a little bit of a let down, but I will give that trailer credit where credits do.

Kensuke Nakamura
If you've seen the Danny Boyle movie Sunshine, that was another one that the premise of the movie that was pretty well laid out in the trailer through voiceover, sounded so bad. They're like, "The sun is dying, and we need to take this massive bomb to the sun to reignite the sun." And I'm like, "That sounds like the worst plot for a movie." But then the trailer was so beautiful and the imagery was gorgeous and the way it was edited. And it also just had a really incredible cast that was given moments to emote during the trailer. So that trailer was great. Sold it to me. And then the movie pretty much lived up to it. It was an incredible movie.

Lee Pugsley
It's always nice when a movie lives up to its trailer. I feel like that happens less often, but it is really refreshing when you do get both of those things aligned together.

Kensuke Nakamura
The trailer for Rogue One was one where I really love the trailer, and it had a lot of imagery in it that didn't end up making it into the final film. But I also just felt like the story that the trailer was telling did not match up with the story that was in the actual movie. And I thought the movie was going to be a lot darker, and the character was going to be a lot more complicated than I felt like it was in the end. Another one, I'm a huge Godzilla fan, and I loved the trailer for Godzilla 2014. I don't think it even mentioned that there was going to be another monster in it. And it looked like it was going to be a movie where Godzilla is just a terrifying destructing force of nature. And then when the movie actually came out, it turned out like Godzilla was the hero of the movie, and there was a whole 'nother monster that we didn't even know about. And it was still... I enjoyed the movie a lot, but it was a very different movie than what I was expecting.

Lee Pugsley
I felt the same way with that trailer. That was a really good trailer, though.

Alex Howard
Yeah, that one. And the second Godzilla one was also a really good trailer.

Kensuke Nakamura
I love the trailer for Godzilla: King of the Monsters. With the Claire DeLune song. Speaking of really good music in trailers, it was just so pretty and matched the very painterly style of the scenes. And it was just a very good trailer.

Alex Howard
After that trailer, I made that song my Ringtone. And it's still my ringtone right now.

Kensuke Nakamura
Nice.

Alex Howard
Some of my other favorite trailers, I think, growing up, I'm a huge Terminator fan. Terminator Salvation with the Nine Inch Nail song. It was a great trailer. I watched that so many times. Avengers: Infinity War, obviously, with all the hype behind it. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is classic trailer. I watched that. I must have seen it like 20, 25 times. Yeah, Inception, I think I mentioned that before. That was a ground-breaking trendy trailer that was great. And then also Mad Max: Fury Road, I think, even though I'm not a huge fan of that movie because it's so visual, the trailer, having the action match the soundtrack was really great.

Lee Pugsley
Those are all really good choices. Some of my favorite trailers that come to mind, The Dark Knight was a really solid trailer for me that definitely made me really excited for the movie. Joker was also a really good trailer, once again, with the song Smile in it and just giving me such a sense of intrigue. Social Network, I thought that was a pretty solid trailer. Obviously, Avengers: Infinity War was good. If we're going back a little further, and maybe this is my affection for musicals, but the original theatrical trailer for Chicago, I thought, really just punched. It captured the energy, the musical quality of the movie, but also the colors and the visual world that that movie was. I thought that that was an excellent trailer, and that also had more of the narration in it as well. And then in the last five years, I would say, the trailer that has always stuck with me was the trailer for the live-action Mulan. I did not like the movie at all, but that trailer definitely gave me chills. It made me really excited to see the movie, just the way that it was cut and just showing the scenes of the battles and you hear the reflection song swelling towards the end. It was just such a good trailer, and I was so, so, so excited for that movie. And I will always give that trailer massive props for making me want to see that movie like right now.

Alex Howard
I think that there are also... I mean, those are great trailers. I think there are also some bad trailers for the good movies, like the Kingsman: Secret Service trailer. I remember watching that in the theater, and I was like, "Why would I see this? This is just another spy, James Bond thing." I didn't really get it. Then you watch the movie, and it's so stylized. It's so different. And they couldn't put a lot of that in the trailer because it's the rated R part of it. Then another one was Bad Times at the El Royale. The trailer didn't appeal to me at all, but that's another movie that I ended up really loving.

Lee Pugsley
On that note, Pixar trailers, oftentimes, especially since 2010 and beyond, haven't really done it for me. I see the Pixar movies because it has the Pixar name attached, and I trust that. But take, for example, the trailer for Soul or even Inside Out or Coco. I didn't think any of those movies really looked that exciting. They looked fine, but I was meh about them, especially Coco. I really wasn't excited to see that movie, but it turned out to be way better than I thought it was going to be. The trailer just was very, "Okay, whatever. He wants to be a musician. Why do I care about this beyond that?" But fortunately, that movie gave me so much more than what I expected. But I feel that way about a fair amount of Pixar trailers. I don't know if it's just me or if they could do a better job of accurately representing what those movies are in a way that would make me more desired to see them and be excited about them.

Kensuke Nakamura
I definitely feel like it's a problem sometimes that a movie has a lot of emotional character work that is great in the movie, but when they're trying to make a trailer out of it, they're like, "How are we going to condense this?" And they just have to pick an angle for it and then go for the visuals that will support that. And sometimes it's just a bad angle to go with. And so the trailer is just not as good as the movie ends up being. I just love them as an art form, and it's very interesting to see the history of them, where it used to be like, scenes from a movie with some text in between. You know, "Terrifying thrills!" And then they played a short scene of a person being attacked by a skeleton or something. And then they're like, "Worlds beyond your imagination!" And then they show another short scene. And it was just a sequence of scenes from the movie with some titles to give you an idea of what it is. And then the way it ebbs and flows to becoming very artistic trailers. I know the trailer for The Shining was iconic, the elevator opening up and all this blood flowing through. And it told you very little, but it also told you everything you needed to know.

Alex Howard
It's cool to see how big of a deal of trailers have gotten as time goes on, especially when you're in the movie fandom community like us, between the Super Bowl and Comic Con and Cinema Con, which is next month.

Lee Pugsley
I also love the fact that you can enjoy a trailer, even if you don't enjoy a movie. That a trailer is its own separate art form, and it can offer you enjoyment in different ways than a whole movie can sometimes. And I think that there's something that's really fun about that. I think there's something that's really special about that. And movie trailers are the gift that keeps on giving all year long, unwrapping a little present every week and wondering what it's going to be. And when it's something good, then it just feels really exciting and fun. This has been a really good conversation. And, Kensuke, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for sharing your passion for movie trailers with us and just for the work that you are doing to further advance accessibility for movie trailers, for film in general, and just for all the other areas that you are working with audio description in. Once again, it's really meaningful and makes a huge difference. It's been such a pleasure having you on our podcast.

Kensuke Nakamura
Thank you so much. It's been a joy to be here, and I love talking about trailers, so I'm glad you invited me. You can find me and Social Audio Description at SocialAudioDescription.com. You can find out about our collective and what we do. And if you just Google "expanded audio description trailer for The Batman" or "Dune," you can find the playlist.

Alex Howard
We will link that in the description of this episode as well.

Lee Pugsley
And if you guys want to reach me or Alex, you can always email us at DarkRoomFilmCast@gmail.com. Once again, that's DarkRoomFilmCast@gmail.com. If you have any questions, comments, or random thoughts about movie trailers or anything, we'd love to hear from you.

Alex Howard
You can also reach out on Instagram. Our Instagram handle is DarkRoomFilmCast.

Lee Pugsley
And as always, we want to give a special shout out to Matt Lauterbach and All Senses Go for making transcripts of this episode and all previous episodes possible. We really appreciate you, Matt. And thank you guys so much for listening. We'll see you back here next time on The Dark Room. Have a good day, everyone.

Alex Howard
Thanks, guys.