Ep. 48: Close Up With Roman Howell, Live Audio Describer & Audiobook Narrator

Alex and Lee chat with Roman Howell, live audio describer and audiobook narrator, about the nuanced differences of each type of narration.

Follow Roman on Instagram at @Romanaudiobooks and pre-order his upcoming Goosebumps Audible audiobook “Ghost Camp” here.

For those in the Los Angeles area looking for live audio description, please contact the venue box office for the performance you are attending, and they will get in touch with Audio Description Los Angeles. 

If you want to reach us, e-mail darkroomfilmcast@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram, and subscribe to our YouTube channel at @darkroomfilmcast.

Check out the Audio Description Project here:
https://adp.acb.org

Check out the Blind Can Film Festival hosted by our sponsor, Ben Fox:
https://www.blindcan.com

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Transcript

Lee Pugsley
What's up, everyone, and welcome back to another episode 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 guides for film lovers of all abilities. And today, we have a very special guest on our show, someone that both me and Alex have met a few times because he is a live audio describer. So please welcome to the show, Roman Howell, who is a live audio describer and audiobook narrator. Thanks for being here, Roman.

Roman Howell
Happy to be here. Hello.

Lee Pugsley
Hello. So, yeah, let's just dive right in. And I guess to start with, we always think it's interesting to hear about your journey into live audio description and how you found it, what made you interested in it. We realize that everyone has a different story, and that's the cool thing about this world, is no one's journey is exactly the same. So yeah. Would you mind sharing a little bit about your journey into audio description?

Roman Howell
Absolutely. So I came out here to Hollywood, basically the same reason everyone else does. I came out here to be an actor, director, and a writer extraordinaire, but that didn't exactly work out. So I dipped my toes in every aspect of the industry I could. Found my niche was mostly voice work. People really like the sound of my voice, and I got a lot of work doing audiobooks. And that was working out pretty well, made union. And then finally, the pandemic struck, and everything shut down in Hollywood for a good long time. And then to make ends meet, I was still doing audiobooks, but I was no longer doing any background work because of the pandemic. So I took extra time to work at the Pantages Theater, just down the road from where I lived. And I was working there as an usher. And then one day, a kind old lady comes up, before we had even opened, walked into the building and was walking to my door. I asked, "Ma'am, what are you doing here? We are not open yet." And she explained she was the audio describer for the show, and I had no idea what that was.

Roman Howell
And she explained to me what audio description was, what it entailed, and what she did for almost every show at the Pantages. And I said, "I want to do that." And so she took my information. We kept in contact. This was Deborah Lewis, and she basically trained me. And I've been working her and her company ever since, Audio Descriptions Los Angeles, and been doing shows all around LA now.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, that's awesome. So was there something in particular that you found really interesting about audio description when she was explaining it to you that really was like, "Oh, I want to get into this"?

Roman Howell
Well, I've always liked work that allows me to help people. So yeah, even also during the pandemic, I was basically volunteering at the Red Cross as well, running the check-ins and delivering blood. At the Pantages, it's just helping people enjoy a good show. And audiobooks, of course, is how people who can't read can also enjoy good stories. So audio description was just another layer to that, being able to bring live theater to more people. So that was my biggest draw to it. Plus, the challenge of having to do it live. I'd never had to do an actual live thing since high school when I was doing live theater. So I was super excited to get back on board with that.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, that's awesome. And I feel like, first of all, you do have a great voice for both audio description and narration. So it makes sense that this would be a really good fit for you. And then second, coming from a theater background and a performer background, I think a lot of those skills translate into the work that you do both as an audiobook narrator and an audio describer. And what's great about both of the things that you do, these are both services that blind and low vision people really benefit from because they're all about the audible experience that we are having. So that's awesome. And I guess to get a little bit deeper now into that, you have both work in the audio description field and also in the audiobook space. Obviously, I assume that there's some similarities between and some crossover between those two fields, but there's also going to be some differences. What are the differences, I guess, in how you prepare for both of those? When you get a project in either one of those fields, how you prepare for those?

Roman Howell
Well, prep work is actually very different. Audibooks, the publisher sends me a prep copy of the book, which is basically a not exactly final copy. Most of the times it is the same exact wordage as the final copy, but sometimes there's going to be a major change or just a few wordings or even just one single paragraph that's added at the last second. I get that prep copy for me to peruse and skim and decide whether or not I even want to do the book because I can always say, "No, I don't want to do this. Please give it to someone else." And I'm given several weeks and we schedule a time when my audio is due. I record it all, make sure it sounds great, and I send it in. As for audio description, I do a preview thing as well, but it's a preview show. I get to go and see the show at least a week before my audio description performance, where I get to sit in the audience, but I'm sitting not to just enjoy the show, but take extensive handwritten notes. What do the sets look like? What colors are the costumes? What do the costumes looks like? What are the face shapes and hairstyles of the actors? All for the pre-show notes that I go through before the show actually starts. And also, so I know what's going to happen in the story, so I'm not surprised when I actually describe it in the actual show.

Alex Howard
For audio description, obviously, you're doing the same voice because you're doing narration. But for audiobooks, do you do different voices, different characters? I've been reading a lot of the Harry Potter books with Jim Dale. Do you find yourself doing different voices, or what's your process in doing that?

Roman Howell
For audiobooks, unique character voices are necessary because not every line of dialog will say which character is saying that. So you have to just infer based on the shaping of the paragraph. And the next line is this character's dialog because they were not the previous speaker. So you got to use voices to infer that. So yeah, and that's, can be a challenge because I have to make a character list of who appears in the books, decide on a voice for that character, and stick to it. I can't suddenly have character A suddenly sound completely different than how they sounded 20 pages ago. So I usually have to record a small sample of what character A sounds like, character B sounds like, so I can have a reference to listen to whenever I forget the correct voice.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, that's so interesting. I never thought about just the organization that goes into audiobook production or audiobook narration in that way, that you would have to keep track of all of those different voices and those different characters. Now, going back to audio description and maybe a little bit of crossover in that because they're both like narration. Because you've done so many audiobooks, and audiobooks are very much about being very expressive and capturing emotion and also doing character voices like we just talked about, do you ever find the tendency to be overly expressive or emotive while you're doing audio description narration? I mean, obviously, I know that there's not character voices that you're doing, but it's one of those things that I feel like it's a tricky balance because you want to still have more of a neutral presence but add to what's going on in a live performance as well. But yeah, I don't know. I guess, are you ever tempted to go to those very expressive places?

Roman Howell
Well, actually being completely neutral isn't always the right thing to do for audio description. That's the main goal, to be neutral, because the actors are the ones carrying most of the weight for the story. They have the dialog. They're doing all the stage production, stage movement and blocking. And I'm just describing what's physically happening. But the emotions of the scenes do matter. If it's a quiet, somber moment, a character is dying, someone's crying, they're hugging each other, I'm not going to talk loud, in a loud outdoor voice, but neutral. I'm going to try and match that tone. I'm going to be somber, quiet, slow, and match the pace of the scene. If it's a loud, bombastic musical number and the listener has to hear me over the music, over the screaming, over the shouting and singing, I have to be that loud. So if it's a neutral scene where the emotion is being carried solely by the actor, and I don't have to change anything, I'll be neutral. But if it's a quiet scene, I go down. If it's a loud scene, I try and match and go up.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, that makes sense for sure. I feel like with an audio description, it's a very subtle shift where I feel like you definitely can be-- I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seems like you have a little more freedom to be more expressive when you're doing the audiobooks. And the audio description, you still want to add to what's happening, and you want to still be able to capture the mood of what's happening in a performance. But it has to be done maybe more nuanced, right?

Roman Howell
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Audiobooks has a lot more flexibility because you're basically the only storyteller here. You're all the characters, you're all the narrator, and you have to basically deliver everything. Whereas with audio description, you're basically working in tandem with the actors and the orchestra and trying to tell a complete story, all three of you together.

Lee Pugsley
What have you found in both audiobooks and audio description, some of the challenges that you've encountered in those spaces?

Roman Howell
Well, the biggest problem for audiobooks for me is just basically, the character voices can be a bit of a hurdle, especially if there's too many characters. There's only so many voices I can do. I don't have an infinite amount of voices, and they can't, uh, to make them all distinct. And some authors just like to throw in characters that have a name, but they're only there to say one line, and they never appear again. And I have to make sure that they sound just different enough that they're not going to be mistaken for anyone else. So that can be a problem. As for audio description, the biggest challenge is the pre-show notes because I'm there watching the show as it goes. It's not a movie. I can't pause it and consider things, zoom in and try and see what exactly they're wearing. I have to be as quick as because they're just going to keep on going and just grab what I can.

Alex Howard
I think I was there when you described Peter Pan. I think that was one of your first ones, right?

Roman Howell
It was, yes.

Alex Howard
And then I think I also went for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which you did also, right?

Roman Howell
Yes.

Alex Howard
Yeah, those were both very good. I noticed with Harry Potter, you were describing... I don't know if you did it before the show, but definitely during intermission, you were describing the costumes and things, what they looked like, because obviously, you don't have time during the actual performance.

Roman Howell
Yes, that's correct. I go over the costumes and the sets, as well as the makeup and hair style of the actors before the show, and also during mission if those change in act 2, which a lot of times they do.

Alex Howard
What are some of your favorite shows that you've described?

Roman Howell
So far, well, Harry Potter has always been quite fun, and it's been a mainstay in in the area for most of the year so far. It's been here since February, and it's still here, and it's not going to leave until the end of June. So that's been a lot of fun because it's basically like a Vegas magic show with fire and magic tricks happening, almost every scene. So that's a joy. But I also have enjoyed really simple shows, like down at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City, it was just a simple Wizard of Oz play, but it was called El Otro Oz, basically a Spanish-American version of The Wizard of Oz, and it was very creative with its costumes and retelling of the classic story. So I really appreciate that show for just its imagination and telling a story that you're familiar with, yet doing it in its own unique way. And I really like that kind of theater.

Lee Pugsley
Now, one of the things that I've always been curious about, which we haven't asked any of the other live audio describers on this podcast yet, is if you describe a show multiple times, obviously, I assume that you have your audio description script that you go off of. But because it's like live theater and anything can happen, and sometimes there's subtle changes or sometimes even big changes, have there been times where you've described a show and one time it's described a little bit differently than another time because of something that happened in the moment that you had to pivot on the spot?

Roman Howell
Absolutely. It's live theater. Mistakes happen. The only thing that is pre-written are the pre-show notes, the costumes, the sets, and the actors. Even the actors can be different. There are understudies. Every time I go to a show that I describe, including the Harry Potter one, which I've done at least once every month since the beginning of 2025, there are sometimes understudies, and I only have half an hour when I arrive, to take a photo of the understudies list of who's playing who in this particular performance. I have to flip through the the head shots and write a quick description for that actor who's suddenly playing Scorpius, and I just have to do that for that particular show. And as for mistakes, those are the most fun to do. Like, at the Geffen Theater, Noises Off, I did that earlier this year. It's a really fast-paced comedy farce where a lot of slapstick comedy is happening all at the same time, like three jokes at once all around and the audience is consistently laughing. But sometimes the actors make mistakes. Like a show I had to describe, an actor had to throw a bedsheet up in the air for someone to catch on a landing above them. But the guy who's supposed to catch it kept missing. So he kept tossing it, catching it, tossing it, catching it, tossing it, catching it, catching it. And the audience was laughing their heads off, and there was no dialog, and nothing was happening audibly. So I had to describe, he tosses up, it falls down. He tosses up, it falls down. He tosses it up, it falls down. Like six times before the show continued.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, yeah, no, that would be a lot of fun. And that's a great... That would probably be a really fun show to describe because of how much physical interaction and comedy there is in it.

Alex Howard
What are some of your favorite audiobooks that you've gotten to narrate? I know you have a pretty exciting one upcoming that you mentioned to us before the show.

Roman Howell
Yes. So I usually get hired to do a lot of fantasy as well as romance. I've got that kind of voice where people like to hear really magical tales from me as well as sweet romantic ones. But the ones I really, really enjoy narrating are like non-fiction biographies and historical books. I've done like one of the first union books I did was all about the 2020 pandemic and how we responded to it as a global society. That one I was really proud of to do. I've also done a biography about what it's like to be a half Puerto Rican, half Indian person living in modern day America and growing up in a post-911 America. Those are really interesting true memoirs that I like to read. But on a less serious note, I love telling really fun stories. Like for example, this Friday, I'm going to be recording my first ever Goosebumps book. So yay!

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, congratulations on that.

Roman Howell
Thank you.

Lee Pugsley
What are you most looking forward to about doing this audiobook?

Roman Howell
So this is the first time where I'm actually going to be working in a professional studio. Right now, I am recording from my own personal recording booth, the little 4 by four box of soundproofed wood and curtaining, a professional microphone with all the wiring and everything. I've been recording over 100 audiobooks just from my home booth here and doing it all from home. But this is Scholastic. Goosebumps is owned by Scholastic, and they're going to be, I'm going to be working at a studio up in the valley, up in North Hollywood, and I'm going to be there with a director and editor who is going to be working with me live instead of me just sitting here in the booth all by myself. And there's going to be snacks, too.

Lee Pugsley
That. Snacks are always a good thing. They make everything better for sure.

Alex Howard
That's awesome. [chuckles]

Lee Pugsley
And when you do these recordings from home that you've been doing for the last several audiobooks you've done, there is a director, I believe, right?

Roman Howell
There is an option. It's never happened to me, but I know that people who record from home, a lot of publishers also have remote directors available to do a Zoom call like we're doing now to direct people online. I've never had to do it. I've always been self-directed on every book up until now. The most I've ever had with feedback is doing when I do co-narrators, when I work with another narrator who gets half of book. If it's a romance between a meet cute, a man-woman romance, half the chapters are written for a man, the other half are written for the woman character, and the woman character is read by the lady narrator who collaborates with me. We agree on word pronunciations as well as voices. We send each other samples of voices of characters that are in both of our chapters. That's the most coordination I've ever had to do. But other than that, it's been complete self-direction. This is the first time where I'm going to have an actual director, an editor with me.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, that's really exciting because normally, do you edit your own work as well, or you send it in and they edit it?

Roman Howell
No, I'm expected to send it to them as completely missing of mistakes as possible. There's this technique of recording called punch and roll. That's the expected technique to be used for audiobooks. Basically, if I make a mistake, I'm supposed to pause, rewind, and then record over the mistake a correct version and just keep on going. So I submit to them as a correct, completed version book as possible. I still make mistakes. Sometimes I say the wrong word, sometimes I mispronounce a word, sometimes I say the word that is technically correct, but not the correct pronunciation that they want. English is a crazy language. There's five different dictionaries, the Oxford Dictionary, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, and every publisher wants you to follow one particular dictionary's pronunciation guide. And so "That's not how we want you to pronounce that word. We do it this way." They go over my recordings, make a list of my mistakes, and send it back to me, and I'm supposed to rerecord those individual lines, sentences, where the mistakes happen, and send it to them, and then they splice in the corrected versions.

Lee Pugsley
Wow. Yeah, that's very intricate. And I mean, it'll be so great, I feel, to have an editor for this one.

Roman Howell
Mhm. This Goosebumps is not going to have any of that because they're going to be live editing it with me. If I make a mistake, they'll stop me and just do it over again. So I expect to be in and out all in one day for once. Usually, it takes maybe a week before I'm done with a book.

Lee Pugsley
When you first got into audiobooks, was there any training or anything you had to do, or you just started auditioning with your voice to get the jobs?

Roman Howell
For me, it was just auditioning. When I was first starting out and I was recording in a closet because I didn't always have this booth, I used the public audition site acx.com, which is basically the open public audition site for audible.com. Any narrator and author can meet there. You can audition for any book that has a posting, and the narrators say yay or nay. And I was lucky enough to find an author who really liked my voice and wanted me to do his entire series, his entire seven-books series. That was my first ever project. And as time went along, I kept at it, kept landing work through ACX. And then I realized that there were publishers. I didn't realize that was a thing until much later in my career. And then I submitted my... At that point, I had a good portfolio of completed books. So I submitted my work to them. Just said, "Here's what I can do." And they signed me on. And now basically, they work like my agent and find me books.

Lee Pugsley
That's a really cool journey that you've been on. And how long have you been doing audiobooks for now?

Roman Howell
About five or six years now.

Lee Pugsley
Okay. So, yeah, you're definitely a pro then.

Alex Howard
How many times do you read through it before you record it? I know on books I'm listening to now, they'll say the line slowly, and then it'll say, "Harry said slowly." It's like, well, obviously, he read that first because he said the line the correct way that it was described. So if you read it through, do you have to re-record it, or do you read a chapter first before you record yourself reading it?

Roman Howell
After I've accepted a book, I give the entire book a quick skim, mostly to make a list of the characters and see if there's any description of any specific things that the author wanted this character to sound like. This person has a deep, whispery voice, or does he have an accent? He sounds British, he sounds Irish, he sounds Chinese. I don't know. If not, then I can choose my own voice and go with it. But as for how many times? I read through once, make that list and little pre-recording notes. But even after I do that, sometimes I do stumble upon those lines. In the moment, "He said slowly" like that. I didn't realize that when I was skimming it and I have to go, "Oh!" And I just go back and rerecord and do it slowly. That happens a lot.

Lee Pugsley
And do you ever get prerecord notes? When you get a project, the publisher or the author will send you, "Keep these things in mind as you're recording this."

Roman Howell
Yes, I have gotten notes like that. Sometimes an author has a specific accent for a character that is not obvious at first and isn't mentioned until maybe the third time we see them, but they should sound like this from the get-go. So I get those kind of notes. The most recent one I can think of, I had to make sure that this character sounded French, even though we don't know he's French until chapter three. So that was those kind of notes.

Lee Pugsley
I see, I see. And then would you ever want to do audio description for film and TV as well? Because you have a very good voice that I could totally see working really well for many film and TV projects as well.

Roman Howell
I absolutely would love to do film and TV audio description. I know that Deborah currently does audio description TV for several shows. I'm forgetting which ones she does. I think it's mostly game shows and reality shows, but she's talked to me about them, and I'd like to get on board with those, too, but also expand into other TV and more film if possible. So if she has connections in there, I'd love to do it.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, I hope that you get the opportunity to do that at some point in time. And we've interviewed a lot of film and TV, audio description, narrators and writers, and that's a whole... Similarities to what you already do, but definitely a little bit of a learning curve in some ways. Nothing too big, probably, for you.

Alex Howard
Do you want to name some of the well-known books that you've narrated? I don't know. Maybe some of our listeners are like, "I know this guy's voice from somewhere."

Roman Howell
I mean, Goosebumps is going to be the first ever mainstream book that ever done. Everything up till now has been not in the main media. I'm not secretly the new narrator of Harry Potter or whatever like that. But hold on. If you go to audible.com and just search my name, Roman Howell, Roman spelled like the Empire, Howell, H-O-W-E-L-L and you'll just basically see most of my work that's available there. One of the earliest books I'm quite proud of, The Monster's Bones. That was one of the first books I did. That's all about the discovery of dinosaur and how they basically started the whole museum's industry of America. I've also done... Let's see. Oh, yes. I am a huge fan of Lovecraftian horror. The most common, most recent iteration of that are the Arkham Horror Series. They have several novels, and I've done two of them, and I hope to do more because they are a blast.

Lee Pugsley
If you could do an audiobook for one of your favorite books, any book, if you could narrate any book, what would some of your choices be? We'll start there.

Roman Howell
Well, definitely I would want to keep doing more Arkham Horror books, but I have very fond memories of a lot of my childhood books. I know that the Magic Treehouse series has been narrated already from beginning to end, and I'm pretty sure it was the author Mary Popp Osborne, who narrated them, and she does a wonderful job. But if she's ever willing to let them get rerecorded, I'd love to do them.

Lee Pugsley
Which, you never know, it's possible because there are definitely some books that I've seen that have multiple versions of recordings by different narrators as well. Fingers crossed, right?

Roman Howell
Yeah.

Alex Howard
What do you specifically love about the Arkham Horror stuff?

Roman Howell
I just loved the creativity of the monsters and the Monsterology of all of the Arkham universe, how it was basically created by a bunch of different authors who just went wild with their darkest creations and biggest nightmares brought to life, and how this has just grown and grown into this huge collaborative universe that continues to expand and authors are still adding to their own little spins and monsters while also pulling from the classics. I just love how it can seemingly never end.

Lee Pugsley
And for audio describing shows, if you have, let's say, one or two shows that you're like, "I would love to describe the show, either because I'm really fond of it or just because I think it would be a fun challenge with how much there is to describe," what shows would you want to describe?

Roman Howell
Well, I know that Beetlejuice is coming up next year to the Pantages. It was back, I was there when I was an usher, and I thought it was the funniest show I had ever seen, and I can't wait for it to come back. And I'd love, love, love, love, love to describe Beetlejuice again. And also, of course, Beauty and the Beast is coming up in the next season. And that was one of my first ever shows I ever saw. It was actually the first show I ever saw on Broadway, and the show I did for my senior year in high school where I played Cogsworth. I would also love the opportunity to describe that show as well.

Lee Pugsley
Nice. Well, hopefully you'll get the opportunity to do both of those shows. And then, I guess, another related question. When you watch a show and you're not audio describing it or you're listening to an audiobook that you haven't narrated, do you find it hard to focus because you're paying attention to... Well, let's say you're watching a show and you're like, "Oh, I'm thinking about how that could be described," or do you feel like you're able to enjoy it? And the same thing with audiobooks. Are you thinking about critiquing the narration and paying attention to those little nuanced details as well in that? Or do you feel like you're able to shut your mind off and just enjoy both mediums when you're just a viewer or a listener?

Roman Howell
If I'm just there to enjoy the show, so far I've had no problem. I'm still able to just disconnect and just enjoy the performance for what it is. Maybe that'll change in the near future. Who knows? But for now, that's not so bad. Same for audiobooks, unless it's a really bad audiobook. This only happened to me twice so far, where I started an audiobook and the narrator just sounds so bad. It's just like their delivery is so disingenuous or uninterested, or they just feel like they're not telling a story. They're just reading the text. And I just, I can't enjoy this. I know. I like, I want to know how the story goes, but you're doing a terrible job! Bad enough to make me want to stop and never come back.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, I've definitely had those experiences as well, where the narration was just so disengaging that I'm like, "I can't sit here for 6 hours or 10 hours and listen to this."

Alex Howard
Even with audio description, sometimes, like in the theater, it's just like, you know if you're in for a rough time in the first 10 minutes or so.

Roman Howell
Oh, really? You have some bad experience with the audio description, too?

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, because it's like there is... I would say the audio description over time has got better, but there are definitely some audio describers that... The narration just is not very descriptive, and it doesn't really add to anything. It distracts in a way that you're just like, "This is not helpful, and it's not engaging," and it just takes you out of it.

Alex Howard
For example, I had one the other day described a character as pretty, and I was like, "What does that mean, though?" Yeah. I was like, "That doesn't tell me anything."

Roman Howell
She's purty.

Lee Pugsley
With audio description, once again, just to clarify, you have notes that you do, but you don't actually write description yourself. You just use your notes as a guidepost and then go with it as you're seeing things happen on stage.

Roman Howell
That's correct. The only thing that's pre-written, that I have printed out and ready to read before every show are the set descriptions, the costume descriptions, and the actor's hairstyles and looks and whatnot. Everything else that actually happens on stage is in the heat of the moment because things can happen. Live theater has mistakes.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, for sure. Would you ever want to try writing audio description as well, out of curiosity?

Roman Howell
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Like a script for an audio describer to follow?

Lee Pugsley
Correct. Like a script for a movie or a TV show or even any presentation. Yeah.

Alex Howard
Because unlike theater, for film and TV, it's all written by someone else, and then the voiceover talent will just read what's written.

Roman Howell
All right. I didn't realize that was a job, but yeah, I'd be okay with, I'd be interested in doing something like that.

Lee Pugsley
I mean, I've tried my hand at it a little bit. It definitely can be so tricky because it's like in TV and film, it's like there's so many different things to describe. I guess it's the same thing in theater and just picking what are the most important elements of a piece of entertainment to describe? Because you could literally describe everything. I think that can be the challenging part, I think.

Roman Howell
Oh, absolutely. For me, I believe the trick for audio description is... That's what a good thing about pre-show is, I can see, I can figure out what's important. I can see that this prop comes up later and this prop we never see again. I have to make sure that Prop A is mentioned when it's moved across the stage so people know where it is. Such as in that comedy, Noises Off, the big prop is a plate of sardines, and it's constantly moving around the stage and getting into shenanigans with other actors. So I have to always mention where it is.

Lee Pugsley
Then that's, I guess, the advantage, too, of, I guess, the difference between live audio description and the TV and film audio description is you have that time beforehand to really give the context for the other things that people need to pay attention to. In movies, you still are giving context, but you do it, I guess, as you go as well. I don't know. It's just so interesting because both mediums are so similar, yet there's definitely differences, too. And yeah, as we wrap up now, any final thoughts you have, Roman, on the narration process or anything that we haven't discussed yet that you'd like to leave us with?

Roman Howell
No, we kind of went over everything I wanted to discuss, like how audio description is the most straightforward action as you can, focusing on the elements that are important, whereas audiobooks, you can spend entire pages describing just how a flower is colorful.

Lee Pugsley
I think that's really a cool thing about audiobooks is you can really take the time to paint that picture with words and voice, and you actually have the liberty of time to be able to do that, too.

Roman Howell
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yes.

Lee Pugsley
And then when you're doing live audio descriptions, you still have to paint that picture, but you have way less time to be able to do that, too.

Roman Howell
You got to make it the barest amount to fit in the spaces between dialog or when the music is quiet. And I find the trick is to find the right verb that evokes the right emotion rather than "He punches him." if it's funny, if it's supposed to be funny, he could "slap him," or if it's supposed to be really violent, "He strikes him."

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, that's a good point. Actually, that brings up another question. With your experience, having done so many audiobooks, obviously, you get introduced and exposed to a very wide range of vocabulary. Have you found that helpful in doing live audio description of being like, "Oh, I can pull out this vocabulary now because I remember this from this book or this moment?"

Roman Howell
It can, but the problem with vocabulary is not everyone knows your big fancy words. So I can't pull out a five-syllable, $20 word in the middle of Spamalot. People are just going to be confused. So yes, reading so much has expanded my vocabulary, and I've seen so many different narrators tell stories in their own unique voice and unique way, and some are very creative in their approaches. Unfortunately, with audio description, I'm restricted to short sentences that I have to make as descriptive as possible while allowing the actors to carry the story. But I can understand, yeah, my vocabulary has been expanding over the years.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, I know. I mean, it's just cool how I think that one skill that you have in one area can always benefit you in another area. And it's cool to see with how layers like that segue for you in the types of narration that you've been doing.

Alex Howard
I do remember specifically when I saw Harry Potter, the Polyjuice Potion scene was really well-described, and I had my little telescope thing, and I was watching the body parts retracting things, and you were describing it at the same time. And that was really, really cool. So everything you've been talking about in this podcast, specifically in that scene, kind of manifested itself.

Roman Howell
Oh, cool. Nice.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah. Well, Roman, it's been such a pleasure having you here. We really appreciate you sharing your experience, your insights, and also just sharing your voice because it is such a great narration voice. Your Goosebumps audiobook is going to be coming out soon. Is there anything else that you want to plug, or if people want to follow you, how can they keep up with what you're doing?

Roman Howell
So you can easily find my work on audible.com. If you just search my name there, you'll see all of my released works. Roman, like the Empire, Howell, H-O-W-E-L-L. And that's where you can find my narrator's work. You can also follow me on Instagram if you want to @RomanAudiobooks. And also for audio description, I work for Audio Description Los Angeles with Deborah Lewis and others. We serve audio description at many theaters, including the Pantages Theater in Hollywood, the Ahmanson, LA Opera, the Kirk Douglas down in Culver City, the Hollywood Bowl, the Pasadena Playhouse. And we just added a new Pasadena Theater called A Noise Within. That's a new venue that just had our first show there. So you can check that out if you like. And we keep a contact sheet going for that. You can add your email address to, and we'll reach out to you about our shows that are available that we'll be describing that we have already scheduled. And of course, even if we are not scheduled for a particular show at a venue, you can reach out to that venue and request the show that you can attend to be audio you described. You talk to the theater, they talk to us and get us to come over. It's a weird chain that has to go. You can't talk to us, you have to ask the theater, and then the theater talks to us.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, we always talk about, me and Alex, talk about a lot, about advocating for ourselves and our needs. Don't just wait around, but we can be proactive in doing that. And so what you just described about reaching out to the venue and telling them that this is something that we need is something that's always an option, and a lot of people don't always know that. So thanks for bringing that back to mind for us.

Roman Howell
Absolutely. And if you want to reach out to us, we can find our website at AudioDescriptionSolutions.com, where you can contact us, and we can actually add you to our email list, so you can get an up-to-date list on what shows we'll be describing in the future.

Lee Pugsley
Perfect. And we will go ahead and link all of this in the description below. And if you have any questions for me and Alex about anything that we discussed today or any question that you want us to relay to Roman, you can also email us at DarkRoomFilmCast@gmail.com. Once again, that's DarkRoomFilmCast@gmail.com, and you can follow us on Instagram and subscribe to us on YouTube as well.

Alex Howard
And yeah, Instagram and YouTube are also DarkRoomFilmcast. And we'd like to thank Matt Lauterbach and All Senses Go for making captions available for this episode, as well as BlindCAN for helping out with editing.

Lee Pugsley
Well, thank you guys so much for listening. Roman, once again, thank you so much for being here, and we will see you next time on The Dark Room.

Alex Howard
Thanks, guys. Take care.

Roman Howell
All right. Bye. Thanks for having me.