2026 Oscars Audio Description Round Table

Alex and Lee are excited to present the 3rd Annual Oscars Audio Description Round Table, celebrating the work of some very talented audio description writers and performers representing 5 of the Oscar-nominated Best Picture films from this awards season.

This year's lineup of panelists includes:

- Liz Gutman - “Frankenstein” and "Train Dreams" (AD Writer) 
- Anusha VeDagiri - "Marty Supreme" (AD Writer)
- Roy Samuelson - "Marty Supreme" (AD Performer)
- Justin Sohl - "One Battle After Another” and “Marty Supreme" (AD Writer)
- Errin Mixon - "One Battle After Another" (AD Performer)
- Christina Stevens - "Sinners" and “One Battle After Another” (AD Writer)
- Adrienne Livingston - "Sinners" (AD Performer)

If you would like to contact us, please e-mail darkroomfilmcast@gmail.com.

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https://www.blindcan.com

Search for Audio Description availability for any title on the American Council for the Blind's Website! https://adp.acb.org/findavideo.html 

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Transcript

Lee Pugsley
Happy Oscar season, everyone, and welcome to the Dark Room, where two blind cinephiles illuminate the sighted. I'm Lee Pugsley.

Alex Howard
I'm Alex Howard.

Lee Pugsley
And we have a very exciting special presentation for you today, one of the events that we look forward to the most every year. And we're proud to say that this is our third annual Oscars Audio Description Roundtable. Super exciting and really thrilled that we're able to do this for the third year in a row. We've assembled some of the best audio description writers and performers here that have worked on the Oscar-nominated best picture films. And we are going to dive into craft today and it's going to be a whole lot of fun.

Alex Howard
Yeah, so what's really exciting is that every year, well, this is the third time, but the last two times we've done it, one of the films represented has won best picture. So hopefully we can keep that going this year and start a trend.

Lee Pugsley
And if you're a new listener out there and you don't know what audio description is, it is a narrative track that describes the visual elements of a film between lines of dialog. This also may be referred to as AD in this panel that we're going to do. So let's go ahead and jump into introductions and I will start and then Alex, I'll pass it over to you and I will go ahead and describe myself as well. So my name is Lee Pugsley. I'm an Asian male with black hair. I am currently wearing a Nicole Kidman shirt in homage to the classic AMC ad that we all know and love.

Alex Howard
I'm Alex Howard. I am a Caucasian male wearing a blue polo. And my background is my movie collection and some other nerdy goodies back there.

Lee Pugsley
And now we will go ahead and introduce our panelists for the day. And let's go ahead and start with Liz. And please go ahead and introduce yourself by giving your name, a physical description, and the movie or movies that you've worked on this year that are represented here.

Liz Gutman
Hi, my name is Liz Gutman. I am a white woman who has wavy brown hair with a little gray in it and glasses. And I wrote the audio description for Frankenstein and for Train Dreams.

Lee Pugsley
Awesome. Glad to have you back, Liz. I know that you were here for our first audio description roundtable as well.

Liz Gutman
I know. I was so bummed I couldn't make it last year, but I'm really happy to be back this year.

Lee Pugsley
We are too. And let's go ahead and move on to another returning guest, Anusha.

Anusha VeDagiri
Hello, my name is Anusha. I am an Indian woman with glasses, curly dark hair. I worked on the audio description for Marty Supreme. I was the writer along with my colleague Justin, who's also here. And yeah, and I'm from Deluxe. I'm wearing a blue t-shirt.

Lee Pugsley
Well, wonderful. Glad to have you back, Anusha. And Justin, I'll pass it over to you.

Justin Sohl
Hello, I'm Justin Sohl. I'm a bald male with a grey beard and horn rim style glasses and a checkered shirt. And I'm with Deluxe. And I co-wrote Marty Supreme with Anusha. And One Battle After Another with Christina Stevens.

Lee Pugsley
Well, glad to have you back, Justin, and excited to talk about the process for those films. And this seems like an opportune time to pass it over to another returning guest of ours, Christina.

Christina Stevens
Hi, I'm Christina. I'm from Deluxe. I am a half Vietnamese, half Caucasian woman in her 30s. I have dark brown hair, and I'm wearing a green shirt with sort of a mottled pattern. And I wrote the audio description for Sinners. And worked on the audio description for One Battle After Another with Justin.

Alex Howard
Funny enough, I see Christina every so often when I go to the movies and I actually ran into you when I saw One Battle After Another. So that was really cool. Yeah.

Christina Stevens
Seems like we run into each other no matter what theater we're going to. So we have the same theater preferences as well.

Alex Howard
Exactly.

Lee Pugsley
And now we'll go ahead and pass it on to Roy, who has also been a guest on our show before.

Roy Samuelson
Hey, Roy Samuelson here, textured, striped, dark blue button down, a green tee, freshly shaven white face and short hair. I'm in my studio with a headset over my head and there's this llama greeting card from my friend Steph of Bold Blind Beauty. It looks like he's mid-chew. And I'd love to thank everyone who worked on all of these projects. It's exciting to be assembled here with all of you and for having me back in Dark Room. It means a lot to be here. I also want to call out something that's really being normalized and meaningful, to see the audio description writers and audio description performers credited by name. And that's really making a big difference. Those credits matter. It makes this work findable, it makes it hire-able, and also most importantly, improvable to make sure that we're celebrating these names. So thanks for having us.

Lee Pugsley
And can you just say what film you worked on as well, Roy?

Roy Samuelson
Marty Supreme.

Lee Pugsley
Awesome, awesome. And now we'll go ahead and move over to new guests that we haven't had on the show, but we're so glad that they're here. Let's go ahead and start with Adrienne.

Adrienne Livingston
Yes, hi, Adrienne Livingston. I'm an African American light-skinned woman. With shoulder length brown locks and I am wearing a red sweater. And I did the audio description narration for Sinners with Deluxe.

Lee Pugsley
Wonderful. Well, welcome to the show, Adrienne. I'm so glad that you could join today. And last but certainly not least, Errin.

Errin Mixon
Good morning. My name is Errin Mixon. I am a biracial woman, black and white. I have short dark hair and I'm wearing hoop earrings and a black shawl over a green sweater. I'm sitting in my vocal booth, so behind me you can see some insulation and also some inspirational photos. And I did the AD narration for One Battle After Another.

Lee Pugsley
Great. Well, once again, welcome to all of you. And before we dive into the questions, on behalf of me and Alex, we just want to celebrate the work that you guys have done this year. You really made film accessible to us in such a rich way. And it's because of the work that you've done that we and other people in the blind and low vision communities are able to really enjoy the richness and the beauty of cinema the way that it's meant to be. So we are so happy that we can highlight what you do. I know there's a lot of work you do behind the scenes that possibly can feel very thankless. And we're here to say thank you and to let people know that you guys are in the trenches here and really doing excellent work.

Alex Howard
Yeah. And for those of you who don't know, see this is our third one, but the way we came up with this was that Hollywood Reporter does their Actors Roundtable and their Directors Roundtable. And we were like, well, why don't we do an audio description roundtable? So I'm so happy this is our third one. This was like a pipe dream of ours in the beginning. And to have so many films represented is so exciting. So let's jump right into it.

Lee Pugsley
All right. So we are going to go in alphabetical order of film title represented here. So we're going to start alphabetically. And then for the second round of questions, we are going to go in reverse order alphabetically. And we're just going to kind of snake it around. So Liz, you're going to be the bookend for these questions on both sides. So let's just go ahead and dive right in. As we all know, each film has a very unique visual language. In your film, how did you approach capturing the specific visual style of your film through the audio description, whether it was in the writing or performance? And Liz, we'll start with you and Frankenstein.

Liz Gutman
Yeah, sure. So Del Toro, I mean, Guillermo del Toro's visuals are always just so rich and fill every frame and so purposeful that it required both a lot of editing and frequently referring to my thesaurus because there's not always a ton of time to, well, there's never enough time to get in everything, right? That he fills the whole screen with. So it's really about prioritizing, you know, what catches my attention first. How can I most vividly describe that with the fewest amount of words so I can get in as much detail as possible is basically how I approached it.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, I can totally see that and Del Toro does have such specific visual style that, you know, there is quite a challenge ahead of you which you accomplished very nicely.

Liz Gutman
Thank you.

Lee Pugsley
And now let's go ahead and move on to Anusha and Marty Supreme.

Anusha VeDagiri
Hi. So it's a little bit of a similar challenge to what Liz mentioned, which is that not so much on the visual side, but the Safdie brothers usually their work is fast-paced, frenetic, a lot of dialog and a lot of action happening at the same time. So the ADs has to be very brisk to accommodate everything, but you also don't want to go over the dialog, which is like a big, big part of their work. So I think approaching it was similar thing, just trying to fit in whatever I could in the spaces I could, while also trying to bring out some of the most stylized stuff in the movie.

Lee Pugsley
Great. And yeah, I think you did that very well. I mean, it is such a fast-paced movie. And so the rhythms of that don't always leave a lot of time for writing to be interjected there. And I'll go ahead and throw it over to you, Justin, as well, since I know that you worked with Anusha on Marty Supreme, if you have anything you want to add.

Justin Sohl
Yeah, it's interesting on both Marty Supreme and One Battle After Another, I ended up writing essentially the third act of the films. So yeah, I totally agree with Anusha. It's very frenetic. There's always motion. Timothée Chalamet's character is always moving. And in One Battle After Another, I would say the visual style, at least in the section that I did, it was very sort of hazy, a little oversaturated with the sun, kind of matching the character of Leonardo DiCaprio, who's always sort of in a little bit of a fugue state. But yeah, it was, you know, it was a little, it was kind of a little blurred at the edges and lots of silhouettes and shadow. You'd find places where you could insert a little of those details or maybe the dust in the air.

Alex Howard
I was specifically impressed with the last ping pong scene in Martyr Supreme and then the paternity test in One Battle After Another. I feel like both of those were described really, especially because both of them kind of have no dialog. So you really, I would imagine, had to really get into the nitty gritty of things.

Justin Sohl
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure I'll talk more about that scene coming up. Yeah.

Alex Howard
Oh, for sure.

Justin Sohl
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Lee Pugsley
And now we'll go ahead and throw it over to you, Roy. As a performer, how did you go about capturing the visual style of Marty Supreme?

Roy Samuelson
Oh, boy, on Marty Supreme, those twists just come fast and relentless. It was almost like an onslaught. And I love how Anusha and Justin's writing kept us oriented through those-- I mean, from the shootout scenes to ping pong, don't worry, no spoilers-- and some sudden intimate scenes that, in the booth, my job was to make sure that that page is brought to life, not only with the timing but also the emotional nuance. And I think what really stood out for me is that performing the line brings the emotional temperature to our audience. And the writing made it so much easier because the nuances of the phrasing really allowed me to bring those emotional beats to life.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, I could totally see that. And I feel like there's a lot of specificity to how to bring that to life. And I think that you did that very well. And I definitely felt kind of the energy of the scene because of the AD performance that you gave. And now let's go ahead and we will move on to-- Christina, you also worked on One Battle After Another. So if you have anything that you'd like to comment on in terms of how you went about capturing the visual style of the film?

Christina Stevens
Yeah, I mean, I think Justin has kind of covered it. Everyone is constantly in motion. Like from the very first scene, you're sort of dropped into this quietly set up action scene. And from there, no one really ever stops. So in a lot of ways, I hope the audio description isn't annoying because the audio description also doesn't stop, really.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, it kind of keeps on pace with how fast moving everything is in that. And yeah, I found it very effective personally. Thank you. And let's go ahead and move on to Errin as the AD performer for One Battle After Another. How did you go about capturing the visual style through the performance?

Errin Mixon
Well, you know, I really have to throw all credit to the writers here who often don't get credited at the end of the film. I'm never sure why. I don't know how long they get to create the script, but the turnaround time for narration is usually about 24 hours. And half the time I'm not even told the real name of the movie. So I almost never know what I'm narrating until I'm halfway into it. So really all credit to the writers for being so exacting with their language that all I have to do is drop in at the queue and do my best to kind of gather what the scene is. You know, you don't, I don't watch the whole film as I go along because it would take forever. There's not enough time to do that. So by the time the movie's ended, I've seen most of it, but not all of it. So I'm just hoping as I go along that I'm able to insert enough nuance into my vocal performance to match what the writers intended and, and make it work well for the film.

Lee Pugsley
Nice. Yeah, no, I feel like you accomplished that very nicely.

Errin Mixon
Thank you.

Lee Pugsley
And then, Christina, we'll go back to you because you were the AD writer for Sinners as well. So why don't you go ahead and talk a little bit about that? And I know there's a lot of style in that movie. So how did you go about capturing the visual style for that film?

Christina Stevens
Yeah, for Sinners, it is super stylish, very cool looking. A lot of very cool camera moves happening, but there's sort of like this overarching shift in the movie. The beginning is all in the daytime, and then, you know, the part that happens at night. So for the daytime, you know, the colors are bright and, but kind of washed out, and there's no hiding anything in the, you know, you can see all the way to the horizon. So, you know, I want to talk about the sky. And right at the beginning, mentioned that we're starting out at dawn. And then later in the day, you talk about how the sun beats down on a field, and then you transition into sunset and twilight. And it's all set up in the way that the film is made. You're seeing all these different periods of the day. And then all of a sudden, it's night and there's a lot of darkness. And instead of being able to see everything, you're just kind of catching little glimpses or a little flicker of movement or a glint of light. And it is very different from the beginning. So I really wanted to make sure to cover that up and contrast it with the sort of, you know, sun-bleached colors at the beginning.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, that definitely seems like a big visual and stylistic change there. And props to you for doing that so effectively. And now we'll go ahead and move on to Adrienne, who was the AD performer for Sinners. How did you go ahead to and approach capturing that visual style through the performance?

Adrienne Livingston
Yes, and I just want to say, Christina did an amazing job. It was very, very descriptive. So for me, I really just as Errin and Roy rely on the writers to bring the description. I thought she did just an amazing job. And also like Erin, not watching the film all the way through was just really trying to focus on the scene and bring the tone and temperature of the scene out in the performance. And so therefore, there were some times, yes, definitely had to watch. And hear what the music was in addition to watching the description so that I could try to also emulate and bring out the emotion in the performance.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, there definitely is quite a mix of a range of emotions in there and very nuanced as well. And I felt like both the writing and the performance for Sinners really meshed so well together. So congratulations on the work you did with that. And Liz, last but not least, once again, we're back to bookend with Train Dreams.

Liz Gutman
Yeah, it's funny too, because I feel like these two movies, Frankenstein and Train Dreams, could not be more different in every possible way. So for Train Dreams, it was really-- there are so many incredibly beautiful shots of nature and these forests in the Pacific Northwest and just all of these stunning vistas. So I really tried to focus on how those vistas made me feel. I mean, I love nature. I love going hiking. I love being outside. And trying to translate that feeling back into the words that I would use to convey the visuals with. So, you know, lush greenery and warm sunlight and all of this stuff. It's both a very big and a very small movie. So being really deliberate about the word choices for this sort of, you know, more majestic scenes versus the smaller kind of home life scenes was really what I focused on for Train Dreams.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, and I felt like the writing really captured that beauty so nicely. And on a note of interest, I grew up in the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho / Spokane, Washington area, which is where it was filmed.

Liz Gutman
Oh, no way.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, so it was really fun to see kind of the beauty of my hometown area be highlighted to a wide audience because there is so much beauty over there.

Liz Gutman
Yeah, it's, I think it's one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Truly. The forests there are without compare.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, for sure. Well, wonderful job with that. And Alex, I'll pass it to you for round two.

Alex Howard
Yeah. So our second question for each of you is what is the most unexpected and surprising challenge you had while writing or performing the audio description, whether that be a certain scene or just, I know the films are so different, like you mentioned, Liz, Train Dreams and Frankenstein are different, and then obviously One Battle, and Sinners is different just from the beginning to the end, too. So, yeah, what are the most unexpected challenges and surprising things that you found while working on your movie? And we'll start with Liz, with you for Train Dreams.

Liz Gutman
Yeah, it was really challenging getting the descriptions for the dream sequences right. Because that movie, it's so interesting. Most of it is just, that's kind of this, you know, a story, a story about a guy at its very essence, right? But there are some moments, particularly early on, where it has almost a magical realism quality. There's like this giant fish and this two headed calf and this, you know, this guy who's lying in a tree stump. And so then with the dream sequences that are woven throughout that are much more kind of abstract, making sure that those were described succinctly and accurately, but also evoking the same sort of feeling of-- they made me feel kind of unsettled a lot. And there's sort of like flashing images, and then there's also, you know, these train noises that you want to come through. So just making-- balancing all of that was really-- I found really challenging.

Alex Howard
And you did a great job with that, too. I felt like there was room that you left to breathe because you kind of just want to hear the nature, hear the crickets, hear the everything. But then also have the description of what you're seeing. So yeah, you did a really good job with that.

Lee Pugsley
Thank you. And we'll go ahead and pass it along to Christina for Sinners.

Christina Stevens
For Sinners, one thing I just found really difficult when working on it was that I loved so much of the music and not just the songs that are in it, but the score as well. And it seems like the score plays such a big part, almost like dialog in the way that it swells and gets low and all that. And I found myself needing to describe things, but not wanting to go over it. And I ended up feeling like really sad sometimes when I'd go over like a long chunk of the music. And I don't feel that way all the time for sure. I found it difficult to kind of puzzle through my favorite or the most important beats of the score when trying to fit in description that you'd need to understand the plot.

Alex Howard
I have a quick, specific question for you, Christina. I know there's the famous shot from Sinners, the one shot where it goes through the whole club and the different eras of music. And it's like, you know, you want to let the audience hear the music, but at the same time, I was pushing the-- I was in Dolby, so I had my earbuds. I was pushing the earbuds into my ear because I wanted to hear what I was seeing at the same time. Was that one of the more challenging scenes that you had to describe?

Christina Stevens
Yeah, I mean, it was horrible. I didn't want to go over anything, but, you know, what you're seeing is super important. So yeah, trying to find a balance and not be too sparse with the description, but really let the whole atmosphere come through in the soundtrack.

Lee Pugsley
I do feel like Sinners has one of the best uses of music in a film in a while. I just think that music was used so effectively in that film.

Christina Stevens
Yeah, it's great. I found it overwhelming at times.

Lee Pugsley
I can imagine. And Adrienne, I'll pass it over to you now to find out your experience with challenging moments as a performer for Sinners?

Adrienne Livingston
Yes. So the majority of the audio description narration I've done with another client has mainly been remote. So, you know, you have the engineers that can tell you when to change your temper or the mood, you know, if it's action or if it needs to be quiet. So this honestly was the second film that I've done where it was not remote and it was just me. And I didn't have that to have someone tell me when to change. And again, not watching the full movie, that to me is where I kind of find that, found that challenge, because after listening back, even though I'm from Portland, my mom is from Arkansas. So I have a little southern drawl that is very authentic. That is one thing that I actually, as I listen back and, you know, we might be our own worst critics where I'm like, yeah, I wish I would have brought a little bit of the southern drawl out to tell you the truth. As, but as I was, so as I was listening, and doing the audio description being not having an engineer, definitely taking those beats to all of a sudden, like, wait, this scene has obviously changed. And as you said, it's very different from the beginning of the movie to the ending of the movie. And so just making sure that I did that to try to capture those moments where I definitely visually could see that there was a change. So for me, that was the challenge of having my career thus far mainly being remote and having that second person be able to tell me what to make sure to change to where it's me and just like, wait, okay, I need to make sure I'm changing to match the emotion and the temper of the scene. So that's where I found the challenge.

Lee Pugsley
That does sound a little tricky. But you did it and you're here and great finished product.

Adrienne Livingston
Thank you.

Lee Pugsley
Now we'll go ahead and move on to One Battle After Another. And Justin, we'll start off with you and Christina, if you have anything to add to One Battle, feel free to jump in as well. But yeah, Justin, we'll start with you for One Battle.

Justin Sohl
Yeah, I would say the most challenging part of what I described is I did a climactic scene that takes place over this undulating highway that goes on for miles and miles through the desert. One of the challenges is to not just keep saying the word hill over and over again. You don't want any of it to sound redundant. You know, a lot of the shots do sort of almost repeat, but it's not boring at all. It's anything but boring. So to describe it in a way that keeps up the tension of this three-car chase that's going on is also interesting because you can hear each of the three cars is a different type of car and their engines each sound the same. Yeah, I think that it was the challenge in conveying that and there were some shots that were like low to the asphalt and you, you're in the character's perspective of not knowing what's coming ahead. And also has, also because it was shot on VistaVision, I would imagine the theater, it has almost the feeling of being on a roller coaster, riding that scene. And so that was something I actually did have a simile of. I remember once describing through the rear view mirror, seeing the road going up and down almost as if being on a roller coaster.

Alex Howard
As I was watching that scene, I mean, I've taken some writing, AD writing classes and I've obviously interviewed many of you before and actually thought like wow, this scene, like it's a lot of repetitive shots, but it's not boring. It's very intense, the scene. And I was even thinking like wow, the writer must have had a hard time thinking of other words to use because you have to make the AD exciting since the scene is exciting. So yeah.

Justin Sohl
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's always like in each, you know, I break it down shot by shot. Like what can I convey? What does the shot make me feel? That I can convey that's a little different than what I've already described.

Lee Pugsley
And Christina, if there's anything that you want to add to that, feel free. No pressure, though.

Christina Stevens
I will say, just, you know, it's not super, super common that we split projects, but, you know, sometimes we do have to for deadline purposes. And once I saw how it was shaking out, I was really glad I didn't have to do that part.

Alex Howard
Which one of you did the paternity test part, by the way?

Justin Sohl
That was me.

Alex Howard
Okay, we'll definitely get to that. But I remember watching that, I was like, wow, this is really good AD.

Lee Pugsley
Definitely. And Errin, we'll go ahead and go to you as well as an AD performer for One Battle After Another. What did you find most challenging?

Errin Mixon
It was that damn paternity kit scene. It was really a challenge because there's, basically, there's very little or no dialog in it, and it's a short amount of time to cram in a lot of descriptive language. And, you know, we can't reveal immediately what this object is because the audience is figuring it out as the action unfolds. So there's this very detailed, quick description of this complicated case that turns out to be a paternity kit. And I really struggled in spitting all that language out and then my guess, it came back to me in pickups with new language. So I'm guessing Justin or Christina, I don't know which one of you guys wrote that one, Justin, but I'm guessing we had to make some changes. So then it came back in pickups and I had to do it all over again. That was the most challenging part.

And also the credit roll of this film. Typically, they just have us read the major players, the main people in the cast and producers and a couple of the crew. But this credit roll, I read almost everybody's names up until a certain point. And I was, I watched this film back the other night to get familiar again before this podcast. And I was like, holy cow, that's--. My husband was cracking up. He's like, how did you say all those names? I'm like, I don't know! So that, that was my biggest challenge. Just a side note, I don't know if any of you guys saw Saturday Night Live did a sketch about One Battle After Another action figures the other week when Teyana Taylor was hosting. And it had those hills mentioned. I thought that was pretty funny.

Alex Howard
I did not see that. I'll have to look that up after this. But it's funny you say that about the credits because I usually stay after the credits always so I can see what company did the AD and who the narrator was. And you're right. I remember thinking One Battle, I was like, wow, she's still reading the credits. This is surprising.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, credits are a mouthful and there's so many credits for that film too. As I guess there are with any film, but I can only imagine just figuring out the right timing and what pace you have to go at, plus all these names that you're trying to figure out how to pronounce them too.

Errin Mixon
Yeah, and most of the time you don't get pronunciation, so you just give it your best shot. And if you mess it up, it comes back to you in a pickup. But yeah, it was a mouthful.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, that's very insightful. Now we'll go ahead and move over to Anusha with Marty Supreme. And Justin, feel free to comment on anything that Anusha says as well.

Anusha VeDagiri
Yeah, so I don't think it was an unexpected challenge, but anytime I'm writing anything that involves sports, it's already-- I'm already heaving a huge sigh because I know only so much. And table tennis is not one of those things that I watch regularly. So it's always a challenge figuring out the right mix between using jargon because, you know, there's only so many times you can say, you know, that somebody hits the ball, but also not alienating an audience that doesn't, you know, know the sport but can still find the movie enjoyable like I did. And this movie in particular, there's, you know, they play a lot of trick shots and they're trying to-- you have commentary sometimes and that takes care of things, but here a lot of it is just they let the scene play out just games and matches. And so you can't also describe it short for shot because it's going too fast. So you have to figure out how best to highlight the stuff that stands out the most visually, what the ball is doing, how the players are playing, their grips and this and that. And so, yeah, I would say sports in general is a challenge. And I don't always expect sports movies to be fun, but this one was, which was good. And it had a lot of other elements as well. And I think, I think Justin having taken the climax of the movie got, got the most detailed match of them all. But there were a few in the beginning that I, I remember I had glossaries and stuff open and figuring out. And then I was looking at videos being like, what is this thing called? What is that thing called? And, yeah, it's always, you always learn a lot when you write AD.

Alex Howard
Before we jump over to Justin, I know you wrote the first two thirds. I had a question specifically about the opening title sequence is wild. So how did you balance that?

Anusha VeDagiri
That's my answer for a future question.

Alex Howard
Okay, okay, okay. Cool. Yeah, we'll come back to that. But yeah, that's a wild opening sequence. You have to do the credits and then go back to describing the crazy visuals. So yeah, we'll definitely touch on that.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, Justin, any comment that you want to make on your challenging moment for Mighty Supreme writing?

Justin Sohl
It's funny because I remember when I was, I had seen that I was scheduled to pick up Marty Supreme from where Anusha was going to leave off. And it was coming right on the heels of Christina and I had just done the Avatar movie over, you know, nights and weekends. And, you know, it was a tight schedule and a very difficult movie to do. And we'd done that weeks after we had just finished One Battle After Another, which is another very difficult movie to do. And remember, I mean, I didn't know anything about Marty Supreme. And I remember messaging Anusha, I'm like, you know, please tell me it's just an easy drama because I knew it was a drama. That was the genre. And she's like, I hope you like describing ping pong. And I was like, oh no! I was hoping for something light and easy.

Anusha VeDagiri
I feel like I remember saying, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

Alex Howard
Yeah, yeah.

Justin Sohl
I was like, oh no, more of, you know, more long nights. But the fortunate thing is, so when I get to that climactic match, I didn't want to, Anusha had already done a great job describing the sort of the process of the table tennis matches. So I didn't want to do a play-by-play again. And at the end was interesting because there was a Japanese commentator. So you couldn't necessarily understand what he was saying, but every now and then he would drop the name, you know, Endo! [etc], and, so you would understand, oh, Endo just did something and with the Japanese audience was excited about certain things. So I actually was able to let a lot of the Japanese commentary come through, which I think actually heightened the excitement of the scene. And similar to what Anusha said, like sometimes you pick certain moves that you'll describe and sometimes you'll summarize that they're, you know, playing, you know, farther from the corners or something like that. You know, and so, yeah, it's a combination of that. What's gonna be the most exciting for the audience? Sometimes it's just the facial reactions in the crowd.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, I mean, good on you guys. Like, if I had to do a sports movie and I was writing audio description for it, I'm not a sports person except for football, so I would know nothing about that. I'm like, I don't even know where to start.

Alex Howard
Especially something as fast-paced as ping pong is, insane. So, yeah. Good job, guys.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah. Now let's move over to you, Roy, as the AD performer for Marty Supreme. Any unexpected challenges or just challenging moments for the performance part of it?

Roy Samuelson
Yeah. Out the gates, somebody give Justin, Christina and Anusha a talk-heavy drama. Please. Good Lord. Thank you, everybody. I, too, am not a sports ball guy, and I was riveted. Those specific scenes-- and this is a compliment to the film and to the AD writing, because there wasn't that play-by-play of every single thing, the story really came out, the ups and downs of what made that tension work. Even not knowing the specific rules of the game, I was so enthralled with it and learning at the same time. So again, compliments to the writers. I guess the biggest thing for me, the challenge was that with all the intensity and the realism, specifically the contrast of New York, that there were two different New Yorks portrayed here. And it really felt like the 1950s. It felt like a documentary on steroids. It was like retro and it was real, but super stylized. And every time that the emotional gears were changing, it was instant. And so what I loved about the challenge-- and these kinds of films really just feed into this, and I just eat this up for like Cookie Monster with cookies-- that it's all-- it brings this truth to the visuals, and we want to make sure that the audiences are riding it.

So, for example, if we're going from this really intimate scene to something that's just over the top, big and bold, I need to be sure that my performance is matching what the writing is bringing so our audiences can follow along. So there's speed changes. And when these pivots are hard and fast from chaos to stillness, the way to get through that is specificity. And it is those intentions that we as audio description performers choose. The intentions of like a "to" verb, to inspire, to discover, to enthrall, to disappoint. All of those words are kind of lurking through the words that I'm given through the script. And that's what I believe makes it come alive to make sure that those stories are being told because of the condensity of-- Condensity. Is that a word? See what I'm talking about? Because everything is so condensed, it's got to come out and make sure that our audiences can follow along seamlessly. And that's the alchemy of what this audio description work is.

Lee Pugsley
Well said. And I do think that we should brand condensity as a word now as well.

Roy Samuelson
Copyright, trademark.

Lee Pugsley
Let's do it. Well, yeah, thank you so much for your insights on that. And that all makes sense. Being in the acting role myself, the whole idea of intention. I know we've talked about this before. The intentionality for your performance in Marty Supreme definitely came through and I did feel those shifts through the performance that was coupled with the writing as well. And Liz, we'll move back to you now for Frankenstein.

Liz Gutman
Yeah. Oh man, the gore in Frankenstein is so explicit. Alex, I feel like you and I have to have a separate conversation about this because I've also been working on a bunch of horror stuff recently. But in Frankenstein specifically, I pulled every possible face under the sun while I was working on that movie because it was shocking to me. I was not expecting that level of explicit grossness, I guess. So both choosing words to, that feel gross and that elicit that kind of, oh my God! response. And also balancing the description with the incredible sound effects, the slicing, the sawing, getting the blood, slicking the floor, all of that stuff, the sacks full of body parts. Yeah, that was a, that was something I wasn't expecting that level of in Frankenstein that really kind of tested my limits in terms of gross words.

Alex Howard
I was actually lucky enough to see this in the theater, so that was really cool. But was it hard for you to go from the gore? And then I know there are a lot of heartfelt scenes in Frankenstein, too. So the balance between those was that hard?

Liz Gutman
Not, I mean, yes and no. Just because, you know, you kind of, as a describer, you kind of take each scene as it comes. So, you know, if the next one is more emotional or more, a little more heavy or kind of more about people connecting, you know, you just kind of unplug the gross plug and then you plug in the human connection plug and kind of switch gears. It can be jarring to do if you have to keep going back and forth for sure.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, I know Alex was really excited about this movie and he actually, Alex, did you want a little more horror or gore with this movie?

Alex Howard
I think it's because it was a del Toro thing and I think I was-- This is my first Frankenstein I've seen, like straight adaptation, because the old one doesn't have AD. And so I was going into it thinking this is a straight horror movie. And it's not, which is, I mean, I think it was more managing my expectations rather than, you know, there were gory scenes, but then I was like, I thought the whole thing was supposed to be like this.

Liz Gutman
It's no Terrifier.

Alex Howard
Yeah, yeah.

Lee Pugsley
Well, Liz, we'll go ahead and stick with you and Frankenstein now since we're going to loop back around here and we'll go to the next question. Was there a scene in your film that you were particularly proud of how the audio description turned out and why did this stand out to you?

Liz Gutman
Yeah, and it's hands down my favorite scene in the movie, the tribunal. It comes fairly early on. You know, Victor is kind of showing his work to a panel of professors at this university. And there's so much happening. He's pontificating. He's throwing a ball around. The professors are harrumphing over in their corner. You know, the audience is kind of doing their thing. A new character enters, we haven't seen before. And then he, at one point, he uncovers this-- I mean, no spoilers, but he uncovers his project that he's been working on. And it is another really shocking moment. And the special effects in this scene are incredible. So trying to get all the information of the ball, the professors, the new character, what he looks like, establishing a shorthand for him, trying to get across the really grotesque appearance of this experiment that Victor is showing off, was... Man, I went back to that scene so many times to get it just right, and I think it turned out really well.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, I mean, I always say that the best audio description writing is where you're aware of the writing and it's only adding to the story and the visuals that are going on, but it's not distracting you in a way where it's really sticking out. But I feel like for Frankenstein, I know exactly the scene that you're referring to. It just felt so seamlessly integrated into everything else that was going on in that scene.

Liz Gutman
Oh, good. That's what I was going for.

Lee Pugsley
Well, you did well.

Liz Gutman
Woo hoo!

Lee Pugsley
Well, I'll go ahead, Roy, and we'll start with you this time, because I know that you have to leave for a meeting soon. With Marty Supreme, for the performance part of it, was there a scene that you were most proud of in terms of how the AD performance turned out and what made it stand out for you?

Roy Samuelson
I'm going to go back to the table tennis again. There was such emotion in it that, of course, there's the excitement, and I hope he wins, and there's also these other layers that are happening. And again, no spoilers, but the film really builds that up to I'm going to use the word climax. It's like a quadruple climax of like all of these things are coming together. And however, I guess, Justin and Anusha both contribute, definitely both made that happen. And so I found myself invested. And when that happens, it's like, am I making sure that I'm part of the story and not having the spotlight? And so, there was one scene that I was totally into it. I was like, getting into it, I was like, Yes! And it's like, oh, wait a second. Let's take a step back here. And it's not to become less of a performance. It's to make sure that what I'm bringing to life is aligned with the story being told. If I could give a very brief example, if you could imagine going to see a Shakespeare play and Hamlet is doing a soliloquy and he starts crying at his own words, the audience is gonna groan and want to walk out. And it's like, as an audio description performer, the spotlight's not on me. It's on what's happening visually. So I had to take stock of that. And as I was listening back, I'm like, oh, hell no, this is not the direction I need to go. And so it was finding that nuanced performance. And I want to make it really clear, it wasn't less of a performance. It wasn't like I was doing less. It was a deliberate choice to bring that table tennis -- specifically, some of the-- I'm going to combine a few of the challenges of the table tennis scenes that really came together in a way that it just brought it to life. And being able to be part of the story, I think, made sure that our audiences were aligned.

Lee Pugsley
Putting myself in your shoes, seeing where you're coming from, like, I feel like if there's, like, a really exciting moment or something, I can see myself as an AD performer being like, Ooh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, really getting caught up in that moment, you know? And, yeah, that's really-- that's really-- a great example of just the nuance of AD performance, but also just how sometimes the moment can just take a hold of you as well. Anusha, let's go ahead and throw it over to you now for a scene that you're most proud of how the AD turned out. And after you answer, then Justin, feel free to jump in as well.

Anusha VeDagiri
Yeah, I'm gonna talk about the opening sequence here, because I didn't know much about the movie either when I started writing it. And I knew, okay, vaguely it was about ping pong, but then bizarre opening scene, which in retrospect, it's a nice summation of what the movie is about. But to go straight into that, and the interesting thing is I have a biology background, so I studied life sciences in university. So I come from like a completely science-based background and--

Alex Howard
Feel free to give spoilers, by the way, for the opening. If it's easier to be specific, you totally can. Sorry.

Anusha VeDagiri
Yeah. It's not super spoilery, I guess, but just that I didn't have to look up stuff. I knew fertilization processes, you know, the biological terms for it. So I didn't have to do much research there, which is a fun change from all the table tennis jargon that I needed to look up. But usually we kind of make a choice in terms of whether or not to describe the credits, you know, in upfront when they appear or put them, push them towards the end, depending on whether the visuals take precedence. But in this case, I felt like each of the names was popping up at sort of an opportune moment in relation to the fertilization process. So I felt like, I felt that I should include that as well in between the description because it felt like, you know, the, the, it was a purposeful choice. And then, of course, I couldn't fit all the names in, so I had to push that stuff to the end because then I think it moves on to the next scene. But that very nice transition from the embryo to the ping pong ball to then getting to see the name of the movie on the ball. And a lot of times, I think in these movies nowadays, you don't really get opening scenes, like it feels like a TV show in that sense. So it was nice, it was a nice change to actually have something like that. Cause we do opening credits so many times, opening sequences for our TV shows and things like that. But this was a really nice stylized way of getting that across in the, in the movie as well. And I had fun writing it.

Alex Howard
Yes, you did a great job. And for some context for our listeners, it's basically a sperm fertilizing an egg right after a sex scene, it cuts right into that. And the opening titles are over that process. It's a wild, like, never seen that before in a movie. It was great. And you did a great job describing.

Anusha VeDagiri
Just the choice to go from embryo to ping pong ball is like, I mean, I don't know where that's been done. But again, such a neat little summary of the movie in retrospect. But not knowing where the plot was going to go, I was like, okay, we'll see where this takes us.

Alex Howard
Oh yeah, no, great job.

Lee Pugsley
One of the most unique opening credit sequences I've seen in quite a long time. And yeah, just with your description and Roy's performance, it just hit in all the best ways possible to be like, okay, so we're going here and this is what we're in for. Let's go.

Anusha VeDagiri
Yeah, yeah, it's a good opener to what kind of movie you're in for. So yeah. That was nice.

Lee Pugsley
And Justin, anything you want to add on your end for Marty Supreme in terms of a scene that you're most proud of, or a moment you're most proud of how the AD writing turned out?

Justin Sohl
Yeah, I mean, again, it would be that climactic table tennis match at the end. The whole film has been building up to this moment at the end. Yeah, it's funny, because for both films, I've already sort of talked about the scenes, but yeah, and in One Battle, that chase, through the highway in the desert. And then after that chase, there's also a very tense scene where there's two characters who are coming together and aren't seeing each other because of that haze, because of those hills. And, you know, they've been searching for each other this whole movie, and, and they both are armed with weapons, and, and there's a lot of tension is, a tension of, oh, no, are they gonna-- Are they gonna shoot each other, you know, mistaken identity? So that was another aspect in One Battle.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, I know that's, once again, really commend the work that you did on both of those films and those scenes that you mentioned in particular really were standout scenes. And let's go ahead and move over to you, Errin, as the AD performer for One Battle. A scene that you were most proud of in terms of how the AD performance came out?

Errin Mixon
You know, I don't know if I have a great answer to this question. Re-watching the film, I remember lines that I struggled with and feeling relieved that they sounded okay. But, you know, when I think about my performances in other films that I've been particularly proud of, it's usually in moments that are a little softer and with, you know, where a little more emotion can creep in. And this film didn't have a lot of that, you know, it was, it was One Battle After Another. So it was a lot of go, go, go. And I think it was extremely well written. But again, all that credit goes to Christina and Justin. And the scenes that Justin mentioned in particular were very well written, but I'm not sure that there was a performative aspect of my own that really stood out for me in this particular film.

Lee Pugsley
Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that stands out to me about the performance in general is just, you know, the kind of rhythm and pace that you had to keep up with through pretty much every beat, really.

Errin Mixon
Yeah.

Lee Pugsley
And Christina, we'll move over to you now. Feel free to comment on One Battle After Another. If there was a scene in there that stuck out to you for something you're most proud of, and then go ahead and go into Sinners as well.

Christina Stevens
Sure. For One Battle After Another, like, I think the opening scene is really cool and there's a lot of elements happening. I don't know if I did anything particularly special from a writing standpoint, but I did really enjoy writing this very serious scene and going through and setting up all this stuff. And you get in this room and it's just like there's, you know, Sean Penn's erection and it's like, what's this movie gonna be now? You thought you knew what this movie was gonna be. What's it gonna be? And I really love that feeling when you're watching a movie, if you think you know what you're in for, and then it kind of throws you a curveball. And I hope the AD captured it. I'm sure that it just is what it is. So I liked doing that part.

Alex Howard
No, I think the opening-- the first 20 or 30 minutes of One Battle is very different than the rest of the movie. And it's like throwing a lot at you, and you really had to like, set up the movie of who these people were, the dynamic, because then it cuts to 15 years later, 20 years later. And so having that opening be coherent and with so many characters and so much going on, I think you did a great job.

Christina Stevens
Thank you. Okay, and then I'll move on for Sinners. Obviously, the big music scene in the juke joint is a big favorite and a standout. And I think that'll come up later, but I think I just thought I'd mention there's a great shot basically near the beginning of the movie where Smoke and Stack go into town to see Bo and Grace to help get the party set up. And there's a great one shot of following Bo and Grace's daughter Lisa across the street. And she leaves the store where all the Black people are shopping and she crosses the street to another pretty much identical grocery store where there's white people shopping to get her mom and then Lisa stays behind and Grace basically retraces her steps across the street and the camera goes backwards in the same path and it's all in one shot. And I'm kind of, I'm happy with the way that came out because I think the way it was filmed is really important to understand the state of the town and how, you know, it's segregated and who's allowed to cross that line. And Bo and Grace are, you know, are people of color, they're Chinese, but they're sort of in positions of service that maybe allow them passage. But, you know, still it's obvious who they feel more of a kinship with. Sometimes it doesn't work out to be able to really get into the filmmaking part of a shot, but I was really pleased that there was enough time to be able to get that in.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, that, I do recall what scene you're talking about and I thought that your writing in that did accentuate that scene very nicely.

Errin Mixon
Thank you.

Lee Pugsley
And Adrienne, let's hear from you about AD performance for Sinners.

Adrienne Livingston
Yes, the scene that I really liked and it was actually a very long scene, it's finally when Grace actually invited the vampires in the barn. And you saw, you know, from the burning building, all the action and the gore. In fact, there were moments that I'm like, I'd rather just listen to the description than see it (laughs), all the blood squirting. But from that to Annie being attacked by Stack and just what she had made, you know, Smoke promise her, it's like you had that emotion in the scene as well. But there was just so much action to then, you know, leading outside where Remmick with his followers and dancing and just so much. I really enjoyed doing that scene. Yeah.

Lee Pugsley
Nice job on that. Liz, let's go ahead and move over to you now for Train Dreams.

Liz Gutman
There's a scene early on with Robert and Gladys when they're sort of dreaming about their future. And it cuts between them lying on this riverbank, you know, at sunset. It feels like 30% of this movie happens at sunset, and I just want to commend everyone who worked on that movie for getting every sunset ever. It's so beautiful. But they're lying there by the river, kind of just like, you know, talking about how they should get married. And then it cuts between them doing that and then tracing out where their future home is going to be and talking about, you know, the bed's going to be here and I want a window here. And it's a really sweet scene. And what I'm really happy about with how it came out is I was able to, since it's fairly early on, I was able to work in a little extra description about both Robert and Gladys, just their appearance and, you know, sort of how, their mannerisms and stuff. But the sound is also so important in that scene. For them, the two of them, the sound is so intimate, you know, you really hear all of their breaths and chuckles and, you know, you can sort of hear when they smile almost. But there's also these ambient nature noises of the river and the crickets and, you know, those sort of sunset noises. And what I was really happy about is that all of it had a bit of a chance to breathe. Nothing felt wedged in. It didn't feel crammed in or crowded. It all felt like it flowed really well, which made me really happy.

Lee Pugsley
I think one of the nice things about that film as well is that there is such a meditative kind of contemplative vibe to it. And it really does have that room. So you don't feel like you're trying to cram in so much description in such a short amount of time, but there's so much space and vastness to even let the description sit where it needs to.

Liz Gutman
Yeah, absolutely.

Lee Pugsley
Well, wonderful. And Alex, I'll pass it on to you for the next question.

Alex Howard
Cool. I think depending on how long this takes, this might be your final question, which is sad because we had so many questions for you guys. I feel like we never have time to get in all of them, but it's because you guys have such great answers to them. So our next question is, were there any points in the movie where you had a tough choice to make of what you had to describe? You know, you only have so much time and there's so much visually. Were there any parts where you were torn and you had to make a tough decision. And we'll start with you, Liz, for Train Dreams.

Lee Pugsley
Really quickly, let me interject here too, for the audio description performers in here, like, you know, a tough choice on deciding what to prioritize. That could be like, you know, an inflection, a tempo, a rhythm, how much emotion to convey through the performance as well. So, yeah, just like the tough things to prioritize and how you came to those conclusions if you were confronted with them.

Liz Gutman
Yeah. So for Train Dreams, I mean, as you just said, I was really lucky because there's a fair bit of space in Train Dreams. There weren't too many times where I really struggled with how do I convey this? It was more about making sure that enough of the score, because it also has a beautiful score and the ambient nature noises and whatever other important sound effects came through because it's a period piece too. So, you know, the sounds of the horse carts and the saws that the men used to fell the trees early on, then giving way to the, you know, the really early automobiles and stuff like that. So overall, I would say it was more just about balancing the AD with the score and nature noises. But I can't say there were any particular scenes where I was like, oh, no, there's no room. There was pretty much always room.

Alex Howard
I think one specific question for you. Train Dreams was so gorgeous. And again, the visuals play such a huge part in it. I think it's our best cinematography as well. But um--

Liz Gutman
I think so, yeah. 

Alex Howard
I think for Maestro, I remember, I think you described the aspect ratio. Did you? I can't remember if you did that in Train Dreams or not. And why, why did you decide not. I don't think you did, did you?

Liz Gutman
I don't think I did. I don't think I did.

Alex Howard
Did you not in Maestro either?

Liz Gutman
I honestly can't remember because I remember having this conversation with you about it. (laughs)

Errin Mixon
Yes.

Liz Gutman
But now I can't remember where I landed. Okay, so that's a big question mark. I'll get back to you, Alex.

Alex Howard
Yeah. Yeah.

Lee Pugsley
Well, let's go ahead and move over now to you, Christina, for Sinners. Tough choices where you had to decide what to prioritize and how you worked through that.

Christina Stevens
Sure. In the big juke joint scene, the song "I Lied To You" is when you start seeing people from different time periods. Like I was saying earlier, it's very painful to sort of have to decide what music to go over and what not to go over. So, you know, there's a lot of kind of anachronistic elements in that part. So it's really about choosing either the most prominent or sort of the most strange people that you see in that part, even though there are additional folks in the background. But I just sort of edited it down to as few people as possible while still getting the point across so that the song could still be heard for most of it. I think that was the most editing I had to do.

Alex Howard
When you were describing the different eras, did you find yourself trending more towards what are they wearing or what, like, how did you...? Because I know, like you said, you only have so much time to describe each era. So what did you choose to focus on?

Christina Stevens
I did end up... It was sort of a big decision to make. I did end up mostly talking about the clothes or the type of dance they were doing, which would give a lot away. Like, you know, there are people who are twerking in this 1930s mill. So I went down these rabbit holes and spent a lot of time figuring out, you know, what era these people are from or what this, what part of the world this costume is from. And I did end up finding out, or what this instrument is called, and in the end made the decision to just stick to the visuals, you know, these aren't like very common, common knowledge, you know? People wouldn't, wouldn't know. If I use the, you know, the correct terminology, people wouldn't know. So I made the decision to just stick to kind of the clothes and style of dancer music to sort of avoid taking people out of it too much.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, I feel like that would be a little, I could see that being a little overwhelming at first when you first watch that scene and you're just like, whoa, there's like an overload of everything going on here visually and I don't even know where to begin. That's at least how I would feel about it.

Christina Stevens
Yeah, it was a lot for sure.

Lee Pugsley
Well, Adrienne, let's go ahead and move over to you as an AD performer, a time where you had to make a tough choice in deciding what to prioritize in your performance, if that even came up for you?

Adrienne Livingston
Yeah. Well, I would say, you know, it kind of goes back to not having watched the full movie first and just having to make sure when I saw that there was a visual change in the scene to say, you know, let me take a pause and listen to see how I need to change. And so, you know, the two scenes that really come out to me, because for the most part, it wasn't necessarily a soft delivery other than when there were the love scenes. So from, you know, Annie and Smoke and Sammie and Pearline. Those two times, I'm like, okay, I need to make sure that my delivery is more soft. And, you know, it connotates that this is a very loving scene or a very frisky one in a sense with, you know, Sammie and Pearline. So I just wanted to make sure that I was delivering that. And I think just especially not having watched it full the first time, going through and stopping and watching. You know, partly with this, I feel that sometimes with some movies or even TV shows that I'm getting a master class in audio description narration. And so definitely felt that here. And one thing that I'm actually taking from this is especially if it's a movie and possibly a time period very different from documentary, I actually might just watch the movie fully through, even though I do know it takes time. And obviously you have to look at what the deadline is for the client. But if there is that time, you know, I really want to make sure that the delivery for end users is as best as it possibly can be. And so I think that's one thing I'm taking from this for me, in my own, you know, performance delivery of, of future projects. But I would say those scenes where I just wanted to make sure, it's like, okay, this is a loving scene. I want to make sure that I'm bringing that out in my delivery.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, that totally makes sense. And kind of to your point about, like, listening and pauses, it's so interesting to me. I'm always, like, how much can be conveyed in a pause, whether as a performer or a listener, and how much that can influence the context around an environment or a character just in our everyday lives as well.

Adrienne Livingston
Yes.

Lee Pugsley
Well, let's go ahead, Justin, and move on to you for One Battle After Another. Tough choices where you had to figure out what to prioritize. And Christina, once again, after Justin shares, feel free to jump in if you have anything that you'd like to share as well.

Justin Sohl
The one scene that comes to mind in One Battle After Another is Benicio del Toro's performance as Sensei Sergio. I think the most viral moment from the film is when he's pulled over by the police and just his attitude, they ask him, have you been drinking, sir? He's like, a few small beers. But what he's doing on the side of the road is so funny. And that may be the scene that wins him the best supporting actor. But there's, it's all, they talk through it. So in situations like that, I will try to use something like a word that you don't hear all the time. So I remember I described him mincing on the side of the road, which is, again, the word you don't hear a lot, you know, like short, dainty steps. But if I can, if I can, you know, if I had 30 seconds, I could describe all the little ways he's moving, wiggling his hips and taking these little steps. But sometimes you have to synthesize it down to something that's going to stick in the mind. And then shortly after that, I was able to say, he finishes his little dance and folds his hands on his side. So for people who aren't familiar with the term, it still hopefully makes sense, but I think that's, that's a sort of little trick in scenes like that where you want to convey something that stands out to you as a sighted viewer, you want it to also stick in the ear of the blind viewer when they're listening to the audio description.

Christina Stevens
And I'll just let that one live. I don't have to add one of mine. That's a good one.

Lee Pugsley
That's a really great example. Nothing more to say as well. Errin, for you as a performer, any tough choices you had to make in deciding what to prioritize? I mean, I know we already talked about the pace of this film may not give you, it may not even give you room to contemplate that perhaps, but I'm curious to hear nonetheless your experience.

Errin Mixon
Well, you kind of alluded to it already, Lee, and Justin expanded on it, that as a narrator, we don't often get to make those choices. Because the writers are so exacting in the words that they choose. And mincing was the perfect word in that scene, by the way, Justin. You know, I am a writer in my day-to-day, but I don't write AD and I wouldn't want to because I think it is extremely hard and it takes a real specific talent. So again, kudos to you guys. That said, there was a scene in One Battle where I did get to make a very small stylistic choice. I remember pondering it in the booth in the moment and then when I rewatched the film the other night it jumped back out at me. But there's a scene where Lockjaw comes to see Perfidia at her home and she's in, I think she's in witness protection, and he arrives with flowers and so obviously he's expecting, you know, a warm reception and she's not there. There's just a note taped to the window and it basically says I don't like you. That's not what it says. Those are not the words she uses. I can't repeat them here. You know, there's no dialog in this scene. It's just him seeing this note and his reaction. And I had to decide how to say that line. Did I say it in her voice or did I say it in my more neutral AD narrator voice? I didn't want to mimic what she sounded like, but I also wanted to infuse some of her spirit and character into it. And so, you know, trying to dial that in just right, it's like five or six words. But when I rewatched the film the other night, it popped back out at me and I thought, okay, I think I did an okay job with that. So those are the tiny little choices we get to make sometimes as narrators, but really a lot of that choice rests with the writer.

Lee Pugsley
And that's wonderful. Those tiny choices are not to be underestimated because those tiny choices from an audible point of view, you know, really can make such a difference in how we as a viewer could experience a moment like that as well.

Errin Mixon
Yeah, good. I'm glad to hear that.

Lee Pugsley
I appreciate the thought that you put into that choice. And I'll have to go back and watch it and pay attention to that now. Well, let's go ahead and move over to you, Anusha and Marty Supreme. Tough choices where you had to figure out what to prioritize?

Anusha VeDagiri
It's not one of those movies that leaves you a lot of room to decide what to put in or what not to. There's just so much happening all the time. And in my part, especially, there's a lot of dialog, there's a lot of action. So it was pretty much about figuring out the quickest way to introduce things. I think in a few places I tried to let, you know, the needle drops come through, let a little bit of the music because that also plays a big part in the, in the movie. It's anachronistic. I think there's stuff from the 80s and stuff on there. But, yeah, pretty much those were the only places where I could even make a choice. And then I think in some of the more action scenes, just, and this is, this is something I think I learned from Justin early on when I was writing AD is figuring out ways to write around dialog, even if it's just somebody yelling or somebody screaming or doing something simple, which really shouldn't matter in the biggest sense. You don't lose anything by not hearing it in terms of understanding the plot, but just to let those little moments come in and write around it rather than write over it is something that I was, the instinct to write over it was trained out of me, I think. So I tried to do a little bit more of that, which is that even in, in, you know, the action scenes or something where a lot of it is happening, still breaking it up so that you can hear some of the chaos happening behind, um, behind it.

Lee Pugsley
That, that makes sense. That tracks. And Justin, anything you'd like to add to that? No pressure to do so, but wanted to give you the opportunity.

Justin Sohl
Yeah, I like what Anusha said about the anachronistic music. It is all 80s, even though the film takes place in the 50s. It does make me think of the last shot in the film is the Tears for Fears song. Everybody Wants to Rule the World comes in, yeah, yeah. So you definitely got to let some of that come through because it's just totally out of place, you know, in terms of the setting of the movie. And around that, the last shot, it was all a close-up on Timothée Chalamet's face as he's seeing his newborn baby for the first time. So, yeah, it's describing the emotion around the music to, to, to get the full effect.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, I think that you guys found room for both of those things to exist, the emotion as well as the music. And last but not least, Liz, what about you and Frankenstein? Tough choices you had to make in choosing what to prioritize.

Liz Gutman
Yeah, I mean, again, they're sort of the whole movie, but I found it.

Lee Pugsley
It's a Del Toro film, so...

Liz Gutman
It's a Del Toro film. (laughs)

Lee Pugsley
You always have to make choices about how much to prioritize.

Liz Gutman
It needs an audio introduction, it needs a descriptive transcript, it needs a touch tour, it needs all of it. No, I found it most frustrating early on. There's a lot of sort of exposition with young Victor and his mother and his father and his young brother. And there's so much striking imagery happening, you know, and so, and I get in the basics, right? It's, you know, young Victor and his mother are standing on the steps with their servants, and his father pulls up in this carriage, but there's so much other stuff happening. Like there's this line of servants wearing this really, you know, fussy kind of military style dress. And the house is, I still don't think I did justice to what the actual enormous mansion looks like. And then there are a couple of funerals later on. And I had to, what I had to prioritize, what I felt like I had to prioritize are these very del Toro coffins, where there's one that's like, that's white and it looks like a sheet draped around. It looks like a big cocoon almost. And then there's a hole with that shows the person's face that's lined with this like furry red fabric. And it's just so striking. And then there's sort of a black version of that coffin as well that in any other case, I would just, you know, kind of do some really quick description of the coffin and then kind of get on with it and let it breathe a little bit because it's a funeral scene. It's kind of heavy. So I risked over describing a little bit or not having as much room to breathe there to get those visuals across because they were just so del Toro and so, I mean, they were used in the trailers. It was such a signature kind of look of his that it felt important.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, well done. I mean, once again, in a del Toro film, I don't even know where I'd start with, because it's like everything is so picturesque and so stunning all the time in his films. It's like, I just want the viewer to be able to take all of it in. But obviously, there's not enough time for that. So you had a tough job to do, and congratulations on figuring that out.

Liz Gutman
Thank you. Yeah, it's wall to wall. All of his stuff is just wall to wall.

Alex Howard
You know, I remember sitting in Frankenstein, listening to the description, I was like, I bet Liz Gutman read this.

Liz Gutman
(laughs) You know it.

Alex Howard
Yeah.

Lee Pugsley
Well, that's going to wrap up our third Oscars Audio Description Roundtable. A huge thank you to all of you participants as well as Roy Samuelson who had to cut out for a meeting. But a huge thank you to everyone that was able to be a part of it this year. We once again really commend the work that you've done. Congratulate you on being part of a best picture nominated film. And really it's because of you that we are all able to enjoy the cinema and the ways that we have been able to and we would not be able to have the same experience if it wasn't for the hard work that you guys do and the passion, dedication and detail you put into all of it. So thank you so much.

Alex Howard
Yeah, thank you guys so much and especially for our audiences if you haven't seen these movies, Frankenstein and Train Dreams is streaming on Netflix. One Battle After Another and Sinners is on HBO Max. I believe One Battle is on there. And Marty Supreme is in theaters, I think, only right now.

Lee Pugsley
It just dropped on PVOD, actually. So you can rent it on the Prime or the Apple Store. 

Alex Howard
Great. And if you would like to send us anything, your thoughts, we would love to hear your feedback on this, too, if you think we should do anything different or if-- This is our kind of signature thing. So this is our big event we do every year. We love it. So we'd love to hear your feedback and hear your thoughts. You can email us at DarkRoomFilmCast@gmail.com. That is DarkRoomFilmCast@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Instagram and our handle is DarkRoomFilmCast on Instagram.

Lee Pugsley
I would like to thank All Senses Go for making transcripts of this episode possible, as well as BlindCAN for being our editing sponsor. And thank you guys so much. Once again, thank you to all the panelists this year. And we'll see you back here next time on the Dark Room.

Alex Howard
Take care, guys.

Anusha VeDagiri
Thank you.

Errin Mixon
Thank you, guys.

Liz Gutman
Thanks guys. That was so fun.

Lee Pugsley
Thank you guys so much. That was awesome.