S1E10: The Importance of Audio Production and Consumption for the Sight Impaired

Todays episode focuses on the importance of audio production and how it is on the rise. The episode discusses the different aspects of audio production for both podcasts, audiobooks and how it all ties in with vision loss.
Published On: August 18, 20210 CommentsTags:

Easy listening with JAWS®, ZoomText®, Fusion® and other reading software

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In this episode…

The episode opens with Dawn Prall and Audivita Studios founder, and MyMacDLife production partner, David Wolf. They discuss the relationship between Audivita Studios and MyMacDLife as well as exchange views on the rise and importance of audio production and consumption. David shares his journey in the creative field; his love of audio shines throughout, specifically creating visual experiences in the mind of the listener. They then introduce the speakers for the next segment.

Voiceover actors Kim Monti and Steve Corona join the conversation and explain audiobook narration. They begin by providing a brief background on their paths to voice acting and answer questions about the challenges, techniques, and physicality of their work. Kim then tells a story about the freedom and independence audiobooks offer to those with vision loss. Audiobooks allow you to listen on your own time, removing the need for someone to read to you. There is a vast range of audiobooks; you can explore almost any subject in the world.

The conversation continues as Kim and Steve share their experiences with character development and how they keep multiple character personalities organized while recording. The interview transitions to David, Dawn, Kim, and Steve verbalizing the importance of stories and the innate nature of storytelling. This entertaining conversation concludes with lightening round questions for Kim and Steve.

The episode finishes with Bill Kilroy, Vispero’s Senior Sales Director for the Northeast and Mike Woods, Strategic Accounts Manager for Education, discussing the DaVinci Pro, a larger desktop unit by Enhanced Vision. This high-performance desktop video magnifier has a 3-in-1 high definition 1080p camera, ensuring a crisp, clean, high quality image on the 24-inch monitor. This device has two levels, the DaVinci HD and the DaVinci HD Pro. While both have OCR functions, the functional difference lies in the OCR capability. You can go online www.enchanedvision.com to see videos on the device and learn more about the product.

What We Discuss in This Episode

This tenth episode covers the following featured topics:

We’re freeing people from screens, pages, anything visual. We’re giving them a choice in how they consume content, for the sighted population. But for those that are visually impaired, or can’t read it all, audiobooks are amazing in that they’re an inclusive medium. (10:59)

There needs to be vocal separation, you need to be able to tell the characters apart. So that’s everything from gender to accent, pitch, pacing, tone, all of it. We spent a lot of time going through and developing the characters. There’s also the more daunting part, for me anyway, is putting the list together of all the words that we need to make sure we’re saying correctly. (18:50)

I just always try to make every story that I tell, every book that I voice, be so vividly expressed through my voice that you can see it anyway in your mind’s eye, whether you have vision or not. You should be able to, if you have good vision, and you close your eyes, you should be able to see that picture just as vividly. I always aim to bring that mentally visual picture telling, with my narration. I go very deep in my in my visualization, Kim knows this. I’ll do exercises where I close my eyes, and I become these characters. I can see and feel and smell and taste and hear everything that’s going on in their world before I jump into it. Then I start narrating, and I’m there. So hopefully I can pull you in with me. That’s always my goal. (35:40)

I don’t know if people understand how deep storytelling goes. Storytelling, vocal storytelling, is the first media of communication. If you ever want a classic example, listen to a two-year-old tell you how they stub their toe or got their booboo. (36:58)

If you’ve got a page of text that you want to have this product scan in, the DaVinci Pro can scan that and then read it out loud to you in multiple voices. You can customize the voices, whether you want male or female, you can change the speed of that, really customizable. When you’re magnifying, you’ve got a 24-inch monitor. It’s widescreen 24-inch magnification, which allows you to get up to 77 times magnification, that’s pretty high-powered. You can use that to do your magnification, change the color contrasts. You’ve got 28 different viewing colors, so if you want to use black on white, white on black, you know, yellow, one black, you name it, there’s 28 different color combinations that you can use. (49:16)