8Audio Description Crisis Points: The Idea of Common European Audio Description Guidelines Revisited

Iwona Mazur¹

Introduction

Audio description (AD) is a type of intersemiotic translation (Jakobson, 1959/2001) whereby visually impaired viewers can access films, television programmes, theatre performances and museum exhibits, and thus participate more fully in cultural and social life. This audiovisual transfer mode is, however, unevenly practised across Europe and while in some countries such as the UK or Germany it is often part of the audiovisual product, in others it is rare or even unknown. It would be highly desirable to make access to AD in Europe more prominent, especially since it is guaranteed in the European Commission’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive of 11 December 2007, which explicitly mentions the right of persons with disabilities to enjoy accessible media services, including through AD. Although widespread and more consistent provision of AD throughout Europe is perhaps a long-term aim, efforts are being made to bridge the differences as far as possible. One such effort has been undertaken by a group of AD researchers and practitioners under the umbrella of the ADLAB project, whose primary aim is to develop common European AD guidelines that would ensure more consistent AD practice and training across Europe. In this chapter, I report the outcomes of one of the project’s work packages, in which the so-called audio description crisis points (ADCPs) are identified. These findings are the starting point for the formulation of AD guidelines in the form of strategies, rather than hard and fast rules.

Common European AD Guidelines?

As discussed by Rai et al. (2010), most of the countries in which AD is provided have developed their own AD standards or guidelines: in the UK: Ofcom 2010; in Germany: Benecke and Dosch (2004); in Poland: Szymańska and Strzymiński (2010); in Belgium: Remael and Vercauteren (2011); and in Greece: Georgakopoulou (2008). However, the documents differ in terms of size, issues covered and solutions proposed and it can be assumed that the quality of the AD provided in those countries may also differ. In other countries, AD is still not available or very rare. Therefore, as noted by Vercauteren (2007: 148), ‘in order to speed up the accessibility process in countries where audio description is not or hardly existent, it would be useful to draw up one set of international guidelines catering for the needs of all the different types of describers and containing all the information necessary to provide high-quality descriptions’.

The aim of the Pear Tree Project, which was conducted as part of the Digital Television for All (DTV4All, www.psp-dtv4all.org) project, was to check whether common European AD guidelines are feasible. The idea was to verify if ‘people living in different European countries, with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, perceive and interpret visual stimuli in a similar manner’ (Mazur & Chmiel, 2012b: 6). In other words, the project partners wanted to test whether relevant cross-linguistic and cross-cultural differences in Europe are insignificant enough to enable the development of such common European AD guidelines. The testing involved groups of participants representing 10 European languages and, as it turned out, significant differences existed across those groups in 10 out of 12 tested items. Nonetheless, it was concluded that ‘common European guidelines could be developed, provided they take into account linguistic and cultural differences as well as preferences of visually challenged audiences in the countries concerned’ (Mazur & Chmiel, 2012b: 22).

As a follow-up to the DTV4All project, in 2011 a group of AD researchers and practitioners came together under the Audio Description: Lifelong Access for the Blind project (ADLAB, www.adlabproject.eu). Its overarching objective was to produce consistent guidelines for the practice of AD across Europe, which could then be the basis for the setting up of a Europe-wide network of AD courses in higher education. The three-year project (2011–2014) was financed by the European Union under the Lifelong Learning Programme and involved eight partners from six European countries: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Poland and Germany.

When thinking about designing common European AD guidelines, a number of issues have to be taken into account. Firstly, the fact that some of the countries already have their own national AD guidelines in place, which means that AD beneficiaries may be accustomed to certain AD solutions. Secondly, there are intercultural and interlinguistic differences among people living in different countries, as identified in the Pear Tree Project discussed above. Thirdly, it seems that each audio-described film or performance is unique and may call for unique AD solutions. Finally, considering AD as a type of translation (Benecke, 2013) may be a fruitful approach to the development of AD guidelines. Translators can resort to a variety of translation strategies and procedures (Ivir, 1987; Newmark, 1988; Vinay & Darbelnet, 1958) that they adopt depending on text type, target audience or purpose of the translation (Nord, 1997; Vermeer, 1989/2000); an approach that could also be applied to the study of AD (Mazur, 2014).

In view of the aforementioned considerations, it appears that developing common European guidelines, which would cater for all the different needs and preferences of such a heterogeneous group, is a utopian task and, in a way, counterproductive. A possible alternative solution could be the design of comprehensive AD guidelines that would accommodate a range of different AD strategies. A first step to this end would be to identify the so-called ADCPs.

Audio Description Crisis Points

ADCPs are understood as stumbling blocks in the process of AD, i.e. points that are challenging and thus require a conscious decision on the part of the audio describer. If AD is a translation process, then it can be argued that ADCPs are similar to the so-called translation crisis points (Pedersen, 2005: 1) or critical points of translation decision-making (Munday, 2010). Identifying ADCPs will point towards challenging areas in AD and potential solutions that may be applied by describers to tackle them. In other words, the identified ADCPs would provide some indication as to the AD aspects that should be included in the guidelines (the ‘What’) and the solutions applied by the partners in the project could be used as the starting point for designing AD strategies (the ‘How’).

To this end, as part of ADLAB’s Work Package 3 (Testing), partners² were asked to audio describe five clips from Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009)³ and to write down their decision-making process by adopting quasi think-aloud protocols, quasi-TAPs (Krings, 1986), i.e. recording the issues they found problematic while audio describing the film excerpts and stating why they settled for a particular solution in each case. Although the approach adopted here does not adhere to the methodological rigour of process research – for example, the quasi-TAPs did not involve concurrent verbalisation, which is normally part of such studies – the investigation is pioneering to a large extent as it provides some insight into the decision-making process of audio describers. The five clips were chosen by the partners, based on their complexity and potential AD challenges and six sets of ADs and quasi-TAPs were received and analysed qualitatively. As a result, the following 14 ADCPs were identified: (1) setting the scene (spatio-temporal aspects), (2) describing and introducing characters, (3) naming characters, (4) flashbacks and scene switches, (5) camerawork (filmic language and techniques), (6) facial expressions, (7) gestures, (8) culture-specific issues, (9) music, (10) text-on-screen (logos, credits, captions, graphics), (11) complex scenes, (12) graphic scenes, (13) intertextual references and (14) secondary elements. As the limited space of this chapter does not allow for a detailed discussion of all the ADCPs, only the first eight are discussed in detail and an overview of the remaining ADCPs is provided in the section ‘Other ADCPs’.⁴

Setting the scene

In describing the opening scene of Inglourious Basterds, describers reported that they were not sure as to the spatial and temporal organisation of the description, such as mentioning time of day, season of the year, location, perspective, information ordering and how much detail should be given in order to set the scene vividly for blind and partially sighted viewers, without overwhelming them with too much information. They then proposed the following descriptions of the opening scene of the film:

AD1:	A small mountain house standing out in a brilliant green mountain landscape. It’s daytime. In the distance, a man is chopping wood with an axe. The camera pans in on a bearded man in a sweat, wearing a white shirt, braces and brown trousers.
AD2:	A sunny day in the countryside. Far-flung hills heavy with grass and golden-leaved trees. In the distance, a solitary hut and some cattle. A man is chopping wood with an axe. Now from near, the man is sweating as he is swishing the axe.
AD3:	In the warm light of the autumn sun a little stone cottage stands at the edge of a large meadow. Nearby, a brown-haired man is hewing wood.
AD4:	An isolated, humble farmhouse on a green hilltop overlooks a sunlit landscape, dotted with trees. A narrow dirt road meanders to the house and cows graze nearby. A sturdy, bearded man is hacking away at a tree stump.
AD5:	It is summer 1941. A small farmhouse stands in the Nazi-occupied French countryside. A man is chopping wood on a block. He is tall and bearded.AD6: Up on a hill, a lonely country house stands. 1941. The yellowing grass dances to the breeze. A man chops wood, while a young woman hangs clothes to dry.

As can be seen, some descriptions start with temporal information (day, season), while others first mention the cottage and its location and one starts with introducing the location first (‘Up on a hill’). As for the filmic perspective, AD1 makes use of filmic terms explicitly (‘The camera pans in’), while the rest avoid them and convey spatial information using adverbs (‘In the distance’, ‘Now from near’, ‘Nearby’).

Describing and introducing characters

There is no agreement in the available AD guidelines as to how characters should be introduced in a film. For example, some guidelines (e.g. the UK ones) suggest that names of characters should be given when they appear on screen for the first time, unless it is essential for plot development that their identity remains secret, while others state that characters should only be named once they have been identified by name in the film (e.g. the German tradition), which can prove problematic if the name does not appear until late in a film and the character has to be referred to using a generic term such as a ‘young girl’ or ‘a dark-haired man’. Although this was not the case in this film, as most of the names are given early on, some describers chose to mention the names of the characters (LaPadite, Landa, Julie, Charlotte, Suzanne) right away, while others waited until their names were said in the film.

The descriptions were also different when dealing with the main protagonists, as can be seen in LaPadite’s description below:

AD1:	The camera pans in on a bearded man in a sweat, wearing a white shirt, braces and brown trousers.
AD2:	Nearby a brown-haired man is hewing wood. […] He wears poor clothes.
AD3:	A sturdy, bearded man is hacking away at a tree stump.
AD4:	A man is chopping wood on a block. He is tall and bearded.
AD5:	A man chops wood.AD6: A man is chopping wood with an axe. […] A uniformed officer steps out of the car and walks towards the bearded man.

Most of the describers noted that LaPadite had a beard and some also mentioned that he was tall or sturdy. One description included the colour of his hair, and one was very terse and included no description of LaPadite’s appearance at all. AD1 was the most elaborate of all and mentioned not only the farmer’s beard, but also the colour of his shirt, trousers and the fact that he was wearing braces.

Naming characters

Some describers noted that they were unsure how to name the characters in the film and a whole range of solutions were implemented. For example, one of the Basterds, Sergeant Donny Donowitz, also known by the nickname ‘The Bear Jew’, was named by the different audio describers participating in the project as ‘Donny Donowitz’, ‘Donny’, ‘Donowitz’, ‘Sergeant Donowitz’ and ‘The Bear Jew’. Sometimes, the same character was named differently in the same AD (‘Donny’ and ‘Donowitz’). Although in films such as the one discussed here, set in a military context, it is to be expected that many characters will be referred to by their last names and military function, it calls to attention that in some cases the Basterds were referred to by their first names (‘Donny’), while the Nazis were identified by their last names (‘Butz’); a distinction that could be interpreted as the describer ‘taking sides’ and showing solidarity with the Basterds and hostility towards the Nazis.

Flashbacks and scene switches

Given that the film under consideration abounds in flashbacks and scene changes, it is no wonder that most describers identified these particular filmic techniques as a separate crisis point. The solutions that they proposed included: (1) announcing a flashback (‘In a flashback’); (2) using a temporal adverbial phrase (‘A few days earlier…’); (3) making it explicit that a scene is someone’s recollection (‘And again memories take her back to the screening room’); (4) announcing a location (‘Back to Hitler’s office’, ‘In the projection room’); (5) mentioning that a scene is switching between locations (‘The scene switches between Hitler’s room and the forest’); (6) using the same descriptive verbal strings whenever there is a scene switch (‘In light-grey overalls’ vs. ‘In a long vibrant red dress’); (7) announcing who is speaking (‘Hitler’); or (8) announcing scene participants (‘Butz in front of Hitler’).

Camerawork

In Inglourious Basterds, where a whole range of filmic techniques are used to tell the story, the question is whether and how the filmic language should be reflected in the language of the AD. The solutions of describers in this respect were:

(1)to mention filmic terms:

AD1:	Cut to Brigit who is being given an injection.
AD2:	A long close-up highlights her green eyes. Shosanna grabs a dark eyebrow pencil and fills in her eyebrows with short bold strokes. […] In a hang shot: Shosanna stands up and heads to the door.

(2)to render camerawork using language structure:

AD3:	Hands of a man apply an injection to a leg: (scream) Hammersmark on a treatment couch.
AD4:	Shosanna’s green eyes. […] Calmly she trails her eyebrows and takes eyeliner. Her finger dips in rouge. […] From above: resolute Shosanna rises and walks over Persian carpets to the door. She leaves the room: The view follows her by flying over the wall.
AD5:	She [Shosanna] touches up her make-up: a brown pencil finishes her fine eyebrows. Black eyeliner darkens her eyes. Then, she dips two fingers in fluid blush.

(3)not to mention the filming technique at all:

AD6:	Bridget lies on an operating table while a vet in white nightshirt and cap, gives her an injection.
AD7:	Bridget is in excruciating pain as the vet gives her a shot in the leg muscle.
AD8:	A doctor gives Brigit an injection.
AD9:	She [Shosanna] uses an eyebrow pencil on her expressionless face. She applies the dark coloured pencil to the rims below her eyes. […] In evening dress, she lets a black veil fall across her face. She moves towards the door, walking over a wooden, carpeted floor.

These examples raise a question as to the purpose of AD – whether it is to tell a story or to enable the blind and partially sighted to ‘see’ in their mind’s eye what the director wanted to convey. Accordingly, the first type would be more narrative and read more like a book, whereas the second type would be more literal (Mazur, 2014) and, to some extent, would try to reflect filmic techniques, whether by means of AD language structures or by using filmic terms.

Facial expressions

The main dilemma in audio describing facial expressions is whether they should be described objectively by trying to reproduce in AD the actual look on a person’s face – which can be very challenging given the complex nature of facial muscles, movements and gazes – or whether the emotion should simply be named, which risks materialising in a subjective interpretation. It is no wonder then that in their quasi-TAPs the describers stated that they found the description of facial expressions challenging, as when LaPadite notices the approaching vehicles in the opening scene:

TAP1:	LaPadite’s facial expressions as he is waiting for the car to come. As he is waiting for the car to come to his house, LaPadite’s facial expressions are really hard to define. I wanted to avoid subjective interpretations, which most probably would still not be accurate, and opted for the descriptions of what his lips, eyes, etc. look like.
TAP2:	We thought about saying something about the man’s facial expression, but decided against it, because that would require too much interpretation at this point and would give more away than required.

Below are the actual descriptions of this excerpt:

AD1:	He peers nervously at the approaching vehicles.
AD2:	The man stares blankly at the vehicle, his mouth tightly sealed.
AD3:	The man turns to look, apprehensively as the vehicle approaches.
AD4:	The man now also sees the convoy and lodges his axe in the tree stump.
AD5:	The man stares at the vehicles.AD6: The man’s axe stops midair. He looks and sinks his axe into the chopping block.

The first three descriptions include some information about the way LaPadite looks at the vehicles (nervously, blankly, apprehensively), while the remaining three just mention the act of looking, without qualifying it. Interestingly, none of the describers opted for an objective description of the actual look on LaPadite’s face.

Gestures

Another difficulty in AD is describing gestures. For reasons similar to the ones mentioned in the previous section, body movements can be very intricate and thus difficult to describe objectively, succinctly and in a way that their meaning will be clear to a blind and partially sighted audience. And even when this is possible, there may not be enough time between dialogue lines to describe gestures in detail. For this reason, describers often choose to simply convey the meaning expressed by a given gesture (‘He shows a “more or less” gesture’) or to somehow qualify it (‘He gestures violently’). In the selected clips, describers found gestures problematic for another reason: they were essential from a narratological point of view, as they were crucial for understanding the storyline and their incorrect description may have given too much away too soon. The gestures in question come from a scene that takes place in a French cellar bar, where a film-star double agent, Bridget von Hammersmark, meets with a British lieutenant, Archie Hicox (acting as a Nazi officer), and Hugo Stiglitz (a convicted German sergeant who was freed by the Basterds after killing several of his superiors and who then joined the infamous gang). The three meet to discuss the specifics of ‘Operation Kino’, during which the Nazi high command are to be assassinated. When they move to a separate table to discuss their secret plans, they are joined by Gestapo major Dieter Hellstrom, who becomes suspicious of Hicox’s accent. When the party orders some drinks, Hicox signals three glasses by raising three fingers (the index, middle and ring finger). As it later turns out, this is what gave his nationality away (and sparked off a firefight), as in such a situation a German would normally raise their thumb, index and middle finger. In order to comprehend the full significance of the gesture, we need to move to the next scene (at the makeshift hospital), when von Hammersmark – who has been shot in the leg during the firefight – explains to the Basterds what has happened in the bar and how the shooting started. She first repeats the gesture made by Hicox and then shows what the German ‘three’ looks like: the thumb, index finger and middle finger.

Below are the describers’ comments pertaining to the scene:

TAP1:	Dilemma, more than a problem: shall I use the word ‘unexpected’ or not? It reveals everything, and at this stage the viewer might not know what is really going on, and he/she might just be puzzled by the expressions of Brigit and Hellstrom. In fact, it will be Brigit, later on in the film, to explain to Raine (and the audience) what happened in the tavern.
TAP2:	How explicitly should we describe the 3-fingers reference? We decided to keep the gesture general and suggest it has an effect (reaction Hicox) without specifying, so the audience knows something’s up.
TAP3:	Plenty of time for the description. The important element is the three finger debacle, then later the drinks distribution can be described so as not to leave silent gaps in a tense situation.
TAP4:	Difficult to mention the fingers without drawing too much attention to them. Use ‘three middle fingers’ or use ‘pinky to index’ as in script? Find the pinky to index difficult to pick up fast. Question? Should I add ‘There is tension in the air’?

The descriptions of the scene read as follows:

AD1:	Hicox holds up the ring, middle, and index finger. Brigit is petrified. Hellstrom as well notices the unexpected finger counting but lowers his eyes and keeps on smiling faintly while Eric lays down the glasses on the table and shows him the bottle of whiskey before pouring it. Hicox passes out the glasses. Eric pours the champagne to Brigit, who nervously smiles and scratches her temple.
AD2:	Hicox holds up three fingers and realizes he has made a mistake. The men give each other a cold look, as the barkeeper puts three glasses on the table and pours some Scotch.
AD3:	The Englishman signals three with his fingers. The German officer notices the different way of counting but doesn’t let on. Eric brings the glasses and shows the bottle of whiskey. Brigit looks nervous. The Englishman hands round the glasses, Eric serves Brigit.
AD4:	Hicox shows his three middle fingers. Hellstrom looks at him with a smirk. (leave silence)
AD5:	He raises three fingers: the index-, middle- and ringfinger. Hellstrom’s face frowns. (whistle) Eric puts the glasses on the table (2 glass-sounds) and shows Hellstrom the bottle. (‘Ja’) Eric pours out. Hammersmark smiles uneasily. Hellstrom exhales (breath, glass sound). Resolutely Hicox disposes the glasses.
AD6:	In a supporting gesture, Hicox holds up his index, middle and ring fingers. He is immediately spotted by Hellstrom, who suddenly grows alert. Smirking, Hellstrom watches the bartender place the glasses on the table.

Most of the descriptions name the fingers explicitly (index, middle, ring), while three of them provide the blind and partially sighted viewers with information that Hicox is using a wrong gesture (AD1, AD2, AD3), which risks giving the story away too soon.

Culture-specific issues

In the ‘Shooting at the tavern’ scene, Hellstrom is drinking beer out of a conspicuous boot-shaped beer stein, which was only mentioned by a describer from Germany, where beer culture is very prominent:

TAP:	more silence would be nice as well, but the beer stein is such a clumsy cliché and characterises Hellstrom – it has to be in the AD (I am sure, when a blind person watches the film next to a sighted person, the sighted person will remark on the beer stein).

This solution strongly suggests that AD is a culture-bound activity, which in turn means that for any international guidelines to be successful, they should be flexible enough to allow for culture-specific idiosyncrasies.

Other ADCPs

Most of the describers noted that the music in the film is essential and that it must be coordinated with the AD, especially in the opening scene for which Tarantino chose Beethoven’s Für Elise, which creates a special atmosphere by building up tension. The main dilemma here was whether to read out the cast list or let the audience enjoy the music with no interference.

The describers also remarked that they were not sure about how to approach text-on-screen, an example being the opening credits of the film. The proposed solutions include: reading out the whole list of names (to the detriment of the musical score), reading out the more important names (but then, which ones?), reading out the actors’ names and mentioning the characters they play, mentioning the font style of the credits. Contrary to standard practice, one of the partners decided to mention the names of the audio describer, narrator and sound mixing technician in the opening credits rather than at the end of the film.

Complex scenes turned out to be another ADCP as they normally include many characters, the action tends to be fast-paced with several things happening at the same time and the temporal constraints to insert the AD are usually severe. In such cases, the describer must make priorities and decide what information to omit, which elements to describe and in what order.

Another crisis point reported by the describers were graphic scenes depicting violence, such as the one where Aldo Raine sticks his finger into the deep wound on Brigit von Hammersmark’s leg, which is shown in a close-up. For them, it was difficult to find the right words to describe the image vividly and they emphasised that the timing of the AD was crucial, as it should not overlap with the screaming, the gasping or the audible squishing sound of the finger getting into the wound.

On occasions, film directors make explicit visual intertextual references in an attempt to enhance the meaning of a given scene. In AD the question is whether to make such references explicit by naming them, or whether to leave them implied by just describing a given action or object, and let the blind and partially sighted audience infer their meaning. In the ‘Before the premiere’ clip, Shosanna is putting on her make-up in a way that is similar to a battle-ready Indian putting on war paint. Some of the describers were unsure as to how to tackle the reference, but in the end they all made it explicit, e.g. ‘She sticks a finger in a small brass box full of dark red paste and draws two lines on each of her cheeks, like an Indian ready to fight’.

When it comes to describing secondary elements, the partners were unsure about whether to mention them or not and about the level of detail that the descriptions should offer. One such secondary element was barkeeper Erik in the ‘Shooting at the tavern’ scene, where he is standing behind the counter in the background, looking on warily and reading poetry. Right before the shooting starts, he slowly puts his hand on his rifle. In some of the descriptions, the fact that Eric stands behind the counter was announced at the very beginning of the scene, and variation can also be found in the level of detail when describing Eric reaching for his rifle, with some stating simply that, while others were more specific (‘he places his finger on the trigger’). In one AD it was noted that while reaching for the rifle he was reading a poetry book.

Conclusion

The idea of creating common European guidelines has been around for some time. The main aim of the ADLAB project is to put this idea into practice. However, given the existing AD practice and the related audience preferences in individual countries, the linguistic and cultural differences among countries, the various types of target audience and the unique solutions required by individual audiovisual products, it seems reasonable to offer guidelines in the form of comprehensive AD strategies – similar to translation strategies – rather than standards or strict rules. This study, in which 14 ADCPs have been identified, can be seen as a stepping stone in the development of such guidelines. These ADCPs could give researchers some indication as to what areas should be covered by the guidelines, whereas the solutions applied by the partners to tackle individual ADCPs can be used as the starting point for formulating the actual AD strategies. For instance, when setting the scene, the time of day, the season of the year or the location could be mentioned. As for camerawork, describers may choose not to mention it in their ADs or to render it by means of filmic terms or language structures, thus giving rise to a more ‘literal’ AD in the latter case or a more explicit, narrative one in the former case. Similarly, when describing facial expressions or gestures a describer can either offer a more ‘literal’ AD by describing them and letting the audience draw inferences about their meaning on their own, or be more explicit and simply explain the emotion or meaning conveyed by them.

It could be argued that developing guidelines in the form of strategies could put an end to the ongoing debate about objectivity versus subjectivity, as the AD strategies (or at least some of them) would be placed on an objectivity–subjectivity continuum (Mazur & Chmiel, 2012a: 186), much the same way as translation procedures are placed along the domestication–foreignisation cline (Kwiecin´ski, 2001; Venuti, 1995). Some scholars, like Kruger (2010), go even further and suggest that the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity be replaced by the concepts of narration and description, which can also be placed on a continuum. Consequently, the use of more explicit strategies, such as naming an emotion, would result in a more narrative description, whereas describing the grimace would give rise to a more descriptive one. The strategies, however, should not be used indiscriminately and, like in other types of translation, their choice should depend on a number of factors, including the nature of the text, the audience design and the actual purpose of the AD, among others.

Notes

(1)Research presented in this chapter has been financed under the EU Lifelong Learning Programme 517992-LLP-1-2011-1-ERASMUS-ECUE – Audiodescription: Lifelong Access for the Blind (ADLAB) and under the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (project no.: W91/Erasmus/2012).

(2)I would like to thank the following colleagues for their invaluable input: Aline Remael, Nina Reviers, Gert Vercauteren (University of Antwerp, Belgium), Erik de Snerck (Vlaamse Radio en Televisie, Belgium), Bernd Benecke, Haide Völz (Bayerischer Rundfunk, Germany), Elisa Perego, Christopher Taylor (University of Trieste, Italy), Josélia Neves (Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar), Anna Maszerowska, Pilar Orero, Anna Matamala (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain).

(3)The clips were: Clip 1: The opening scene (from the beginning of the film until 00:04:50:19); Clip 2: The ambush (00:23:11:03–00:36:23:16); Clip 3: Shooting at the tavern (02:00:00:00–02:05:41:00); Clip 4: Finger in the wound (02:09:24:00–02:15:55:23); Clip 5 – Before the premiere (02:17:40:06–02:26:45:11).

(4)For a complete WP3 report go to www.adlabproject.eu.

References

Benecke, B. (2013) Audiodeskription als partielle Translation: Modell und Methode. Münster: Lit Verlag.

Benecke, B. and Dosch, E. (2004) Wenn aus Bildern Worte werden. Munich: Bayerischer Rundfunk.

Georgakopoulou, Y. (2008) Audio Description Guidelines for Greek: A Working Document. Unpublished.

Ivir, V. (1987) Procedures and strategies for the translation of culture. In G. Toury (ed.) Translation across Cultures (pp. 46–60). New Delhi: Bhari Publications.

Jakobson, R. (1959/2001) On linguistic aspects of translation. In L. Venuti (ed.) The Translation Studies Reader (pp. 113–118). London: Routledge.

Krings, H.P. (1986) Was in den Köpfen von Übersetzern vorgeht. Tübingen: Narr.

Kruger, J-L. (2010) Audio narration: Re-narrativising film. Perspectives 18 (3), 231–249.

Kwieciński, P. (2001) Disturbing Strangeness: Foreignisation and Domestication in Translation Procedures in the Context of Cultural Asymmetry. Toruń: Edytor.

Mazur, I. (2014) Gestures and facial expressions in audio description. In A. Maszerowska, A. Matamala and P. Orero (eds) Audio Description: New Perspectives Illustrated (pp. 179–197). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Mazur, I. and Chmiel, A. (2012a) Audio description made to measure: Reflections on interpretation in AD based on the Pear Tree Project Data. In A. Remael, P. Orero and M. Carroll (eds) Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility at the Crossroads (pp. 173–188). Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Mazur, I. and Chmiel, A. (2012b) Towards common European audio description guidelines: Results of the Pear Tree Project. Perspectives 20 (1), 5–23.

Munday, J. (2010) Critical points of decision-making in translation and interpreting. Paper presented at 5th Maastricht-Łódź Duo Colloquium on Translation and Meaning, University of Łódź, 16–19 September.

Newmark, P. (1988) A Textbook of Translation. New York: Prentice Hall.

Nord, C. (1997) Translation as a Purposeful Activity: Functionalist Approaches Explained. Manchester: St. Jerome.

Ofcom (2010) Ofcom Code on Television Access Services. See http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/broadcast/other-codes/ctas.pdf (accessed 27 January 2017).

Pedersen, J. (2005) How is culture rendered in subtitles? In H. Gerzymisch-Arbogast and S. Nauert (eds) Proceedings of the Marie Curie Euroconferences MuTra: Challenges of Multidimensional Translation – Saarbrücken 2–6 May 2005. See www.euroconferences.info/proceedings/2005_Proceedings/2005_Pedersen_Jan.pdf (accessed 27 January 2017).

Rai, S., Greening, J. and Petre, L. (2010) A Comparative Study of Audio Description Guidelines Prevalent in Different Countries. London: Royal National Institute of Blind People.

Remael, A. and Vercauteren, G. (2011) Basisprincipes voor audiobeschrijving voor televisie en film [Basics of audio description for television and film]. Unpublished.

Szymańska, B. and Strzymiński, T. (2010) Standardy tworzenia audiodeskrypcji do produkcji audiowizualnych [Audio description standards for audiovisual productions].

See www.audiodeskrypcja.org.pl/index.php/standardy-tworzenia-audiodeskrypcji/do-produkcji-audiowizualnych (accessed 27 January 2017).

Venuti, L. (1995) The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London: Routledge.

Vercauteren, G. (2007) Towards a European guideline for audio description. In J. Díaz Cintas, P. Orero and A. Remael (eds) Media for All. Subtitling for the Deaf, Audio Description and Sign Language (pp. 139–149). Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Vermeer, H.J. (1989/2000) Skopos and commission in translational action. In L. Venuti (ed.) The Translation Studies Reader (pp. 221–232). London: Routledge.

Vinay, J.-P. and Darbelnet, J. (1958) Stylistique comparée du français et de l’anglais. Paris: Didier.