“Developing Audio Description Services for Hong Kong Films” Kick-off Ceremony

"Developing Audio Description Services for Hong Kong Films" Kick-off Ceremony
30 July, 2011

Audio Description service requires special techniques for different types of films with different level of difficulties. The audio description training for narrators was started in Europe and the United States many years ago, it is high time Hong Kong should do our  utmost to catch up. Being funded by the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau this year, we joined hands with the Create Hong Kong (CreateHK), under the auspices of the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau, to launch a development project on Audio Description Services for Hong Kong Films. The project aims to train up local audio description narrators by means of theory and practice to lay the foundation for developing audio description for Chinese-language movies, and to raise public concern to strive for a barrier-free and creative Hong Kong.

The project is comprised of three parts, the first part is a five-day "Professional Audio Description Training Workshop" which started on July 30, 2011. To mark the milestone of the development of audio description services in Hong Kong,a kick-off ceremony for the project on "Developing Audio Description Services for Hong Kong Films" was held on the same day. Representatives from government and the representatives from movie industry officiated at the Ceremony to show their support, namely, Mr. Lam Woon-kwong, Chairman of Equal Opportunities Commission, Ms Mabel Cheung, Executive Committee Member of Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild, Mr. James Mak, Vice President of Hong Kong Federation of Drama Societies and Mr. Fung Wing, Assistant Director of CreateHK.

Two audio description experts from the United States and Taiwan conducted the workshop. They were Mr. Joel Snyder, the Audio Description Programme Director and Senior Member of Audio Description of the American Council for the Blind, possesses more than 30 years of experience of providing audio description services in the States, and Professor Zhao Yali, a Doctorate of Mass Communication at Tamkang University who specializes in the theoretical study of audio description, is the pioneer in conducting a systematic study of audio description, and writer of the book "Flow of light and shadow in the world of words - theoretical framework of audio description".