Art by George Butler.
This episode originally aired on Blind Guy Travels.
When Matthew Shifrin was growing up, his blindness meant that trying to enjoy a movie or TV show was often a confusing and frustrating experience. But then, Matthew discovered something called video description—an extra audio track where a narrator describes the action on screen. And suddenly, everything changed. This story comes from the Radiotopia podcast Blind Guy Travels.
MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE
Topslides by The Cabinetmaker
Sail this Ship With Me by Medité
Bitter Roll by Crab Shack
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View Transcript ▶︎
You’re listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz.
[music in]
I've always been fascinated by the unique relationships that people have with sound. And for people who are blind or have low vision, sound is a crucial part of how they navigate the world.
October is Blindness Awareness Month, and in honor of this, we’re making a 3 episode series about the blind experience. It’ll start with a story from another podcast, followed by two original episodes.
Today’s story comes from a podcast called Blind Guy Travels. It's a lovely and fascinating journey into how the blind community experiences movies and television. When I first heard it, I knew it would be the perfect story to kick off this limited series. So, without further ado, here’s host Matthew Shifrin.
[music out]
[sfx: The sound of a movie theater lobby]
Matthew: Uh, we're at The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, and we're going to see Duck Soup by the Marx Brothers. And Ben will be the one describing it.
Ben: Hello...
Matthew (as narrator): Meet my friend Ben.
Ben: A friend of Matthew's for several years...
Matthew: He's a movie buff, but with a hidden talent.
Ben: I whisper descriptions of what's on the screen to him, as it goes.
Matthew: Very quickly. Very quickly, very effectively.
Ben: I have a bad habit of talking too fast, which I guess comes in useful for certain descriptions. But I try to.
Matthew: Hey look, you just slowed down!
Ben: That was deliberate.
[sfx: They both laugh.]
[sfx: Friendly, warm accordion music comes in.]
Matthew: I consider myself very lucky to have a friend like Ben.
Ben: We met through a mutual friend, yeah.
Matthew: This was years ago, when I was in grade school. And Ben was a family friend — someone I looked up to as a kid.
Ben: I should mention I'm roughly twice — what, twice your age? About that…
Matthew: I don’t know — practically.
Ben: Somewhere — yeah, somewhere around there.
[sfx: Accordion music resumes]
Matthew (as narrator): As a blind child in a family of Russian immigrants, my pop culture knowledge was pretty limited. I didn't know anything about superheroes, or Star Trek captains, or theories of time travel — but Ben did.
Matthew: He and his friends went to the movies together all the time, but I never wanted to intrude. I knew that someone would have to describe what was happening to me, and I didn't want to ruin their fun.
[sfx: Accordion music ends.]
Matthew: But one day I mustered up the courage and asked Ben whether I could tag along. And Ben agreed.
Ben: I guess that was Avengers — the first Avengers movie…
Matthew: That was our first movie together.
[sfx clip: Avengers music comes in.]
Matthew: The Avengers.
Ben: And I think I had invited our mutual friend Rauf, and maybe one or two other people.
Matthew: Our friend Rauf was to my left, and Ben was to my right.
[sfx clip: Electronic explosion sound effect from The Avengers.]
Matthew: Rauf volunteered to describe what was happening on-screen. And 15 minutes in...
[sfx clip: Avengers sound effects and music cut out.]
Matthew: I had no idea who anybody was and what was going on.
[sfx: Sounds of flying, rocketing around.]
Matthew: Things were exploding, people were yelling.
[sfx: An explosion, people scream.]
Matthew: You know, the usual superhero stuff.
[sfx: Explosions and screaming continue, then cut out.]
Matthew (recalling): And I was like, “I don’t know what’s going on.” And he was like, “I give up. Ben, can you do this?” And Ben, mid-movie, takes over and gives pro-grade descriptions of what’s going on. And since then, he’s the only person I go to the movies with.
Ben: I seem to have a lot of hidden talents that are absolutely impossible to monetize, so this is just one of them.
Matthew: Should we go up? Apparently...
Ben: They are seating. So up we go.
Matthew: So they claim.
*[sfx: ATTENDANT: “Hello”, taking tickets, “Enjoy.”]
Matthew (as narrator): We try to find seats that are far enough away that I can hear Ben talking, but close enough so that Ben can see what's happening. It's a delicate balance.
Ben: I should probably warn the people, uh, sitting in front of us…
Matthew: Should we?
Matthew (as narrator): Then, we let everyone around us know what we're up to.
Ben (in background): I’m going to be talking to the person here…
[sfx: MOVIEGOER: “That’s fine.”]
Matthew: It's wonderful how cool people are with this. We're like, “Hey, we're going to be talking behind you very quietly.” And they're always like, “Oh, that’s fine.”
Ben (quietly): OK, it looks as if things are quieting down, so it’ll be starting soon.
Matthew (as narrator): I lean hard to the right, almost doubled over sideways... [sfx clip: Universal Studios theme begins]
Matthew: So that Ben can whisper right into my ear.
Ben (describing): Intro, seeing the Earth from space. [sfx clip: Universal Studios theme continues] And the gigantic, three-dimensional words “Universal” encircling the world.
[sfx clip: Universal Studios theme concludes]
Matthew (as narrator): And then… it begins.
[sfx: Film starts, old-timey music begins]
Ben (reading, describing): A Paramount movie. Presents… A large cauldron bubbling over a fire, with three live ducks swimming in it. [Chuckles]
[sfx: Description fades under]
Matthew (as narrator): If you've ever seen a Marx Brothers movie, you know it's meant to be absurd.
Ben (describing): Thirty-two, I think…
[sfx: Someone in the film utters an exclamation.]
Matthew (as narrator): But most of that absurdity makes no sense if you're blind. Take this scene, for example.
[sfx: Shuffling and heavy breathing]
Matthew: Sounds like some very intense shuffling to me.
Ben: Tthen Harpo Marx picks up the bowler carefully, polishes it apologetically, and then drops it again…
Matthew (as narrator): Aha! But this shuffling has a purpose.
Ben: Harpo passes his hat to Chico, and takes Chico’s hat. They take the bowler off. Then, suddenly, everyone’s wearing the wrong hat.
Matthew (as narrator): And whaddaya know — turns out the scene is pretty funny.
Ben: And they begin a round robin of hats going back and forth. The vendor’s getting very confused, trying to keep track of everything… [Laughing] And so the vendor winds up with his own, and he hooked over Harpo’s hat. And then Chico plays a trick…
Matthew (as narrator): Pretty impressive verbal display there, no?
[sfx: Matthew laughs in the movie theater.]
Matthew (as narrator): Ben keeps this up for almost two hours.
Ben: … strung on the strings. [Laughing.=] Chico on the stairs is horrified.
Matthew (as narrator): Through musical numbers…
Ben: … it comes off in his hand. He throws it forward in frustration. Matthew (as narrator): And a battle scene…
Ben: … elephants charging through the forest! [Laughs]
Matthew (as narrator): Until the film comes to its absurd conclusion.
Ben: And they all start throwing food at her. [Laughs] Fade out. The end. [sfx: Laughter, applause, music, scene fades out.]
[sfx: Sound of an old-fashioned television turning on.]
[sfx: Sounds and clips from television shows.]
Matthew: When I was 4 or 5, I would go over to my grandparents’ house on weekends, and I'd sit very close to the television, practically with my ear to the speaker.
[sfx: Rocket Power theme song plays.]
Matthew: I'd watch shows like SpongeBob and Rocket Power. [sfx clip: Cartoon dialogue: “Hey Rex, how can you tell a good human from a bad one?”]
Matthew: But the only reason I watched them was because of the commercial breaks.
[sfx clip: TV commercial: “You’re set for adventure on new LEGO Dino Island. Team up with Johnny Thunder to study the dinos…”]
Matthew: Those commercials were like a window into the sighted world.
[sfx clip: TV commercial: “And now I, the Great Dillini, can make my own magic, like new Lunchables pizza that changes colors.” “Ooo!”]
Matthew: They'd tell me about the latest Lunchable, LEGO set, or Transformer.
[sfx clip: TV commercial: … the ten forms of the evil Galvatron! Transformers, more than meets the eye…]
Matthew: What it did, how much it cost, and yes, each set sold separately, batteries not included. [sfx clip: TV commercial clips end]
Matthew: TV commercials were my version of window-shopping. Besides, the shows themselves made no sense to me.
[sfx clip: SpongeBob SquarePants: “I’m ready! I’m ready! I’m ready!”]
Matthew: I knew that SpongeBob worked for Mr. Krabs, that Patrick wasn't very smart, and that Squidward was an ill-tempered clarinetist…
[sfx clip: Squidward: “No, no… SpongeBob…”]
Matthew: But I didn't really care, because I couldn’t understand what was happening half the time…
[sfx clip: SpongeBob laughs.]
Matthew: And SpongeBob's laughter wasn't much to go on.
[sfx clip: the end of the SpongeBob SquarePants theme.]
Matthew: But what I didn't realize as a kid was that I was born at kind of a historic moment for blind people, when movies and television first started using something called "video description."
Bryan: Back when we first got going in the early ’90s, there was probably one or two hours a week, at most, of described programing.
Matthew: It's an incredible story, and one which I only learned recently.
Bryan: We even had a telephone guide where you could call our special phone number and you would hear, uh, what was being broadcast with description that week.
Matthew: And I heard it from Bryan Gould here, at the National Center for Accessible Media.
Bryan: Um… OK, well, what are we doing now that — now that we're finally here?
Matthew: I just wanted to kind of learn more about you and video description and why — why would you want to do such a thing, of all the things you could be doing? What — what made you decide to do this?
Bryan: Uh, I have my, um, patented elevator sort of answer for you, which I will give you right now. Uh, I graduated college and I wanted to be a writer and I found a job where I could write and watch TV and get paid for it.
[music in]
A video describer essentially narrates the action on screen for people who are blind, or have low vision. This allows them to follow along with the story without seeing the screen. Another commonly used term for this is audio descriptions.
Now back in the 90s when Bryan took that job, this was a pretty new concept. But over the next 25 years, Bryan would have a huge impact on the world of video description. And what really changed everything, was when he worked on the descriptions for one of the biggest movies of all time.
That’s coming up, after the break.
[music out]
MIDROLL
[Rocko’s Modern Life clip]
That was a scene from the 90s cartoon Rocko’s Modern Life. In it, Rocko uses a super powerful vacuum to suck up a bunch of wacky things that come out of his chimney. Of course, you’d never know that from the audio alone. When Matthew Shifrin was growing up, he experienced frustrations like this daily. But then Matthew discovered something called video description, also known as audio description. It’s basically an extra audio track for a movie or a television show, where a narrator describes the action on screen.
Here’s that same scene from Rocko’s Modern Life, but this time, we’ve added some description of our own.
[Rocko scene with 20K Description: Heffer presses the chimney sweep button, while Rocko holds the vacuum hose up to the fireplace. The logs and fire pokers are sucked in. Some ducks, Santa’s reindeer, and Santa’s sleigh are sucked in next. Santa himself gets stuck on the nozzle, and Rocko spins him around before he gets sucked in. An airplane squeezes through the firepit towards the vacuum, “Uh, this is your Captain speaking, we are experiencing a little turbulence”. The airplane disappears into the vacuum.”What power, this is certainly not a toy”.] [sfx: Plodding accordion music comes in]
Matthew: The whole story of video description actually started in my hometown of Boston, at my local PBS station.
Bryan: Part of WGBH's mission is to provide access to their programming, to as wide an audience as possible. And so, back in the early 1970s, WGBH invented the technology to broadcast captions for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. And the first show that was aired with open captions, as we call them, was Julia Child's The French Chef.
[sfx clip: of Julia Child: “… This is a good old white sauce base with egg yolks…”]
Matthew: So about 20 years later, in the early ’90s, WGBH applied for a grant to essentially do a similar service for people who are blind, or have low vision. And that was Descriptive Video Service.
[sfx: Sound of car tires rolling up — an example of a show that used the early Descriptive Video Service]
Matthew: They started with adult programming…
[sfx clip: “Nice results on the Kingston case, John.” “Thank you…”]
Matthew: Like mysteries, dramas, and some documentaries. But by the time Bryan came to WGBH a few years later, the goal was to reach a much broader audience — including kids like me.
[sfx clip: Accordion music ends, and the Arthur theme song begins. Lyrics: “Every day when you’re walkin’ down the street, everybody that you meet…” Song continues in background.]
Matthew: In fact, the first video description I ever heard was on a show that Bryan helped describe, right here at WGBH, called Arthur.
[sfx clip: DVS AD: It’s called the Descriptive Video Service. It’s for people who are blind, so they can watch TV. [sfx: Beep] Use the remote to choose the SAP channel. Then, a voice comes onto the TV show to tell you what’s happening.]
Matthew: Whenever Arthur would come on, I'd run to the television and be transfixed for half an hour.
[sfx clip: Arthur theme music ends]
[SFX clip: DESCRIPTIVE VIDEO SERVICE: The little girl turns into a crab…]
Matthew: Because I knew exactly what was happening.
[sfx clip:DESCRIPTIVE VIDEO SERVICE: She snaps her claws at Bionic Bunny, “Prepare to be neutralized!’]
Matthew: My parents weren't very good at describing. But these professional describers knew what they were doing. I could trust them. I felt in the know and at home, like these describers were talking directly to me.
[sfx clip: ARTHUR (on Arthur): DW!]
[sfx clip: DVS AD: Check it out for yourself on Arthur and other PBS Kids programs!]
Bryan: So the process of description — maybe I should talk a little bit about that — tends to be: you'll watch the whole program first.
[sfx clip: ARTHUR (on Arthur): Normally I would never suggest a harebrained scheme like this, but… I think we should follow him.]
[sfx clip: continues to play underneath]
Matthew: So as you can imagine, the process they developed at WGBH is a little different from what my friend Ben does.
Bryan: You sometimes watch scenes for a long time for many, many times.
[sfx clip: ARTHUR (on Arthur): Normally I would never suggest— Normally I would never suggest—]
Matthew: OK, scratch that — very different.
Bryan: So you need to, in some ways, map out… In a scene, say it's a five minute scene, you could think of all kinds of ways to describe it.
*[sfx clip: ARTHUR: That seems like a good plan… [sfx: Guitar riff, gasp]
Bryan: But that's not worth anything until you know how many seconds and when there may be a pause so you could actually describe something. You know, if it's a new scene with new characters in a new place, you need to set the stage first.
[sfx clip: ARTHUR: [sfx: Guitar riff, the sound of something breaking.] Ahhh! What was that?]
Bryan: And sometimes there's only one second, and you can only say, “Later.” [Laughs] Or, you know, “At night.”
[sfx clip: DVS CLIP: Sunlight crests the Earth’s surface as it rotates in the Milky Way. Giant gold letters revolve around the planet, spelling “Universal.”]
Matthew: By the late ’90s, WGBH started to expand video description from television to movies.
[sfx clip: DVS CLIP (in Back to the Future): Marty runs down the fire trails toward him.]
Bryan: So, um, we developed an en— an entire business of selling VHS tapes, um, with description on them.
[sfx clip: DOC BROWN (in Back to the Future): Great Scott!]
[sfx clip: DVS CLIP (in Back to the Future): He faints and falls to the ground.]
Matthew: Arthur was great, but the VHS tapes were a total game-changer for me.
[sfx clip: DVS CLIP: [Disney theme song plays in background.] A flag waves on top of a castle’s tallest spire… ]
Matthew: When I was 5, my mom brought one home from the local library. It was The Lion King.
[sfx clip: DVS CLIP (in The Lion King): [“The Circle of Life” plays in the background.] Now in a cartoon, a giant yellow sun rises into a golden sky. It lights up a huge savannah, a flat grassland that stretches as far as the eye can see…]
Bryan: And the great thing about those — Matthew, I don't know if you ever experienced this — is that you just put it in the VCR and it plays and it has description on it, and you don't have to do anything.
Matthew: No menus, no settings — just press play.
[SFX clip: DVS CLIP (in The Lion King): [“The Circle of Life” continues playing in the background.] They fly over a waterfall, which tumbles over a cliff as tall as a skyscraper.]
[sfx clip: “The Circle of Life” fades out, as accordion music comes in.]
Matthew: The other amazing thing about these tapes is that they had Braille labels on them.
[sfx: An elevator clatters and dings.]
Matthew: I remember going to the library, riding the elevator up to the third floor, and finding this giant metal shelf lined with dozens of VHS tapes.
Matthew [whispering titles, as if reading them in his head]: Star Trek, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Homeward Bound, Lilo and Stitch, Aladdin…
Matthew (as narrator): I’d never been able to browse like this on my own before. I didn't have to ask my parents, “Hey! What's in this box? And that one? And the other one?” I just knew. And I watched every movie I could get my hands on.
[sfx: Accordion music continues.]
Matthew: Once this idea of description started to catch on, Bryan and the team at WGBH helped it spread to other kinds of experiences, like theme parks and circuses…
Bryan: I was down at Epcot Center many, many years ago…
Matthew: Even Disney World.
Bryan: We worked in sports stadiums and many, many museums and national parks…
Matthew: They developed description technologies for DVDs and streaming video…
Bryan: Really, as I like to say, anywhere that you can find a speaker or a — a screen, um, somewhere along the line WGBH was probably involved in the early days of developing the accessibility for that.
Matthew: But perhaps the trickiest place to get video description was the place where we started out this episode.
Bryan: How do we make movie theaters accessible?
Matthew: Movie theaters.
Bryan: It was, a little, it was a little crazy.
[sfx: Accordion music continues, then fades out.]
Matthew: When I was a kid, my parents and I would walk to a grocery store every couple of days. On our way there, we'd always pass a movie theater: the West Newton Cinema. I could tell because the marquee extended above the sidewalk, creating a distinctive echo when I tapped my cane. But even though we walked by there every few days, we never went inside.
Matthew: And it never occured to me that it could be a place for me. Matthew: Then, when I was 7, I was at a summer camp, and one day the whole group of us went to that same theater to see the animated film Madagascar. I remember they bought us all sodas, which in my house growing up was extremely rare. In Russia, soda was expensive, something you only had on special occasions, and I guess my parents didn't want us to take the sweet things in life for granted — hence the lack of sodas.
Matthew: In any case, as I sat there with my orange soda securely in the cup-holder next to me, I was excited. I was in an actual movie theater, seeing a movie! My teacher did a fine job of describing the film, but what I really remember from that day is the experience itself. The powerful speakers cocooning you in the sounds of New York City. The smell of popcorn, and the crinkling of candy wrappers. And the feeling of everyone being there for only one reason: to see this movie.
[sfx: A single accordion drone note sounds, and continues under narration.]
Matthew: The theater wasn't packed, and no one clapped or cheered, but there was a feeling of community and awe — since for most of the other campers, this was their first trip to a cinema, too. And I remember thinking, “Hey, this is for me.”
Bryan: The mission was: curtain opens, first performance of the film, it’s going to be described.
Matthew: Around that same time —
Bryan: This was in the early 2000s — late ’90s, early 2000s.
Matthew: — Bryan Gould was trying to make movie theaters accessible for all blind people.
Bryan: So, the technology is one thing. You can figure out how to play a track of audio, and you can have some sort of headphone device that can pick it up and play it in your ear.
Matthew: Ta-da! Roll credits.
Bryan: But, Sony Pictures or Disney, why are they going to give you an unreleased film, potentially a gigantic moneymaker for them, in enough time for you to write this complicated script and record it?
Matthew: Ehh, maybe I spoke too soon.
Bryan: Why are they going to give that to you? [Laughs] You know? OK, so this is for people who are blind and have low vision. Ok, so how much popcorn are they going to eat? Matthew: Probably not much. The crunching of popcorn is so loud you can barely hear the description.
Bryan: How many tickets are they going to buy? It was, you know, blindness advocacy organizations and a lot of letter-writing and just finding the right person at the right studio to say, “OK,” for the first one…
[sfx clip: 20th Century Fox theme plays.]
Bryan: And then the next one.
[sfx clip: 20th Century Fox theme continues, fading underneath.]
Matthew: And the next one… just happened to be a big one.
[sfx clip: DVS CLIP (in Titanic): British Sky Broadcasting, in association with 20th Century Fox, presents Titanic, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack and Kate Winslet as Rose. Also starring Billy Zane, Bernard Hill, and David Warner. Grainy black-and-white pictures of the mighty ship Titanic leaving Southampton on her maiden voyage…]
Bryan: It was the second movie that we had ever done in a movie theater.
[sfx clip: DVS CLIP (in Titanic): Well-wishers line the quayside to wave the ship on its way.]
Bryan: They sent us tapes that we were able to dub in our dub facility here. And we watched the whole thing once, wrote a whole bunch of notes — six of us, I think it was. And then everybody basically, I think, took 20-minute chunks.
[sfx clip: JACK (in Titanic): So do you wanna go to a real party?]
[sfx clip: DVS CLIP (in Titanic): In the third-class general room, an ad hoc band stomps out music on fiddle, accordion, and tambourine. They jig, they drink beer, they laugh, and they brawl.]
Bryan: And then you would write, write, write. And when you finished your chunk, you'd grab the next available one. And we just did it like that.
[sfx clip: DVS CLIP (in Titanic): Murdoch stares with sweat glistening on his temples.]
Bryan: And then they recorded it the next day. I think we — that might have been even just a nonstop marathon overnight session.
[sfx clip: DVS CLIP (in Titanic): The ship hits the berg on its starboard bow.] [Crashing and clanging.]
[sfx: Film sound ends]
Bryan: Whatever sacrifice, minor sacrifice we made, it was worth it, because it — who could have known that that movie would have been in theaters for that long and get us that much positive press? It would have been a much different story. Eventually, description would be commonplace in movie theaters, but it would have taken probably another year or more for us to, sort of, advance the cause. And that movie really helped us out.
Matthew: [Whispering.] Wow.
Matthew: Sorry, it's just such it's such an incredible feeling to to be sitting across from someone who who made your childhood, basically. Just the hours, the hours I spent watching, I don't know, Harry Potter, Star Wars or The Lion King or… whatever film and just feeling just there. Listening to this film and really being involved with these characters, feeling for them, rooting for them, yelling, “No, don’t jump in that hole. Can’t you see it there?” And that involvement is so, so, important for blind people really feeling like they're there, and like people care that they're there.
Matthew: Thank you, thank you for caring for these total strangers who you'd probably never meet. But thank you for letting blind people watch movies just like sighted people. It really it means a lot.
Bryan: Well, thank you very much. That, I don't think I can say anything more meaningful than you just have. That's why we do it.
[sfx clip: Ending music of Marx Brothers movie.]
Matthew: (in theater) See? I told you this guy's the best in the business.
Ben: Yeah, some of the — some of those slapstick routines were just too fast, I couldn't really catch them…
Matthew: (as narrator) One thing about watching a movie with a description headset is that you're pretty much at the mercy of that technology… and the person who checks the batteries. When Ben and I saw that first movie together, my headset wasn't charged. But I'm glad it wasn't, because that's how I discovered his secret talent.
[sfx: Uplifting accordion music comes in.]
Matthew: (to Ben): The part with the hats was great, where it was like, “Oh, wrong hat.” “Wrong hat.” [Laughs]
Matthew: (as narrator): When I go to the movies with Ben, he doesn't just describe a movie; he interprets it. He immerses me in the whole world of the movie, with notes about period costume or film technique.
Ben: Yeah, just how marvelous that is, the way they’re going, like, looking at each other, and then they smile and then they back away and then look again! Or, or…
Matthew: (as narrator) For him, it's like a puzzle, figuring out how to eloquently and concisely describe the events on-screen. For me, it's like a performance, full of all the joys, humor, and zest that he brings.
Matthew: (to Ben) Whoever says you can’t describe slapstick, they are wrong.
Ben: Did — did you get what I was trying to say about those horns, that…
Matthew: (as narrator): Having Ben there as a guide connects me to the world around us.
Matthew: (to Ben) [laughing] How could I not?
Matthew: (as narrator) And as a blind person, this type of connection is so rare, so hard to come by, that I cherish those moments together. They’re moments when I can forget about the ins and outs of navigating the world safely, and just immerse myself in this experience and enjoy it.
[Matthew and Ben laugh together]
Ben: So he’s — while he’s doing the sounds, he’s also kind of doing these — these facial expressions, which are, of course, completely useless over the telephone. It makes no sense.
[Mathew laughs, which gets Ben laughing]
Ben: It’s all for our benefit.
[sfx clip: Titanic theme music comes in and drowns out Ben and Matthew’s movie theater chatter]
[sfx clip: DVS CLIP in Titanic: The end.]
[sfx clip: Titanic theme fades out]
[music in: Bitter Roll]
That story was from Blind Guy Travels, which is a limited-run podcast series from Radiotopia Presents. I recently fell in love with this show… it’s honest, it’s funny, it’s heartfelt, and I highly recommend it. Subscribe to Blind Guy Travels right here in your podcast player.
Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced by Defacto Sound. For some more sonic inspiration, follow Defacto Sound on Instagram or on YouTube.
Matthew: Blind Guy Travels, from PRX’s Radiotopia, is written and performed by me, Matthew Shifrin.
Matthew: Our producer and sound designer is Ian Coss. Audrey Mardavich and Julie Shapiro are our executive producers.
Most of the music in this episode was also written and performed by host Mathew Shifrin.
Matthew: Thanks, this episode, to Ben Thompson for his audio description. If you’d like to learn more about audio description, visit the National Center for Accessible Media at NCAM.org.
...and the next time you’re watching a big movie or television show, try changing the soundtrack to described audio. It’s a lot of fun to hear.
Thanks for listening.
[music ends]
