The first thing I had to do in order to create my script was write down a list of the questions that I could use.
List of questions:
- “Don’t have a fit!”
- Are you possessed?
- Have you had a fit while on toilet or during sex?
- Should I turn the flash off?
- Worst place had a fit?
- When you have a fit, do you get spasms in you v?
- Are your legs better yet?
- Sorry, that must have been tough/ that’s awful, I’m so sorry/ oh poor you
- Do you play wheelchair basketball?
- What’s wrong with you?
- Can I have a go?
- You’re so brave
- It’s good to see people like you out!
- Do you work?
- What benefits do you get?
- Sorry, we don’t do wheelchairs
- We don’t get many of you people here
- Can you have sex?
- Do you only date people in wheelchairs?
- Can you feel down there?
- Is it contagious?
- Do you need help?
- Are you stupid or something
- Is there anything you can do about it
- What’s your special ability?
- You don’t look disabled!
- Does your mum help you get dressed?
- Talking to the person your with?
- Are you alright?
- What’s the best thing about being disabled?
- But your so pretty!
- Have you ever wanted to end it? / if I was disabled I would just kill myself
- Is it fixable
- Don’t you wish you could walk?
After that I then picked out a mix of some of the funniest jokes and some of the more serious ones. I wanted my script to have a mix of funny and also some serious stuff so that I can actually discuss some of the more darker side of the way people see disabled people. For the questions that are really stupid, I just give stupid answers which is what I actually tend to give. I’m not going to try to over do it but just give the answers that I actaully tend to give, if the audience find it funny then they do . Once I had the questions and the answers written, then I had to create the audio description which runs through the performance. The audio description is really important and I have to make sure that all my movement is described for any blind audience members. To do this I planned out where all my movement would be and where it’d be inbetween the dialogue. I can’t really be talking and moving at the same time as otherwise the audio description would cut over me and you wouldn’t be able to hear what I was saying. For this reason, I decided to block out the sword section so that I speak then move with audio description.
^ Script
Creating the audio description then had to recorded and then edited. I recorded and spoke all the audio description and then I changed the pitch so that the audio description doesn’t sound like me. I realised that if the audio desciption sounded like me then it’d be really confusing for blind audience members as it’d be hard for them to clearly tell whether it was me or the audio speaking. This was the feedback I received from members of the deaf community who tested my audio description.
The hardest bit to audio describe was my movement sequence. What made it slightly complicated was trying to word some of the movements. The move where I lift the wheelchair above my head, for instance, was hard to explain in words as it’s such a visual thing that I created so I found that going through the movement bit by bit and breaking it down was the best way to explain the move. For the audio description I looked at the work by Graeae Theatre Company, which is a disabled theatre company that use audio description in pratically all of there performances.
I also looked at audio description in dance so that I could see how it can be done and then use this to help me create my own audio.
Once again Alice Sheppard’s work helped inspire me: