Creating Audio Description: Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (FutureLearn)

On this course, you’ll discover how to approach creating inclusive audio description that encapsulates and promotes equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI).
Improve your cultural awareness training for film, TV, and theatre
You’ll assess how audio introduction and audio description play a vital role in the promotion and communication of EDI to the audience, building your cultural awareness and competency in the process.
Learn how to describe the role and value of inclusive audio descriptions and introductions to a range of arts stakeholders, including audiences, theatre professionals, and funders.
Examine the audio description experience from different perspectives
Assessing the part audio description plays in the promotion and communication of EDI, you’ll examine audio description from both a describer and a performer’s perspective.
You’ll evaluate insights from multiple individuals (including blind/partially blind audience members, audio describers, and theatre professionals) and reflect on your own understanding of EDI.
Study EDI with experts at Royal Holloway, University of London
After conducting the 2019-2020 research project and subsequent report ‘Describing Diversity’ about diversity in audio description and audio introduction in theatre, educators at Royal Holloway are well placed to guide you in the nuance of this topic.
This course brings together the best practices, case studies, and learning resources from this research, allowing you to approach diversity in theatre and beyond with practical tools and enhanced confidence.

What topics will you cover?

• Introduction to AD: What are Inclusive Audio Introductions and Audio Descriptions?
• The AD experience: a user’s perspective
• Describing Diversity: The relationship between the AI / AD and the representation of diversity on stage/screen
• The AD experience: a describer’s perspective
• The AD experience: a performer’s perspective
• Principles and Practice: How to create an inclusive Audio Description
• Tools for Building Cultural Awareness and Competency

Learning on this course
You can take this self-guided course and learn at your own pace. On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

• the value of inclusive audio descriptions and introductions to a range of stakeholders including audiences, theatre professionals and funders
• the role of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in the development and delivery of film/theatre audio introductions and audio descriptions
• the role of the audio introduction and the audio description in the promotion and communication of equality, diversity and inclusion
• inclusive audio descriptions and audio introductions for a range of media
• insights from multiple stakeholders (blind/partially blind audience members, audio describers, theatre professionals)
• on their own understanding of equality, diversity and inclusivity in their own and others’ audio descriptions and audio introductions

Who is the course for?
This cultural awareness course would appeal to professionals working in the creative industries (including film and TV producers and commissioners), audio describers who want to work in theatre AD or enhance their existing knowledge, and theatre professionals.