Meet the students and staff from the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired as they join the Eiteljorg Museum to learn from each other, break down barriers, and help make art more accessible for everyone.

The No Limits Art Series aims to strengthen inclusiveness and remove social barriers in the arts for individuals with disabilities. The Indiana Blind Children’s Foundation (IBCF), through a grant by Lilly Endowment Inc., organized high school students from the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ISBVI) to work alongside several Indianapolis-based arts organizations to increase their accessibility for individuals with disabilities, bringing the voice of their students outside their campus.

IBCF Executive Director Laura Alvarado knew it would be important to document and tell the story of these projects throughout the three year program, but she wasn’t even sure what would happen along the way, much less how to capture and convey what happened through film. Alvarado called on 12 Stars Media because she knew we weren’t afraid to go into the unknown scope together and figure out the details along the way. As soon as we started the project, a sudden realization made us all take a step back - we were about to produce short films about the journey to change art accessibility. We needed to stop and think about accessibility to our own art - the short films themselves.

“We should produce these films so that someone could experience the story and be moved, even if they don’t actually see any of it,” Grant Michael, our Associate Producer, said during an early brainstorming session. So, we started listening to Radiolab and other podcasts, intentionally learning from creatives who tell beautiful stories using only audio. That led to brainstorming discussions about how we could capture content differently - improving our work by using audio better in general, from ambient sounds, to music, and especially the recordings of natural conversations and reactions of the people involved.

Over the course of several weeks, the No Limits students convened at school for discussions around accessibility, visited the Eiteljorg to experience the museum’s exhibits, and prepared feedback for how the museum might consider making their art more accessible.

For the docents and chaperones that helped students through the halls of the museum, for the students themselves, and for our crew filming by their sides the moments of uncertainty, vulnerability, and learning were many. We filmed eleven hours and thirty minutes throughout the experience. It was a mountain of material, but taking our time and becoming part of the story alongside the characters also ended up providing the most valuable moments, like when a docent takes a student’s hand and runs it along a leathery surface to help him understand the artwork, then weeks later when a student takes a blindfolded docent’s hand and teaches her to use his cane. Those were the reward of surrendering ourselves to a slower, more time-intensive process. Those moments weren’t going to come from shooting a quick interview one morning and a little generic b-roll that same afternoon.

Then, we got into post-production and found another opportunity for changing accessibility - a little curve ball called audio description. Also referred to as a video description or described video, audio description is a form of narration used to provide information surrounding key visual elements in a media work for the benefit of the blind and visually impaired audience. In theaters, museums, television, and movies, audio description is commentary and narration which guides the listener through the presentation with concise, objective descriptions of new scenes, settings, costumes, body language, and "sight gags," all slipped in between portions of dialogue or songs. It requires specially trained writers to create a separate script that is recorded and synchronized with the media. In a movie theater, the audio description is delivered to wireless headsets that patrons wear at their seats. On the web, however, technology has been slower to catch on and accommodate audio description. Sadly, across all types of media, audio description is usually an after-thought and, therefore, wedged in tightly and often ineffectively after a work is completed.

Below is the same short film, this time with audio description. Give it a watch and a listen to see how the describer’s voice provides context for our viewers with blindness or low vision. Also, notice the AD logo, below, signaling the availability of audio description. Who knows, maybe you’ll see it in other places now that you know what it looks like (sort of like when you get a new car and all of a sudden everyone has the same one)?

Whether or not we would add audio description was never a question. There was a question of how, though. So, we reached out to Rick Boggs, one of the best in the business, to help us find some answers. Over a phone call, we quickly realized that Audio Eyes, the description service organization Rick founded, stayed plenty busy. Audio Eyes engineers and producers deliver audio description for television networks including ABC and FOX , as well as government agencies including the U.S. Department of Defense, the Internal Revenue Service, and the National Parks Service. Additionally, they produce audio dramas, audio books, music, radio programs, radio ads, and a variety of business-to-business audio products. Despite the high demand, however, audio description still remained an afterthought for almost all their clients. “Rick, if we considered audio description before we started editing, giving careful thought to where the description could fit into our finished work, it seems like it would be an unusual approach, but would it be helpful?” we asked. “It would be very unusual and very helpful,” he responded.

Many of us have bought into the idea that our attention spans have gotten shorter (not true, by the way). The culture shaped by supposedly short attention spans, and time-management gurus, and #hustle has us often asking ourselves, “How can we make this video shorter?” or “How can we get this done faster?” Our phone call with Rick and our extensive time with No Limits gave us the boldness to flip those questions around and, instead, ask “How can we leave more room for audio description?” and even, “How can we leave more room for allowing everyone to take their time and experience the same sense of wonder we did throughout this story?”

We reflect on this project as one of the most perspective-expanding we’ve tackled in our twelve year history. We regained an appreciation for documentary, for meeting and sharing the stories of real characters, and for the importance of silence and slowness. Most importantly, though, we realized that in our attempts to make a more accessible short film that would work well for audio description, we ended up making a short film that was better for everyone - whether you watch it with the audio description or not. And that realization reaffirmed what we all know, but so easily forget, that we all share a lot more in common than we think. We are more the same than we are different.

As the No Limits students and staff continue their work with different arts organizations across Indianapolis, the far-reaching effects of this project will make positive changes for art accessibility, but will also improve our community for everyone in more ways than we’ll ever know. We hope you’ll follow along as we continue the journey and share these stories for years to come.

If you’d like to learn more about or support one of the organizations in this story, a list of their websites follow. If you’d like to learn more about how we tell stories to inspire communities to make positive changes, send us a message anytime.

• Indiana Blind Children’s Foundation

• Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired

• Eiteljorg Museum

• Lilly Endowment, Inc

• Audio Eyes