# Accessible Cinema Project LLUF Edition

LLUFs: Charlie and Max

Hours Allocated:
Timeline
Milestones

### Tuesday 27th September

Onboarding Max into the Learning Lab systems, taking headshots and making buttons.
Zoom meeting with Welsey and Christine for introductions and to discuss getting started. Also went over where to find the equipment in the store rooms and set up etc.
*2 hours - Charlie and Max*

### Thursday 29th September
Meeting with Digital Accessibility Services. Had some really interesting conversations about audio description practices, and gained insight from people with visual impairments whose perpsectives we'd been lacking. Showed a short clip from our overdub of Cléo and received some feedback on our set up / process from last semester. Discussed the potential partnerships moving forward, including funding avenues and creating something long lasting at Harvard.
*2 hours - Charlie*

### Friday 30th September
Set up recording station in editing suite. Introduced Max to Cléo de 5 à 7, went over the park and bus scene, then dubbed these scenes. Only set up with one mic due to large workshop being held this afternoon, so recorded into single channel. Will be better to go back over with two mics next week, perhaps.
Thoughts we had include whether or not to dub over station being announce on bus ride (1:25:00), similar to name dilemma in L'Avventura but perhaps less clear that it's a place name?
Also - tried to show Max our previoius dub of Cléo but there were no media files on the timeline in the Premiere file, only in the media browser. It may have been damaged when we force quit on Thursday, and might need reassembling if we want to keep a copy of it moving forward.
*3 hours - Charlie and Max*


### Tuesday 4th October
We set up to record voiceovers with two mics (one for each of us) but then realised Premiere would not be able to facilitate us recording simultaneously. We therefore explored dofferent options for how we could get a good dub with the both of us. We tried recording individually but the timing was off, with some big pauses between lines, and tones were different etc. Next, we tried both voicing the characters but with only one person near the mic, so one voice recorded. We then switched the mic and recorded the second character. This worked a bit better because our lines were more well-timed and responsive to what the other person was saying. However, there were a few points where the other voice could be heard in the background, though this should be easy to clean up.
*2 hours - Charlie and Max*

### Tuesday 11th October
Team meeting with Jordan, Christine and Wesley to discuss the upcoming Disability is Diversity Celelrbation event. We went over our progress with the dubbing so far, including the technical difficulties of recording two voices at once in Premiere, and discussed alternatives. We planned for our booth set up, including how we wanted to showcase the project (both physically, on posterboard etc and how we wanted to present it) as well as how we could make our booth accessible - include an audio description of our work.
*0.5 hours - Charlie and Max*
#### Aims for this week / next week:
* explore Adobe Audition as an alternative to Premiere to be albe to record two tracks at once
* finish dubbing the park scene, and bus if possible
* create poster of our workflow & project
* write a script and record audio description of what the poster shows
* make buttons for the booth

### Thursday 13th October
Tried to navigate two mic to two track set up in Premiere but found it wasn't possible. Started prepping for the Disabilty as Diversity event: planning script for audio description, checklist of what is needed, what should be included on poster etc.
*2 hours - Charlie*

### Friday 14th October
Collated screenshots of last semester's dubs as well as our more recent efforts. Researched Adobe Audition through How-to's / tutorials, and found it wasn't possible to work with srt files in the programme - which would mean we wouldn't know what to say. As a result, we burned the subtitles into the mp4 file, had to convert it after and found no sound. Will redo! Considered alternative programmes with Casey - potentially Resolve.
*3.5 hours - Charlie
2 hours - Max*

** Charlie fixed the subtitle + sound problem on the weekend, we're good to go.

### Monday 17th October
Worked on a write up of the Accessible Cinema Project - origin, workflow, vision for the future. This will be incorporated into the poster design for our booth at the Disability as Diversity event and will also be part of the script for our audio description of the booth.
Can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/13V5etXIM3Y_DaGzlmQ9f8xC_Emba1R7TaTQJ0ZeMzT8/edit?usp=sharing
*2 hours - Charlie*

### Tuesday 18th October
Tried dubbing with the Adobe Audition set up. The film file with subtitles worked well, and we were able to set up two mics to record into two tracks at once, which was another success. However, due to Audition being unfamiliar territory, and various technical difficulties it was hard to get started and the quality of the sound we recorded was poor. Attempted to resolve these issues through changes in mic set up / settings within Audition and improved a little but not good enough for a dub.
*2 hours - Charlie
1 hour - Max*

### Wednesday 19th October
Attended the Making Art and Art Museums Accessible talk by the MFA as part of Harvard's Disabilty as Diversity series. It was a really interesting talk from the MFA's Access team who discussed how they create inclusive spaces in their galleries, exhibits, tours etc through measures ranging from sensory experiences to meditation. After the talk, I got to speak with the MFA staff on how they use audio description at the Museum and found a potential connection to a group which offers audio description training and works towards greater representation in the field.
*1 hour - Charlie*

### Thursday 20th October
Revised dubbing set up! Went back to our roots with a (finally) successful set up in Adobe Premiere. Had two mics set up through the audio interface recording into one track. Before we started recording, we made sure one mic was panned all the way to the left and the other to the right, and also marked the "in" of where we started dubbing from. We did not get to the audio effects but the idea is that once we have recorded, we will split the track into two mono tracks, and then make each of them stereo again so that they can be panned as far left or right as we would like (or not at all).
*2 hours - Charlie
1 hour - Max*

### Friday 21st October
A bunch of more adminatrative tasks - making sure hours have been logged correctly, reaching out to MFA to follow up after the talk, planning for Wednesday's event etc.
Had some issues with adobe premiere using the two mics into one stereo track--> convert to two mono tracks --> to two stereo tracks method. Found a workaround + simpler method in just converting the original stereo track into two stereo tracks, one for each the left and right voice, and then we are able to pan as far as we like or not at all. On Monday will finish audio effects for this clip + export.
*4 hours - Charlie*
*1 hour - Max*

### Monday 24th October
Finished audio effects on park scene, trying to get consistent volume levels and good balance between French and English audio. Our dub was panned left or right according to where the character was on screen and how far from the other person; when it was just one person on screen, the audio was not panned. When characters moved across each other from one side to the other, the pan followed this transition smoothly. The final version was exported with and witout subtitles so both versions are available.
We also went over the poster and made some final changes / preparations for Wednesday.
*3 hours - Charlie*

### Wednesday 26th October
Disability as Diversity Celebration Event!
Last minute preparations at the learning lab: gathering equipment, making a DIY stand for the poster etc
Our booth was set up with the poster, a laptop and headphones showing the dubbed clip of the park.
The event was a great opportunity to share our work with others, people seemed to really like it. We also got to meet people from different organisations who were interested in connecting with us or had useful links to other people working on accessibilty in media! It was very apparent though that not many people are working on audio description in cinema, particularly in the sense of making a accessible films more of an experience rather than diract translation of what appears on screen.
*3.5 hours - Charlie*

### Tuesday 1st November
* following up with folks from the event
* list of people
* DD help with drafting message that Charlie can be cc'ed on (sent from LL email account)
* make a list of characters from Cleo, timestamps of their presence in the film, and determine when/if other voices needed
* think about possible workshop on dubbing led by Charlie and Max for other LLUFs

### Friday 18th November
Continued dubbing Cléo.
*2 hours - Charlie & Max*

### Tuesday 22nd
Dubbed Cléo bus scene and went over musical scene from mid-film as potentially dubbing opportunity for Max.
*2 hours - Charlie & Max*