Opinion – Haja Vista: Audiodescription gains space in football at the World Cup

Good sports professionals certainly know that narrating a football match is not the same thing as describing what happens on the field.

In fact, what really matters in their work is the expressiveness and emotional charge they imprint with their voice from the outset.

A friend who can’t see or knows the rules of football explained well on social media how she understands the World Cup games. When he keeps talking, talking softly, nothing is happening. When he starts to speed up his speech, it’s because something important can come. When his voice hits fortissimo, the goal is coming. If she stops on a high note, it’s a goal for Brazil.

I would add that when Galvão’s voice intones a prolonged note and performs a glissando towards the low region, it was a goal for Germany in Brazil.

Everyone will pick on the narrator if he gets distracted on goal and doesn’t shout a single word for as long as possible. But nobody will be worried if he doesn’t say which side of the corner came from the cross or where Neymar received the ball before making a sensational dribble and shooting in the angle. After all, most viewers are getting a good look at the South Korean player who landed on his butt.

But not everyone is seeing what happens with their own eyes.

In this World Cup, I and many other blind and low vision people were able to understand the games in a new way.

Since the opening ceremony, Globo has included audio description in all World Cup matches. To access the complementary narration, it is necessary to activate an alternative audio channel by pressing the SAP key.

From then on, a new voice, soft and generally with a neutral tone, always in mezzo forte, starts to include information that the person who cannot see could not know.

Galvão shouts “foul” and the audio describer says that Vinícius Junior was knocked down. A goal is scored for Brazil and, while the voice everyone wants to hear scream echoes, the audio describer tells who gave the pass and where the kick came from.

Naturally there is some competition for space between the simultaneous narrations. It is to be expected that the audio description only enters in the moments of silence. But in a live stream, things get more unpredictable and overlaps happen.

When the audio describer needs to speak, the narrator’s and commentators’ voices are lowered slightly. Ideally, then, it should be very judicious and economical, in order to provide useful information without overloading the viewer’s ears or disturbing the understanding of another speech that he wanted to hear.

The audio description also helps those who are not seeing the image to know the flag of the participating countries, the colors of the uniform, the stadium, the appearance of some of the players, the judges, movements of the crowd. All information that would have sounded redundant in the original narration, but that enriches the game for everyone.

Result of the pioneering initiative: WhatsApp groups for the blind have been talking a lot about the subject, including circulating YouTube links of audio-described matches that are on and from previous days.

I believe the experience will make accessible streams even better. My opinion, which may not be shared by everyone, is that interventions could be more cost-effective. Especially during game breaks, the speeches of journalists, commentators and the narrator are often truncated so that the audio description gives information that is not so important, such as “she is on the screen” or “the group is in the studio”. , “the goalkeeper throws the ball”. Anyway, it will always be a difficult choice and influenced by the taste of those who make it and those who listen. At times, I have chosen to turn accessibility off.

Anyway, the only news is not better than winning the World Cup with a rout in the final. More than any year, we’re all rooting for it together this time.