Hey Reader,

When I started, I thought pacing in Audio Description was arithmetic. Count the frames, count the syllables, make it fit.

Here's what I've been doing, and it works: pick the verb first.

An intent verb is what you're doing to someone. To reveal. To warn. To disarm. It's what you're doing. You add these intent verbs to scripts, to make them come to life. And every intent word you add has its own speed built into it. Assault might take its time. Smash is instant. When a cue feels rushed, check the intent verb you're bringing. The right verb sets the pace on its own.

The thing to understand is that you don't level just one intent verb across a whole show, or even a scene. Sometimes it barely covers a sentence.

In the last BoothCamp, someone was reading a moment where a bully looks over his shoulder. One sentence, and they'd picked one intent for the whole thing. But we found three inside it. To dupe him. To get him. To get away. Three verbs within that one sentence, and the to ___ verbs change as the picture changes. They ran it again and the pace picked up on its own! It stayed inside the timecode, and nobody told them to go faster.

Ellen was in that cohort. And there's more to it: here's what it looked like from her side.

The other part of performing Audio Description is the connection you have to who you're talking to. Think about a friend seated next to you at a movie theater, just before the movie starts. Close enough to hear you if you keep your voice low. That's the level, and that's the relationship you're building with the person listening.

A director once told me to move with the images. But fitting the words in is the easy half. Making them work within the context of what's happening in the scene means finding ways to fit without sounding fast, and ways to slow down without demonstrating slowness. All while keeping your voice within the scene, not too much, not too little.

That's learnable, and it takes doing the work in front of people who can hear what you did and tell you while you can still go again. That's most of the first four weeks.

BoothCamp starts Wednesday September 16, 5:30pm Pacific. Eight people, $497, and I'm including the High Wire Act video course for free to the next two that sign up.

​[ CLAIM A SEAT ]​

Roy

P.S. If you try the verb thing on one cue this week, tell me what happened. I read all of these.