Indigenous Talent Voice Audio Description for Three American-Themed Broadcasts

Bridge Multimedia is thrilled to have produced accessibility for 3 Native American-themed films for American Masters, each with a Native American audio description narrator. The feature-length Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On and shorts This is the Way We Rise and Good Mythology all highlight Indigenous performers and artists. Carry It On celebrates the career and cultural legacy of singer/songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie. This is the Way We Rise focuses on the poetry and social activism of Jamaica Osorio and Good Mythology features visual artist Jonathan Thunder. American Masters is produced by THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC for WNET and broadcast on local PBS stations, nationally. Carry It On and the two shorts will premier Tuesday November 22nd for Native American Heritage Month.

According to Bridge CEO, Matt Kaplowitz, “This programming really conveys the vibrancy of Native American culture and creativity, so it was essential that the accessibility also reflect that spirit. The only way to ensure this was to have a Native American audio description narrator who was familiar with the Indigenous experience and cultural vocabulary. Representation has always been a key element of Bridge’s accessibility writing and production. We took the disability community’s credo, “Nothing About Us Without Us” to heart. As far as we’re concerned that goes for people with sensory impairments, people with cognitive differences, Black, Indigenous, People of Color… everyone.”

Although Bridge was delighted when approached by WNET to produce accessibility for the programs, the call came with a challenge. Two hours of audio description content needed to be written, recorded, and mixed in less than a week! Fortunately, we had all the pieces in place to tackle this daunting deadline. For the past few months Bridge has been fielding a particularly busy season by utilizing a top industry content provider as a ‘preferred vendor’ for audio description writing. This expansion of our pre-production division allowed us to accept this remarkable American Masters accessibility project from our long-time friends at WNET. With our recent growth Bridge looks forward to providing inclusive accessibility to an even greater number of voices as we continue to move audio description forward.