Audio description writer Ashleigh Braggs had a full schedule when asked to write the description for Finding Your Laughter. She had every intention of declining the request, “But then I read what the documentary was about:
- Chicago (my current city).
- A Black daughter (my identity).
- An ailing parent (my life).”
Finding Your Laughter is a personal documentary about Arlieta, a daughter who becomes caregiver to her father Milton. She learns to use improv to affirm and validate his experiences.
Ashleigh continues. “Arlieta Hall’s story of caregiving felt so much like my story, and I knew I wanted to be a part of telling it through audio description no matter what else I was committed to doing.”
Some continue to insist that objectivity is the goal of an AD writer. Ashleigh reminds us that we shouldn’t disregard the value of personal connections to subject matter, culture and identity.
“For Arlieta, the moments that find her are so dynamic and varied. We find her in her moments of caregiving, running moisturizer up and down Milton’s legs to popping her chest and dancing onto stages across Chicago as a standup comedian. As a Black audio describer, depicting the full range of Blackness in the documentary, including hairstyles Arlieta shows us in the film – from the braids hanging down her back to the curls on top of her head, to her afro with shaved sides – felt important, too.”
For more on the team behind this project and where you can catch it at a film festival near you, visit FindingYourLaughter.com.
AD Team:
Writer: Ashleigh Braggs
Blind Quality Control: Kwaku Darco
Project Lead, Narrator and Audio Mix: Thomas Reid