Collective members

In the head shot I’m staring off image-right with my mouth partially open. I’m wearing a navy blue t-shirt with the word Lucky in light blue across the top. The background is a brick wall painted green and yellow.

My name is Kensuke Nakamura, I’m a light-skinned, nominally masculine presenting non-binary half-Japanese, half-white person. I have dyed-red hair swept left and reaching the cheeks, with a dark brown buzzed undercut and my ears have a dent at the top.

Born in Japan and raised in Kentucky, I moved to Nashville for art school. I’ve worked in abortion care for several years and in the summer of 2020 I began cultivating audio description skills.

I started out doing volunteer audio description for movie trailers which has always been a passion of mine. That work allowed me to find the other folks starting out in audio description that became Social Audio Description. They’ve helped me learn and grow as a writer and audio editor as I strive to create audio description that is informed by the people they serve and represent.

Barbara is a middle-aged pecan brown colored African American woman with close cropped salt and pepper natural hair. She smiles widely as she stands holding a Tibetan singing bowl and mallet in front of a lake with a backdrop of trees in fall colors of green, gold and crimson. Barbara wears a royal blue top with multiple mandalas and sacred geometry images imprinted in white and black, a silver chain with an aquamarine stone and clear, small dangling earrings that look like sparkling stars.

Barbara Faison has used her voice as a volunteer reader for the Georgia Radio Reading Service for the Blind (over 10 years), as a Toastmasters club mentor and for over three years as an audio description narrator for projects ranging from independent, inspiring films, documentaries, and more. Barbara is a lifelong learner and sharer who is a published author, voice actor, meditation teacher, and content creator. She hosts regular mindfulness practices and “breath breaks” designed to remind you to take moments to be present during the day. Find out more at barbarafaison.com.

In this picture, you see me signing one of my books in a bookstore. I’m a pale white male with dirty blonde hair, and in the picture, I am smiling very impishly and a tad coquettishly.

Robert Kingett is a totally blind, gay, writer that writes everything from audio description scripts to books and short stories. When he’s not writing, he loves to listen to fiction podcasts and cats purring.

Cheryl is a white Ashkenazi Jewish woman with olive complexion, super cute glasses, and long, dark curly that seems to melt right into her black t-shirt. She’s unaware her picture is being snapped as she stands in front of an enormous mural of running wild horses. She stares wistfully past her shoulder in the direction the painted horses are running. Their black, gray, and white painted lines mirror the white screen print on her t-shirt of a delightful array of sharp knives and daggers and the words “No More Spoons.” A solemn crow tattoo adorns her upper arm, and her forearms are crossed in front of her, chiseled from too many years of typing too much. The air smells of car fumes and evergreen trees on this near-cloudless day.

Cheryl Green has worked as an Access Artist making creative and immersive captions for 10 years and audio description for five years. She brings her lived experiences of invisible disabilities to her access work with independent content creators and awesome, disability-focused organizations including Superfest International Disability Film Festival and Kinetic Light. She’s also a Co-op Member of New Day Films since 2016. When not working (and when working), she enjoys the fuzzy company of her Office Manager, a cat named RouRou.

With light makeup on her hazel eyes and full lips, Nefertiti smiles. She has smooth light brown skin, and brown highlighted hair to her shoulders.

Con un ligero maquillaje en sus ojos color avellana y labios carnosos, Nefertiti sonríe. Su piel es suave de color marrón claro y su pelo castaño con mechas hasta los hombros.

I’m Nefertiti Matos Olivares, a bilingual Latina-American with multiple disabilities, who is deeply committed to ensuring that culture is a shared space for all. As a professional voice talent who specializes in Audio Description Narration with an extensive background in Assistive Technology and museum accessibility, I fervently advocate for disability inclusion.

I am passionate about creating culturally competent Audio Description, and in my role as Workflow Manager: Quality and Inclusion for Descriptive Video Works, I am dedicated to developing pathways and frameworks for gainful employment for the blind and low vision community in the AD industry. I proudly co-own the Audio Description LinkedIn Group and the Audio Description Twitter Community where all things AD are welcome.

A medium close-up of Oliver’s head, chest and shoulders–colored over, like a comic book cartoon. In contrasting photographic detail, he is cradling against his chest a metal placard on the right and a tiny dog, visible above the head and shoulders, on the left. Oliver’s skin is everywhere a single shade of tan, with just a few contrasting smears and streaks of black to convey the shape and features of his face. Smears above and below his mouth imply a van Dyke beard, and a white suggestion of teeth shows his lips are slightly parted in a smile. His hair is black and cut short. At its edge above his forehead a ripple hints at curls.

The head of the tiny dog appears in profile–a floppy eared, light brown dachshund with a pointy snout that has turned white with age. The metal placard toward which she is facing is about the size of a record album. Across the top it reads “Certified Backyard Habitat” in elegant type. A naturalistic color drawing below shows a songbird on a slender branch with large, green, multi-lobed leaves dangling around it. The caramel waistcoat and white wing marks are those of a spotted towhee, and the size and shape of the leaves are of an Oregon maple.

Although vendors in Thailand and Nepal somehow knew to hail Oliver with “Shalom!”, he does not identify as ethnic or non-white for everyday purposes. Oliver identifies as disabled, though rarely publicly. He has a learning disability that went undiagnosed until he had already earned a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. He passes for quirky.

Read by Cheryl Green.

Oliver is a writer and journalist with a background in scientific research and science news. His articles have appeared in Scientific American, Health, Technology Review, Science and other magazines, as well as on the radio. When he’s not writing, Oliver enjoys replanting his yard with native plants, bread baking and photography. He grew up in California and Canada.

Prior to joining SADC, Oliver voiced the AD for Cheryl Green‘s short documentary film TBI & My Longest Ride and with her wrote the AD for both Being Michelle and the Sundance Film Festival premiere of 32 Sounds.

Thomas Reid, a brown skin Black man with a clean-shaven bald head and full neat beard, smiles into the camera. He wears dark shades and a black and white checkered button up shirt.

Shortly after becoming blind in 2004, Thomas Reid decided to re-ignite a dormant interest in audio production. After years of combining his interest in audio with advocacy, in 2014 he was selected as a New Voice Scholar by the Association of Independence in Radio. During that same year he began his podcast Reid My Mind Radio – featuring compelling people impacted by all degrees of blindness and disability. Occasionally, he shares stories from his own experience as a man adjusting to becoming Blind as an adult.

Thomas has been thinking critically about Audio Description since his early in theater experience in 2007. He’s been covering the topic on the podcast since 2015 and most notably since critiquing various aspects of AD in Marvel’s Black Panther in 2018.

Through his Flipping the Script on Audio Description series, Reid continues to explore the art by going beyond surface level topics and examining its implications on the community.

As an Audio Description Narrator, Reid has appeared on projects for Netflix, Hulu, PBS and more. He provides consultations for independent film makers, film festivals, co-facilitates workshops and serves as moderator or panelist for discussions on audio description and content accessibility.