Audio Description At The Cinema

Hello Everyone,

Last year I went to aee the movie adaptation of Wicked! I've seen thr west end musical, which you can read about in my "Is Wicked Worth It?" blog post. So, I was excited to see what the movie was like. I went to an audio description screening with my friend in London. As a fan of the musical I loved the movie version, you could tell they put a lot of love and effort in it! It was made by people who love the musical and stayed true to the source material. I also liked the additional scenes they added which made the story more impactful. This month's post is about my experience with audio description at the cinema, also known as Movie Theatre for you Americans reading this post.

What is Audio Description?

Audio description (AD) is a separate narrator voice in a movie or TV show that narrates visual information, or cues that's being shown to the audience. This helps blind and visually impaired people understand what's happening on during the scenes. 

How do you watch a movie with audio description at the cinema?

For those of you who find audio description "annoying ", don't worry, you won't  hear it as you watch the movie. Yes, there are people  out there who  can't  stand audio description. You can only hear it if you have the audio description headset on during the movie. 

Different cinemas seem to have different headsets. Some look like wireless headphones with buttons on the earpieces that you need to press. Others are wired headphones attached to a device where you ya to press the on button and volume button, and select the screening.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: photo of the headset I used to watch Downton Abbey The Movie in 2018, with the ticket next to it on the left. It looks like black wireless bluetooth headphones.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Photo of the headset I used to watch Wicked in 2024. It's black wired headphones connected to a black rectangular device that has buttons on it.

If you've used AD at the cinema, what's your headset like?

My Experience With it:

In theory it would be very easy to watch movies with AD at the cinema. In reality it's actually harder than it looks. Here's why:

1. Audio Description Screenings Aren't Always Available:

For some reason audio description screenings seem to only available during the first two weeks a movie  cones out. Not to mention, a lot if the timings available are in the weekday, not the weekend. This can make it hard for blind and visually impaired people who work to go see the movie. The Wicked movie seems to be the exception to this because I found quite a few AD screenings available later in the month and in January 2025. Maybe it's because the West End musical AD shows and touch tours are so popular and they wanted to give fans the chance to see it as much as possible? 

In the past I've had to check if a movie theatre has an AD screening by searching all the cinemas I could commute to and checking all the dates available. That took a long time! Luckily I found the Accessibility Screenings UK website, where you can enter your location, movie name and type of screening you want to see. They have  audio  description screenings, autism friendly  screenings, dementia  friendly  screenings and subtitles/ open captions screenings. Then it shows you a list of available cinenas in an accordian format. When you open your chosen cinema it shows the dates and times for the screenings. You can select the one you want and it takes you directly to the cinema website.

2. You Don’t Know Which Seats Have Good Signal For The Headset:

It's difficult to book your seats online for blind and visually impaired people. Why? Because you have to select them via an interactive map/image of the seat layout and click the one you want. Unfortunately this method isn't accessible for screen reader users, who might not be aware of what's on the page and how to navigate it. Plus, there isn't any information about which seats would have the best signal for the audio description headsets. Sometimes, if you don't pick a seat with good signal then the headset won't work.

When watching Wicked I decided to book my tickets in-person on the day. I asked a staff member which row would have good signal. They said the middle one. Yes, I ended up paying more this way, as the tickets are cheaper online, but at least I knew which seats would have good signal.

3. The Headsets Don’t Always Work:

For some reason whenever I went to see a movie with a sighted friend or cousin, the headset worked! This was definitely the case for when I went to see Downton Abbey The Movie (2018), Aladin (2019) and Little Women (2019). Yes there were times where the headset wasn't initially working so my cousin had to leave mid-movie to get the staff to give me another one, but I still got to watch it with AD. Yet, when I went to see Barbie (2023) and Wicked (2024) with my fellow Visually Impaired friends, the headsets didn't work at all. Also, when I went to watch Barbie the cinema only had three headsets and the staff  said only

two were working. All three of us were visually impaired, but what would have happened if we were a larger group of VIPs? 

Although the staff showed us how the headsets work, how to turn them on, when watching Barbie (2023) and Wicked (2024) they didn't work. Once a film starts the theatre is pitch black, which means it was too dark for me and my friends to  leave and get help. There really needs to be a way for people with disabilities to get help without needing a sighted person there. In terms of comfort sometimes the headsets can feel uncomfortable to wear, but you power through anyway.

Lastly, I wanted to add all my cinema experiences has been at the various VUE cinema branches in London. I'm thankful to the staff for guiding us to our seats, for the refunds and free tickets, but it would be nice for an audio description screening to actually have audio description available.

What has your experience been like at the cinema? Have you used any accessibility screenings?

Nanjiba