Bernd Benecke

Bayerisches Fernsehen, Language Department, Audio Description

Bernd Benecke is the Audio Description Editor at Bayerischer Rundfunk. He was born in 1963 and started with Audio Description in 1989. Inspired by AD presentations at the Cannes Film Festival he developed (in a team which included blind persons) this technique for Germany. This led to the first described movie in Germany in 1989. Bernd Benecke worked then as Audio Description author and narrator for the public ZDF and private broadcaster Pro7.
In 1997 he set up the Audio Description Department at Bayerischer Rundfunk for which he is still responsible: He trains authors, revises Audio Descriptions and directs the narrating and sound mixing process in a studio. Together with his blind colleague Elmar Dosch, he wrote the audio description guidelines "Wenn aus Bildern Worte werden" (When pictures become words).

What Audio Description may do on ccessibility to visual impaired people for TV, DVD, Cinema or Internet:

• PDF file (9 Kb)

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• Audio-Description - what is it?
• The History of this technique
• An overview of Audio-Description in the EU today
• Examples of what Audio-Description can do:
  • Accessibility to Action movies (e.g. The fugitive)
  • Accessibility to cartoon movies (e.g. Captain Bluebear)
  • Accessibility to subtitles and signing (e.g. The piano)
  • Accessibility to TV-advertising etc.
• How visual impaired people can handle Audio-Description on DVD
• Ways to get Audio-Description into cinema and into the internet