Abstract:

Audio description which has transformed into an increasingly more visible field of study as a consequence of the value attributed to accessibility recently in our country is a type of translation consisting of practices that ensure the accession of the visually impaired individuals to the audiovisual products. One of the media, which often allows audio description practices, is animations appealing to audience of all ages. Visual effects in animations are as essential as its narrative features. This explains why the visually impaired individuals need to know, nearly as much as the sighted viewers, these effects that determine the originality of the work of art, in order to follow the storyline and enjoy their watching experience. To transfer the impact of the visual effects in the film when preparing the description text/scenario, the translator as a script writer should make some additions to the gaps between dialogues considering the space and time constraints. This article explores in the animation entitled The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015) the process of audio describing the visual effects that support the narrative in terms of artistic and functional aspects and productivity. The scenes combining cartoons or the world of people with animations and which include surreal visuality the audience cannot imagine are selected for analysis. In the light of this analysis, it is concluded that if audio description relates the story of the animation with the effects, i.e. if it focuses on how the actions and events take place regarding the characters, time and setting, then the visually impaired audience will be able to produce from the elastic reality formed via visual effects, his/her perceptual reality based on the fiction.

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