The Audio Description Project typically holds two sessions of its Audio Description Institute (ADI) each year. Participants meet virtually for twenty hours across one week and are taught by Dr. Joel Snyder, founder of the ADP, and a team of blind and sighted AD professionals.
The next Audio Description Institute will be held September 22-26, 2025. Registration opens in early August.
Who Should Attend the Audio Description Institute?
Anyone interested in:
- working as a freelance description writer for film, series, advertising, etc.
- working as a describer in a local performing arts program
- working as a describer for visual art images and exhibitions
- refreshing existing AD skills
- adding value to their own or employer’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) initiatives
What Will Be Taught?
- audio description history and theory
- the Four Fundamentals of Audio Description©
- active seeing/visual literacy; developing skills in concentration and observation
- the art of editing what you see
- vivid language: The Visual Made Verbal™
- Speak the speech, I pray you – using the spoken word to make meaning
How Will I Learn?
Sessions will be held virtually from 1pm to 5pm, Monday through Friday during the designated week. Materials will be delivered through a mixture of lectures, discussions, and collaborative writing sessions. Each registrant will receive a PDF copy of Dr. Joel Snyder's book, The Visual Made Verbal: A Comprehensive Training Manual and Guide to the History and Applications of Audio Description, published by ACB. Participants will receive a certificate of completion.
Registration and Scholarships
Registration opens 4-6 weeks before each session and closes 4-5 days before the course begins.
Two full scholarships are available; priority will be given to people with disabilities. Additional details about the application process will be provided when registration opens.
Who Are the Instructors?
Joel Snyder, PhD – One of the first professional audio describers, Dr. Snyder began describing theater events and media in 1981; he is the President of Audio Description Associates, LLC and the Founder of/Senior Consultant to the Audio Description Project, an initiative he founded with ACB in 2009. For six years, he led a staff that produced descriptions for nationally broadcast films and network series, including Sesame Street broadcasts and DVDs. Dr. Snyder has worked with description and trained describers in more than 40 states and 60 countries.
Joyce Adams – Joyce has been producing and writing AD scripts for media and museum tours since 2002. She supervised AD script writers for the Described Media program at the National Captioning Institute, is the author of audio described tours for National Park Service visitor centers throughout the U.S. and regularly pens description for promotional videos produced by Microsoft. Ms. Adams serves on the ACVREP Subject Matter Expert Committee, which is developing a certification program for audio describers.
Elisa Jansen – Elisa is a graduate of the ADP Audio Description Institute. She has written audio description for network and Internet broadcast, such as NBC, CBS, Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix, and for the classic film Citizen Kane. Her work on promotional content includes Walmart, Kimberly-Clark, and thousands of Microsoft videos. Ms. Jansen has provided audio description for museum tours and exhibits, including the Smithsonian, the Nevada State Museum in Las Vegas, and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum.
Susan Glass – Susan is a freelance writer and poet whose forthcoming chapbook The Wild Language of Deer was recently published by Slate Roof Press. A retired English professor from San Jose State University and West Valley Community College, Ms. Glass, who is blind, taught English Composition, American Multicultural Literature, Creative Writing, and interdisciplinary courses with a Disability Studies emphasis. An active member of the American Council of the Blind since 2013, she advocates passionately for audio description, especially in live venues such as theaters, museums, and parks. She loves hiking with her guide dog Omni and riding her horse, Travis.
Tristan Snyder – Tris has been in the video description industry for more than 13 years and is the chief engineer and voice talent at Imagination Storybooks. Blind himself, Tris has produced hundreds of hours of description for network television, cinema, DVDs, and independent film. He is an award-winning producer of audio drama, including Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Halloween Tree. As a voiceover artist, he has voiced many hours of description, and he is also a character voice actor for audio dramas and animation.