BEIJING: Fourth-grader Chen Yuxin, a pupil at the Beijing School for the Blind, has had a life-long dream of attending a movie at a cinema.
Her wish finally came true in September 2021, thanks to a public service project dubbed “Ever Shining Cinema”.
Together with her friends and guided by volunteers, the pupil attended the barrier-free movie My People, My Homeland at the Tiantongyuan cultural arts centre in Changping district, Beijing.
“I was filled with excitement. I really love the movie,” said Yuxin.
“The project and its barrier-free films enable us to enjoy the silver screen, just like sighted moviegoers.”
The project was initiated at the end of 2017 by the Communication University of China, Beijing Gehua CATV Network Co Ltd and Oriental Jiaying Media Co Ltd.
It aims to produce barrier-free films for visually impaired people through dubbing.
The production process of barrier-free films is hard in the eyes of Cai Yu, a 26-year-old PhD student at the Communication University of China and also a volunteer of the project.
During the intervals of dialogues and sounds in the movie, volunteers would describe the characters’ actions, expressions and surroundings as much as possible to help the visually impaired audiences better understand the movie, said Cai.
“For example, to explain the colour ‘red’, we would often use the words ‘sun’ and ‘heat’,” said Cai.
“A two-hour film often takes volunteers a week to write the narration and four hours to record in the studio.”
By the end of last year, the project had produced 416 barrier-free movies and one barrier-free TV series, and held 254 public welfare screenings. — Xinhua
