A group of freelance audio describers with over 40 years of combined experience is offering businesses a new way to easily access their services.

Hear Say, founded by 30-year-old Cara Edney, is made up of highly-skilled audio describers and voice-over actors dedicated to providing efficient and engaging audio descriptions for the visually-impaired community.

“I’ve freelanced for lots of companies in the past,” said Cara. “The process of sourcing people in my profession has always been an overly complicated one, so I felt like this was a great solution for localisation and allowing companies to gain a wide, varied choice of audio describers in one place.

“I wanted to build a platform where you could get access to high-quality describers without jumping through all of the hoops you usually have to.”

Cara, who trained as an actress went freelance after gaining offers to do voiceover work, explained that the project and assets are assigned to a house describer and the client’s preferred voice through a secure management platform.

The client then follows the project’s progress via the platform, checking in directly with the describers by dropping them a message or they can simply leave them to it. The completed scripts are then available for download and a mixed audio file is ready for review.

“Our describers regularly work for some of the biggest streaming platforms, and we wanted to share this expertise,” Cara said. Content creators are often reticent to include Audio Description as it’s perceived as too costly and complicated but Hear Say’s innovative and direct approach will help break down these perceptions and increase accessible content.

Recently, one of the freelancers from Hear Say was chosen by the Entertainment Globalisation Association (EGA) for their fellowship program in Los Angeles later this year.

The EGA is a California-based trade association primarily focused on building a stronger connection with creative talent. The organisation is narrowly focused on entertainment localisation as defined by audio localisation (dubbing), subtitling, audio description and graphic replacement for episodic, feature-length and gaming entertainment.

“We’re really grateful to have this chance at learning from the very best in the industry and delighted that one of Hear Say’s describers has been recognised as a future industry leader,” Cara said. “The fellowship is a wonderful opportunity to enhance the professional growth of the describer and ensure Hear Say remains at the forefront, championing the highest industry standards.”