Featured In KXAN: ASL Interpreters Return to Austin City Limits
Updated: Jan 20, 2024
American Sign Language interpreters have been a part of the Austin City Limits Music Festival for several years, and 2022 was no different.
This year, Austin-based Amber G Productions provided ASL interpreting services and staffing. According to ACL Fest organizer C3 Presents, 2022 was the second year the vendor interpreted at the festival.
“Since 2014, Amber G Productions has sourced sign language interpreters who specialize in music performance work,” a C3 spokesperson said. “They use a mixture of local talent and outside talent to try and bring about the most equality to the experience with native signers and highly certified interpreters from various backgrounds and cultures.”
ACL Fest organizers said there were 14 ASL interpreters working at the festival this year.
See full content at https://www.kxan.com/acl/asl-interpreters-return-to-austin-city-limits/.
Accessibility at a festival of this size is a staffing problem as much as a goodwill gesture - having interpreters on the main stages changes who can actually turn up. One detail that decides whether it works on camera is consistency: interpreters need to stay in frame and be lit the same way across a long day, otherwise the broadcast crew becomes the bottleneck. That is where reference-driven tools have helped me - Reference to Video keeps a person's position and lighting steady from shot to shot, which matters when the subject is signing rather than standing still.
It’s great to see ACL keeping ASL interpreters front and center—14 interpreters is no small feat, and the mix of local and outside talent really speaks to making the experience inclusive. By the way, I keep a free GIF to MP4 converter I like to share: https://giftomp4.net/
It is honestly so cool that ACL is prioritizing accessibility like this, kind of like how I found cookie clicker unblocked at school to help me kill time during long breaks. Seeing Amber G Productions bring in professional interpreters really changes the whole festival experience for the better. I love that they are putting so much effort into making music performances inclusive for everyone.
It's great that ACL Fest had 14 ASL interpreters this year, making the festival accessible to the Deaf community. For those working on video accessibility, converting subtitle files with srt to txt can be a helpful step.
It's wonderful that ACL Fest had 14 ASL interpreters on site this year to make the music accessible. For anyone looking to improve their video accessibility further, the srt to vtt converter is a handy tool for converting subtitle files.