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Joel Snyder

Audio Description Performer

Podcast guest

Listen to Joel Snyder on The ADNA Presents (opens in a new tab)

Biography

Live Description for the ABC Television / ACB Radio coverage of Barack Obama’s inaugurals, January 20, 2009 and January 21, 2013, and Donald Trump’s inaugural, January 20, 2017 A member of Actors’ Equity Association, the American Federation of TV and Radio Artists, and the Screen Actors Guild, and a 20-year veteran of work as an arts specialist for the National Endowment for the Arts, Joel Snyder is best known internationally as one of the first “audio describers” (c. 1981) working with theater events and media at the world’s first ongoing audio description service. Beginning in the early 1970s, he recorded “talking books” for the Library of Congress and read privately for individuals who are blind – but his abilities as a describer have made hundreds of live theater productions accessible to audience members who are blind; in media, Dr. Snyder has used the same technique to enhance PBS’ American Playhouse productions, Sesame Street, a wide range of network broadcasts, feature films, educational videos, the IMAX film Blue Planet and the Planetarium show And A Star To Steer Her By at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum. Under contract to the American Council of the Blind (ACB), Dr. Snyder is the founder and director of ACB’s Audio Description Project (ADP) designed to boost awareness of description in all formats throughout the United States. The ADP produced description for ABC-TV’s nationwide coverage of both of President Obama’s inaugurations as well as the description for the Arts & Entertainment Network’s biography, Barack Obama. The Project also produced description for the 30th anniversary DVD release of The Miracle Worker featuring Patty Duke as “Annie Sullivan” and the first-ever audio described tour of The White House. The ADP sponsors the annual Audio Description Awards, coordinates international conferences on audio description, conducts the annual Audio Description Institute, offers the “BADIE” (Benefits of Audio Description In Education—formerly the Young Described Film Critic) contest for students who are blind (the “Listening Is Learning” initiative, sponsored in conjunction with the Described and Captioned Media Program), produced the August 2017 international broadcast of live audio description of the total solar eclipse, and maintains the ADP website, the leading resource for information on audio description in all genres: www.acb.org/adp. As Director of Described Media for the National Captioning Institute, a program founded by Dr. Snyder, he led a staff that produced description for nationally broadcast films and network series including Sesame Street broadcasts and DVDs. He was a member of the American Foundation of the Blind’s “expert panel” charged with reviewing guidelines for educational multi-media description and has been a member of several media access panels at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as well as the Disability Access Committee of the International Telecommunications Union and the Description Leadership Network of the Video Description Research and Development Center. In addition to work principally in media and audio description training, Dr. Snyder’s Audio Description Associates, LLC develops audio described tours for major museums and visitor centers throughout the United States including the writing/voicing of an audio described tour of the Enabling Garden at the Chicago Botanic Garden, the National Aquarium in Baltimore, the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Albright/Knox Gallery in Buffalo, the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, FL, several Smithsonian Institution exhibits including the National Museum of American History’s “The Flag That Inspired the National Anthem”, and myriad National Park Service and US Forest Service facilities including Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Canyon. Dr. Snyder trained museum docents in audio description techniques at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and Sackler/Freer Galleries, and the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, the Seattle Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Design and the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City. He also coached Secret Service agents/White House tour guides in AD methods and, as noted above, he is the producer and author of the first-ever audio described tour of The White House. Dr. Snyder worked closely with the Disability Rights Committee of the Obama for America campaign in 2008, serving as a surrogate speaker on disability issues for the Obama campaign, and coordinated live audio description for the Presidential Inauguration Parades in 2009 and 2013. Internationally, Dr. Snyder has trained describers or introduced description techniques 44 states and in 62 nations, most recently in Cuba, Taiwan, Korea, India, Nepal, Cyprus, Turkey and Israel; he conducted audio description “master classes” in London, Prague,

Credits (81)

  • “9/12: From Chaos To Community”· Performer
    Documentary
  • “Air Force One”· Performer
  • “Aladdin”· Performer
  • “All or Nothing”· Performer
    Documentary
  • “All-Star Alphabet” (Sesame Street)· Performer
  • “All-Star Alphabet” (Sesame Street)· Performer
  • “Bambi”· Performer
  • “Barack Obama” (A&E/Biography Channel documentary)· Performer
    Documentary
  • “Barnyard”· Performer
  • “Beginning Together” (Sesame Street)· Performer
  • “Beginning Together” (Sesame Street)· Performer
  • “Cast Away”· Performer
  • “Charlotte’s Web”· Performer
    Feature Film
  • “Dead Time Stories”· Performer
  • “Diaries of Adam & Eve” (PBS/WGBH American Playhouse)· Performer
  • “Duck Butter”· Performer
  • “Elf On The Shelf”· Performer
  • “Elmo Visits the Doctor” (Sesame Street)· Performer
  • “Elmo Visits the Doctor” (Sesame Street)· Performer
  • “Elmo’s World: Reach for the Sky!” (Sesame Street)· Performer
  • “Elmo’s World: Reach for the Sky!” (Sesame Street)· Performer
  • “Empire Strikes Back”· Performer
  • “Fascinating Rhythm: The Story of Tap” “In Search of Myths and Heroes”· Performer
  • “Flags Of Our Fathers”· Performer
  • “Flushed Away”· Performer
  • “Forrest Gump”· Performer
  • “Generation Wealth”· Performer
  • “Globe Trekker” series “Secrets of the Dead”· Performer
    TV Series
  • “Jerry Maguire”· Performer
  • “Little Big Awesome”· Performer
  • “Love, Cecil”· Performer
  • “Make Music Together” (Sesame Street)· Performer
  • “Make Music Together” (Sesame Street)· Performer
  • “Maya and Miguel”· Performer
  • “Monica and David”· Performer
    Documentary
  • “Native Son” (PBS/WGBH American Playhouse)· Performer
  • “Ned’s Declassified Survival Guide”· Performer
  • “Newness”· Performer
  • “One Mississippi”· Performer
  • “Outside In”· Performer
  • “Over the Hedge”· Performer
  • “Plaza Sesamo” (Spanish)· Performer
  • “Private Life of a Masterpiece: The Kiss, David, The Scream” (and others)· Performer
  • “Push Girls”· Performer
  • “Return of the Jedi”· Performer
  • “Right To Risk”· Performer
    Documentary
  • “Rocket To The Moon” (PBS/WGBH American Playhouse)· Performer
  • “Saving Private Ryan”· Performer
  • “Sesame Street”· Performer
  • “Shrek the Third”· Performer
  • “Swamp Mysteries”· Performer
  • “Swamp People”· Performer
  • “Tales from the Tomb” “Japan’s War in Color”· Performer
  • “That 70’s Show”· Performer
  • “The Bee Movie”· Performer
  • “The Frankenstein Chronicles”· Performer
  • “The Green Mile”· Performer
  • “The Miracle Worker”· Performer
  • “The Miracle Worker” with Patty Duke and Melissa Gilbert· Performer
  • “The Shawshank Redemption”· Performer
  • “The Shining”· Performer
  • “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit”· Performer
  • “Weiner Dog”· Performer
  • “World Trade Center”· Performer
  • “WWII–The Complete History” “World Class Trains” “Colonial House”· Performer
  • (bio follows this abbreviated credits list:)· Performer
  • ABC:· Performer
  • Amazon Prime:· Performer
  • Clifford’s Puppy Days· Performer
    Other
  • Director, Audio Description Project, American Council of the Blind· Performer
  • Dreamgirls· Performer
  • DreamWorks/Paramount (movie theaters/cinema) :· Performer
  • History Channel:· Performer
  • JOEL SNYDER, Ph.D., President, Audio Description Associates, LLC www.audiodescribe.com· Performer
  • Martha Stewart’s “Everyday Food”· Performer
  • Mrs. Doubtfire· Performer
  • Nickelodeon:· Performer
  • Stardust· Performer
    Feature Film
  • Sundance TV:· Performer
    TV Series
  • Transformers· Performer
  • Zeitgeist Films:· Performer