The ADNA Presents

Maria Miller: Listening, Liberia, and the Girl Who Said "I'm Networking"

Roy Samuelson sits down with Maria Miller, former Senior Private Sector Specialist with the International Finance Corporation. Maria spent 14 years traveling to more than 20 countries, including post-conflict zones, help

264: Connor Scott-Gardner, part 2: Consent, Craft, and What Audio Description Owes Its Audience

Connor Scott-Gardner is a blind accessibility advocate, disability rights writer, and someone who has spent years thinking carefully about what it means to be helped, witnessed, and included. In this second half of our c

263: Awareness Isn't Enough: Connor Scott-Gardner on What Actually Changes Things, Part 1 of 2

Connor Scott-Gardner has presented at the European Parliament, Westminster, and SXSW. He also goes home, gets tired, and sometimes thinks he hasn't done anything. This podcast will prove that he has done much. In this fi

Dr. Cynthia Bennett Part 2: What We Lose When We Stop Describing Things to Each Other

Something went wrong during a live show. An aerial performer fell. The Audio Description professional described it as it happened. Then told the audience the performer was okay. No script covered that moment. No algorith

261 - Quality at Scale: Josh Miller on What Accessibility Actually Costs

Josh Miller came to accessibility through telecom, media consulting, and a business school project at MIT. That project ran headfirst into a quote so high it would have eaten up half the program's annual budget. That col

260 - Dr. Cynthia Bennett: Who Gets Left Out When We Build for Access

Dr. Cynthia Bennett is a blind researcher at Google who studies the AI systems that are supposed to serve blind people. She found out blind people were making Audio Description, and she, a blind person, had no idea. That

Episode 259. The Darkroom Returns: On Credits, Craft, and What Belonging Sounds Like

Alex Howard and Lee Pugsley are back on The ADNA Presents, and a lot has changed since their first visit. The Darkroom podcast hosts and co-founders of the Blind Film Critic Society join Roy Samuelson for a conversation

The ADNA Presents: Darian Rodriguez Heyman: You Don't Have To Sacrifice To Do The Right Thing

Darian Rodriguez Heyman has spent thirty years helping mission-led organizations stop reinventing the wheel. He's the author of AI for Nonprofits, founder of Helping People Help, and someone who has thought seriously abo

Blind Film Critics Give the Oscars Their Own Awards

Lee Pugsley and Alex Howard of The Dark Room watched this year's Oscar ceremony with audio description on, and they brought friends. John Stark, and the newest Blind Film Critic Society member Ren Leach, join them to han

256: Joanne Levine - At Heart, A Storyteller

Joanne Levine has spent her career making sure people who aren't physically there, could still experience what happened there. As founding head of programming for Al Jazeera English in the Americas, a producer for Nightl

Scott McCarthy - VP Localization Dreamworks: We breathe in one language and exhale another.

What does it take to make a joke land in a language it was never written for? How do you know when the emotional contract with an audience has held, and when has it broken? Scott McCarthy has been sitting with those ques

J. Michael Collins

J. Michael Collins has 30 years in voiceover, 50+ industry awards, and runs the largest voiceover conference in the world. He also still has things worth saying. In this conversation, J. Michael and Roy talk about why th

Maren Garcia

Voice actor Maren Garcia joins host Roy Samuelson to talk about how she first discovered Audio Description, and why it immediately felt personal. Maren shares the moment she was hired for a full feature film, after being

Meg Ryan -

251 - David Grabias: "Brailled It"

Join Roy Samuelson as he chats with Emmy-winning filmmaker David Grabias about his groundbreaking documentary "Brailled It." Grabias shares his innovative approach to incorporating audio description and working with blin

Story Over Sight: Rethinking Audio Description with Alison Eardley

What happens when we stop treating audio description as an afterthought, and start treating it as storytelling? In this episode of The ADNA Presents, Roy Samuelson sits down with researcher and accessibility innovator Al

The ADNA Presents: Rebecca Odum

Audio description is crafted, refined, and checked with extraordinary care, with thanks to quality control specialists. On this episode of The ADNA Presents, Roy Samuelson interviews Rebecca Odom, a blind audio descripti

Why Bob Bergen Endorsed Roy Samuelson for Performer Governor

In this special episode of The ADNA Presents, we're doing something different. And deeply personal. Voiceover icon and longtime Television Academy leader Bob Bergen shares his journey advocating for voice actors, opening

The ADNA Presents: Tabitha Kenlon: Connection Beyond the Ocular

What happens when you start teaching for connection? In this conversation with Dr. Tabitha Kenlon, an English professor who teaches students across the world (including in Afghanistan), we explore what it really means to

Layers of Storytelling: Horror, Sound, and the Power of Audio Description

Filmmaker Naomi Ross thought audio description was just an obligation - until it changed the way her whole family watches movies. Join Roy Samuelson as they dive into the power of sound, representation, and what happens