Michele Spitz, a San Francisco media producer, voice-over artist and philanthropist, is dedicated to serving people with disabilities.
The versatile multitasker with a voice as rich as chocolate ganache has been funding arts and cultural programming for more than 20 years. Through her company Woman of Her Word, she produces, narrates and consults about audio description. Her work supports film, broadcast, digital media, festivals, museums and other educational content for the disabled, particularly those who are visually impaired.
Ten years ago, she was persuaded to create voice-overs for movies and streaming media.
“That’s the moment when I was able to turn philanthropy into an asset and make media accessible,” says Spitz, whose prosperous parents (her father ran a successful publishing company) instilled in her a mission to contribute to society.
Not disabled herself, Spitz is sensitive to changing consciousness and politics of differently abled people. Her brother Steve Spitz, who is neurodivergent, is featured on the Netflix reality show, “Love on the Spectrum US.”
Some years ago, she took Steve to see an Itzhak Perlman documentary at the local cinema. She says, “I gave him the cinema audio description headset to listen to my prerecorded narration of the visual descriptions. He was quite amazed as to how much it actually added to the film experience for him.”
Exactly how does one add voice-over to film or streaming media while action and dialogue progress?
Imagine accompanying a person with impaired vision to the movies. Sitting beside them, your mouth to their ear, you attempt to describe what’s on screen and the emotional impact of the story. Yet it’s not possible to recount every detail in the time that the action elapses. You and your friend wind up frustrated while the people around you shush you to be quiet.
The problem is solved with synchronizing technology, which allows for audio descriptions to be filled in where there are natural pauses of dialogue.
“There are natural organic pauses, it’s not nonstop talking. In those pauses, we write content, and we timecode it so that I have enough time to describe what a person can’t see,” says Spitz, as the action is running.
A fascinating example of how the narrative process works is on Spitz’s website.
Spitz, also a public speaker and consultant, has donated her expertise to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, PBS and Film Festival Alliance, among other media groups. And she helped establish and fund British Academy of Film and Television Arts scholarships for film students with disabilities.
Today, she sees artists and technicians who are blind or with low vision assuming the craft that she has introduced.
In addition, Spitz has worked on documentaries produced by White Horse Pictures including “Pavarotti,” “The Beatles: Eight Days A Week-The Touring Years,” as well as “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” and “Lucy and Desi.”
Documentaries can be difficult to narrate, she explains, because without dialogue there are fewer, and frequently no, gaps between sentences.
Among Spitz’s champions is David S. Zimmerman, a Los Angeles producer, casting director and actor who teaches who acting classes for people with and without disabilities.
After Zimmerman propelled her into creating voice-overs, she returned the favor by producing audio for the 2022 Media Access Awards, in which he was honored.
Correction: A previous version of incorrectly stated Spitz worked with the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and misstated the nature of Spitz’s work with Zimmerman. We regret the error.