We want to extend a huge thank you to Vivace Theatre School and Casting Agency who supported us with involving some of their talented young performers in our documentary. 

Accessibility 

Everyone has mental health, which means everyone should be able to access media relating to mental health. We added things to Our Minds that made it more accessible to all audiences. The things included were; visual descriptions, captions and pronoun introductions. Want to know more about why we added these? Please continue reading.

Visual Descriptions

At the beginning of almost every interview in the documentary people introduced themselves and described what they look like and or what they were wearing. For example 'Hello, My name is Emma. I have shoulder-length dark blonde hair, I wear glasses and I am wearing a blue top.' 

Introducing yourself with a visual description creates a more inclusive piece of media for people who have visual difficulties. This includes but is not exclusive to people who are blind and partially sighted. It allows these viewers to engage better with the media.You may find these articles helpful;

Microsoft article titled 'What is Visual Description? As events evolve, greater accessibility for the disability community emerges'

VocalEyes article titled 'Self-description for inclusive meetings'

Captions

Throughout the documentary we have used closed captions. This means that there is a transcription of the audio that appears at the bottom of the screen. We added this to be more inclusive to the deaf community and people who have difficulties engaging with auditory media. Captions are also inclusive of the neurodiverse community as it can help individuals to process auditory information.

You may find these articles helpful;

Article by WhatIs.com titled 'Closed Captions'

3PlayMedia article titled 'How Many People Use Captions? Not Just the Deaf or Hard of Hearing'

Captions Disclaimer: Due to our incredibly small team our closed captions were created in house by Emma when editing. Emma is dyslexic so please allow some lenience in the spelling of words in our captions. We are a non-profit and are unable to hire a professional for this task however we still wanted to include close captions are we know how important they are. 

Pronoun Introductions

At the beginning of each interview you may have noticed people saying phrases like 'My pronouns are She/They' or 'I use He/Him pronouns'. Project Sonrisa is inclusive of the LGBT+ community and recognizes that adding pronouns in our interview introductions creates a more inclusive piece of media for our LGBT+, in particular our transgender and/or non-binary viewers. 

You may find these articles helpful;

Stonewall article titled 'A beginner’s guide to pronouns and using pronouns in the workplace'

University of Plymouth article titled 'pronouns Explained'