Where Light Falls Audio Description for Sight Impaired Visitors: Site 2

Transcript

Where Light Falls audio description for sight impaired visitors: site 2

You are standing at site 2, on the west side of the new Coventry Cathedral beside the Chapel of Unification, to the left as you approach the main entrance down St Michael’s Avenue

In front of you is the wall of the new cathedral building which will become the canvas for words from the poem to appear. The words are white against a black background.

The words of the next verse of poetry appear:

Lay down your tools and clock-out at the factory whistle,

time turns on a

and then word “crankshaft” appears, rotating into place as if it were a piece of machinery  

The line “from cloth to clockwork, bicycles to cars” appears and the first “to” drops down to make up the second “to” on the line below

the next lines appear beneath:

“the work-song of lathes turning swarf’s string of silver from metal.”

And then fade away leaving a blank space

A new line appears:

“Peace work turns to war work, the cathedral crypts become shelters.”

A line travels across the top of the word shelters, acting as a roof over the word.

The following lines appear underneath:

“November moonlight. Frost gleams white on lead”

The first “o” in the word moonlight starts to grow and become a full moon. The other words in that line shrink backwards and disappear until just a glowing white moon is left.

The letters in the word “frost” become thicker as if they are icing over. Then small white dots break free from the word and fall down quickly to make the next line of poetry. It reads:

“As firewatchers with broom and pitchfork, the Provost and Jock,

join others on the roof. “

The words fade away to make room for the next lines:

“Sirens, then hard rain”

Water droplets start to pour down from the word “rain” they form the same word two more times underneath, until the word “rain” appears three times in a vertical row, getting bigger with each repetition. They disappear to make room for the next lines that read:

“of the raid

through the night, hand to hand, sweeping, quenching until buckets

of water and sand and all the brigade’s hoses run dry”

Beneath those words the line of poetry:

“the city lit red in cross beams of radar and searchlight”

The word searchlight becomes larger and lit up from behind. The light coming from the word travels from left to right, as if it is a torch cutting through the darkness.

The word returns to normal and the verses of poetry disappear to make space for the next set of lines.

The words “Our cathedral in bronze-coloured smoke” appear. The word “smoke” appears to be smoking itself

The lines continue “concentrated blaze. All night the city burned and our cathedral burned with her.”

The word “burned” catches on fire for a moment, flames burning brightly. Then returns to normal.

The next line appears: “Our cathedral of Corley stone, glass shatter.”

The words “glass shatter” break up into small pieces and fly off in different directions, before returning to their original form and the next set of lines appear underneath:

“Firefighting on the roof, granddad never forgave himself.

All this matters: our togetherness and our unity.

Our cathedral, laid open”

Then the last two lines of the verse appear to pull open and the words “to the sky” are revealed beneath the lines. The rest of the words disappear so that only “to the sky” is left.

The last words fade to black and this projection is now finished.

Now make your way to site 3 which is in the porch of the new cathedral to the right of the stairs up to the old Coventry Cathedral Ruins.

Audio descriptions for other sites at Coventry Cathedral

• Scene setting and instructions
• Site 1 
• Site 2 (current page)
• Site 3
• Site 4
• Site 5