Where Light Falls Audio Description for Sight Impaired Visitors: Site 3

Transcript

Where Light Falls audio description for sight impaired visitors: site 3

You are standing at site 3 is in the porch of the new cathedral to the right of the stairs up to the old Coventry Cathedral Ruins.

In front of you is the wall of the old 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 the crossed beams of charred oak in the smoking dawn light”

A sun appears in the loop of the d in the word “dawn” it grows brighter and travels from left to right, along the line of poetry. It stops at the end of the line and turns into the full stop at the end of the line.

The following line appears underneath:

“All through the night the cathedral bells still rang the hours out”

The word bell grows slightly bigger and nudges the word next to it, as if it is a bell chiming

The next lines appear, with the word “the” appearing first and in turn the rest of the words travel from behind. It reads:

“but from the channel the red ribbon on the horizon”

The words disappear to make space for:

“was a city ablaze, citizens now emerging dazed

to morning: nothing left but the spire and the shell ….

it makes you think it all a bad dream.”

Then the words “in ash and rubble” appear. They are grainy and broken up at first, but solidify to become clearer and then the line “three roof nails make cruciform, the Provost finds the right words” appear beneath.

The words now disappear to make way for the next verse:

The following lines appear:

“But this poor youngling, the child who grips a mother’s hand tight

is heartful of fear at the bombsite’s empty eye sockets:”

And then the line:

“how does a city find the thread of a song…”

The words in the phrase “thread of a song” start to grow apart from each other, with a thin white line, like a thread of cotton, connecting them all together. They continue to spread outwards until the thread is pulled tight, then they fall back into place.

This is followed by the words “and rise again?” appearing, travelling upwards as if they appear over a horizon and form the final line of the verse.

The verse disappears as the next set of lines come in to view.

“Our cathedral - warm sandstone

holding the remnants of heat

of November in her peaceful arms, fragmented voices;

this broken building”

The word “building” fragments and pieces start to fall to the ground, before the word returns back.

The line “half a cathedral” appears next and the word “half”, is split in two with a sharp line

 Then the following lines appear:

“Our Cathedral for a blitzed city that would not give up.

Small voices echo”

The word “small” becomes much smaller, receding into the background, and then the word “echo” becomes larger and appears to vibrate slightly

The words “glass once shattered now illuminates” appear underneath, and the word “illuminates” is lit up brightly.

Then the words “symbol of hope, the open air now embraced” appear as the last line of poetry. The letters in the words appear to fly in all directions, including towards us, before flying back to their original position.  

The words fade away and it is the end of this projection.

Now walk to site 4. Site 4 is in the porch of the new cathedral to the left of the stairs that lead up to the old Coventry Cathedral Ruins.

Audio descriptions for other sites at Coventry Cathedral

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