How the All-Blind team created the audio description of the movie “Penguin”.

He looks forward, his dark eyebrows hiding his dark eyes. One of his several gold teeth glints in the dim light.

This is how Ren Leach describes Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell), aka the iconic villain Batman Penguinin Maxlimited series of the same name.

“You almost get the chills, like you’re actually imagining the scene when we’re first introduced to this character,” says Naomi Weibel, senior vice president of global product management for Warner Bros. Discovery.

A spin-off show “Batman” by Matt Reeves, features audio descriptions created by a team of near-blind professionals. The streamer partnered with post-production company IDC for the project, using personal input from team members to ensure the show’s narrative was adapted to the needs of blind and visually impaired audiences. Leach’s own experience as a blind voice artist influenced his creative process, providing fans with key details such as character micro-expressions and visuals with symbolic narrative meaning.

“The Penguin audio description project was a first-of-its-kind approach,” says Weibel. “This team that came together really brought a level of experience that I think helped take it to a whole new level…they describe things in a really cinematic way and they fit the story.”

Leach credited audio description writers Dakota Greene and Liz Gutman for creating scripts with intricate details. He said that while watching the series with his sighted wife, he was told that the product design has a comic book aesthetic, depicting light glinting off a car bumper or reflecting in a puddle on a wet street.

“The contextual details they add to the scenes give it a lot more texture,” Leach says. “For example, when we talk about the Penguin’s teeth shining in the light … the accents, the details that the show already gives to the visual audience are picked up by our writers and added that way.”

Leach explains that although Penguin is a known antagonist in the batman Universe, portraying Sofia Falcone (Christine Milioti) was a problem because of her position as a new character.

“The evolution of Sophia’s character from a spoiled young aristocrat is really multi-layered,” says Leach. “All the things that help flesh out her character and flesh out the character that she’s going to be for the rest of the show … it’s a fun dichotomy as you go through the story.”

Leach says he used a high register in his voice to capture Sophia’s innocent image before she was imprisoned. He describes how, later in the series, her character physically peels the layers off the wall of her prison cell as a metaphor for her peeling away the layers of her own psyche.

“(Sofia) snaps when she finds out that they are not letting her go. That’s when things get a little darker,” says Leach. “She becomes the killer everyone thinks she is in order to survive.”

One particular feature that Leach highlights is the discovery of Sophia’s scar on her shoulder in episode 4. This detail contrasts with her unscarred shoulder in a flashback earlier in the same episode, which Leach emphasizes with his voice to fill in the subtext and meaning of the character’s horrific experience at Arkham Asylum.

“Scar is the epitome of Sophia’s change,” says Leach. “She’s wearing a dress that shows—it doesn’t hide, it shows—a scar. She has her power and her truth when she shows the scar.”

Leech’s portrayal of Oz Cobb creates something sensual and palpable—a vivid portrait for all fans that transforms The Penguin from a show into an experience. And he finds his strength and truth.