A Powerful Film About a Blind Educator Who Uses Clicks and Echoes to Navigate the World

“Echo” by Ben Wolin and Michael Minahan is a powerful short film about Daniel Kish, a blind educator who uses clicks and echoes to navigate the world around him. This practice is known as echolocation, a subject of which Kish is a pioneer.

If I click at a surface, it answers back.

Wolin and Minahan wanted to the audience to experience how Kish uses echolocation, using elaborate sound design and a special microphone that Kish uses for teaching. It picks up the slightest noise and immerses the viewer in a world of sounds that would otherwise go unnoticed.

The sound design and auditory experience has a vivid, spatial quality that’s rare with a film of this scale.  …It’s through these rich sounds that we’re immersed in and transported to Daniel’s world.

The animated portion of the film features Kish in a cave, teaching a young, visually impaired student about echolocation.

It isn’t about what you should or shouldn’t do. It’s not about presumptions about what you can or can’t do. It’s really about what do you want to do?

Kish’s TED Talk

via Vimeo Staff Picks