Hey all! Seen any good movies
lately??
As I was working on my last review,
I realized that my ASL reviews are useless without Deaf access to new movies.
I’m sure a lot of you know the ins and outs of finding captioned movies,
especially if you enjoy going to the theater now and then, but I thought I’d
gather some information on captioned movies and how to find them.
What I’ve learned is that there are
generally two kinds of captioning: open and closed. Open captioning is where
the captions are displayed across the screen. They make this possible by using
a laser to burn the words out of every frame of film. This generally costs them
around $4,000, or $40 per minute of movie! Closed captioning happens when
someone chooses to view the captions; they’re not visible to everyone else
(like the captions on your television). When you go to the movies, they have
special systems in place to offer this in select theaters.
The closed captioning system
usually used in movie theaters is Rear Window Captioning. It’s a little device,
kind of like a small window, that sits in your cup holder or stands on the
floor. A screen at the back of the theater projects the captions, which reflect
off of your device so you can read them. It costs a theater between $8,000 and
$12,000 to install this in just ONE of their screening rooms. That’s probably
the reason they’re not available everywhere.
So how do you find captioned movies
in your area?? Well, I have found that AMC Theatres is really good about
accessibility. They have a section of their website dedicated to finding movie
times in their theaters where some type of captioning is available. You just
enter the theater you want to go to, and it gives you a list of showtimes.
Click HERE to go to that website.
The other cool website I found is called CaptionFish! Just
enter your city in the top right corner of their website and it will give you a
list of theaters and the showtimes where captioning is available. Click HERE to
go to CaptionFish.
If there are no captioned movies
available near you, or you have to drive an obscene distance to find
captioning, let your local theater know you want captions! Contact them and
direct them to MoPix, a company helps movie theaters provide captions. (Click
HERE for that information.) While you’re at it, get some friends to contact
your theater too! The higher the demand, the higher the chances are of them
paying attention. Make sure they know how much business they could get if only
they provided captions!
If you are still having trouble
finding captions, contact the theaters in your area. Ask them about their
accessibility options and showtimes. They may have options you aren’t aware of.
Don’t be afraid to ask!
That’s it for me. Hopefully I’ll be
back in the next week or two with another movie for you guys! I’m including all
of the websites I talked about at the bottom here also, so spread the word!
