1997 Meeting with Industry Representatives
In 1996, the Movie Access Coalition, a predecessor of the Coalition for Movie Captioning, developed a White Paper on the need for vastly increased captioning of first-run movies in theaters.
The White Paper included a proposed schedule to make all movies available with captions within three years.
At a January 1997 meeting in California of representatives from the Movie Access Coalition, motion picture studios, National Association of Theater Owners (NATO), and Tripod Captioned Films, the studios agreed to increase the number of open captioned movies.
The studios also agreed to increase the number of prints available, show captioned movies at regular show times, and charge regular box office prices. Ten major cities were targeted for testing of the captioned showings.
Reorganization as CMC
Much has been made of the increasing number of films that are being captioned. However, the hoped for results from the above-mentioned meeting with industry representatives fell far short of expectations.
By the year 2000, which was the White Paper’s target date for 100% captioning of movies, more than 80% of the 478 mainstream films released were still not available with either open or closed captions.
This continuing state of affairs led to reorganization of a broader national Coalition for Movie Captioning (CMC). Charter members of the new coalition were these major national organizations committed to addressing the theater access needs of America’s 28 million consumers who are deaf, hard of hearing and late-deafened:
Today only a small number of theaters showing first-run movies are equipped with Rear Window Captioning™. Also, only six to 20 prints of any movie that is open-captioned have been made available. On the big July 4, 2002 holiday weekend, only 24 screens across the U.S. featured captioned movies on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with 34 screens on Sunday.
The NATO website listed 35,153 total screens in its 2001 statistics section and the Motion Picture Association of America website listed 36,764 screens. Thus on the July 4 weekend less than one out of every 1,000 screens in the U.S. was showing a captioned movie. In many states, no movies with captions were available. Similar statistics were reported on other holiday weekends.
Tripod Captioned Films (now InSight Cinema) stated in mid-2002 that one open captioned print would last for 11-12 show dates if made available for captioning when it is new, and for about 8-10 dates if the print is used before the captions are added.
Formats Currently Available in Movie Theaters
Open Captioning (OC) - Tripod Captioned Films has been receiving “prints” of movies from a number of studios. In November 2002, InSight Cinema, a separate 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization, replaced Tripod Captioned Films.
Rear Window Captioning™ (RWC) - This process uses an LED text display mounted at the rear of the theater for display of captions timed to match the audio portion of the film. Only those viewers who have a transparent acrylic panel at their seats see these captions. WGBH MoPix has made approximately 50 films available in 2002, and 17 were made available in 2001. This system also has the ability to provide video description for visually-impaired viewers.
Cinema Subtitling System (CSS) – This format is made available by Digital Theatrical Systems (DTS) through captions stored on a hard drive. The captions are synchronized with a time code already found on prints of movies shown with its DTS digital audio system. Captions are shown through a second projector that superimposes them onto the screen. First demonstrated to a U.S. audience in Sioux Falls, SD in 2001, this system is receiving good reviews from pilot tests since December 2001 at 11 sites in the United Kingdom. Video description can also be provided by this system.
A number of additional technologies are available or could be adapted to display captioning, but are not currently being used.
Among them are Personal Captioning Systems’ technology, which uses PDAs to display captions and DLP Cinema CineCanvas by Texas Instruments, a new projector similar to the Cinema Subtitling System from DTS that can overlay captions directly onto a movie.
Misleading Figures and Misperceptions
Various news accounts have said that in 2001 Tripod Captioned Films showed 60 different films in over 500 theaters in the U.S. What is not being reported is that many of these theaters may have only had one showing each year or very sporadic showings throughout the year. Movies were actually shown regularly in only 118 theaters. Of these:
It may appear that the number of open captioned movie showings has grown rapidly. In reality, there have been cutbacks in 2002.
In Virginia, where most of the movie theaters showing open captioned movies are part of the Regal chain, there have been fewer movies and fewer days with showings, despite the February 2002 passage of House Joint Resolution 409 by the Virginia General Assembly, expressing support for the showing of captioned first-run movies.
Rear Window Captioning™ is also publicized for its ability to show a captioned movie at all times. However, many auditoriums with this technology do not use it. From November 8 to December 12, 2002 there were as many as 29 first-run movie theater screens equipped with Rear Window Captioning™ in the U.S., not including those with IMAX films. Yet each week from 6 to 15 of these screens had no movie showing with Rear Window Captioning.
According to WGBH’s MoPix, the most common reason for non-usage of Rear Window Captioning™ is the negotiation between studios and theater chains over film placement in auditoriums. Because most of a movie’s gross is in the opening weeks, studios want to open in the largest auditoriums, which may or may not have Rear Window Captioning™ equipment.
Are Captions Distracting?
While some may argue that captions appearing on a movie screen are distracting to viewers, this argument has not in fact been independently researched. In particular no studies have been conducted to determine whether audiences will quickly adapt to captions.
Many public places such as health clubs, bars, and museums now routinely display captions on their TV screens.
An article in The Washington Post by Frank Ahrens on May 25, 2002 quoted Tom Bernard, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, a foreign film distributor: “’Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,’ the 2000 martial arts fantasy, was the highest-grossing foreign-language film ever, earning $130 million. That would not have been possible were it not for the youth audience.” Ahrens points out the youth audience would not have come were its members uncomfortable with subtitles.
Michael Barker, the other co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, explaining the comfort of younger viewers, said: “Anything you turn on, you’re reading subtitles,” referring to the text ‘crawls’ at the bottom of the screen on TV programs as well as the way young people constantly multi-task on computers, receiving instant messages which watching movies or doing homework.
In the past, Jill Sahakian, Director of the Chicago Hearing Society, reported that the organization sponsored screenings of open captioned films for many years. A significant number of people who attended were hearing family members or friends who accompanied deaf or hard of hearing people. Sahakian made a point of asking these hearing people how they felt about captioning and whether it detracted from their movie-going experience. She learned that hearing viewers quickly got used to the captioning.
Sahakian also learned that almost everyone with ‘normal’ hearing said that at some point in every movie they had trouble understanding the dialogue, due to things such as background noise in the movie, an onscreen conversation being whispered, or an on-screen conversation coming over the phone. She found this difficulty made hearing viewers really appreciate having the captions. Sahakian’s findings have been reinforced by other informal studies and surveys.
In addition, there are no formal studies that document the number of people who stay away from movies because, without captions, they cannot attend with their families and friends.
There are also no unbiased studies showing that captioning by itself has a negative effect on box office sales.
Experiences with films that were made available with visible captions or subtitles while the films were ‘hot’ at the box office, such as showings of “Titanic”, “Harry Potter: the Sorcerer’s Stone” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” show quite the opposite. Hearing moviegoers flocked to the captioned and subtitled showings and also commented that the subtitles and captions were helpful, particularly when a character had an unfamiliar accent.
An increasing number of anecdotes cite captions as an aid to literacy and to people learning English as a second language.
Are Captions Expensive?
Laser etching of subtitles on a film is reported to cost $700 per print and take 7-12 hours to copy, depending on the amount of dialogue. However, if a plan is made from the beginning, as it is for widely distributed films with subtitles such as “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” the subtitles can be added directly, before the film negative is made, for a $12,000 one-time cost. This is miniscule when you consider that in the year 2001, the average cost of a film – including production costs, studio overhead, and capitalized interests ---was $47.9 million according to the MPAA.
Tripod Captioned Films estimated in 2002 that it costs an average of $7,000 to set up the captioning files for a film, with additional costs to burn the captions onto each print. The full cost depends on how much dialogue is in the film.
Rear Window Captioning™ costs approximately $2,000 per film. To display these captions, theaters must purchase special equipment costing approximately $8,000 per auditorium, which includes installation and some reflector panels. The cost is reduced when a theater orders more than one package.
It is extremely difficult to believe that captioning is too expensive for the film industry when Cinetyp routinely subtitles prints for distribution in non-English speaking countries.
Will People Go to See Captioned Movies?
Theaters have complained that although people say they want captioned movies, when captioned movies are made available, people don’t show up to watch them.
This should come as no surprise. Theaters do little or nothing to advertise the captioned showings. There are no signs at the theater to let people know that a captioned movie is available.
A long-standing complaint by those who want to see captioned movies is that they cannot reach someone at a theater who knows the show times for these captioned movies. People with hearing loss have tremendous difficulty navigating the typical theater voice menu systems and often find little or no information about captioned showings on a theater’s website.
Open captioned films are largely shown at dates and times that are normally slow and draw fewer attendees. It is unrealistic to expect that deaf and hard of hearing people would eager to attend captioned showings during ‘off times’ that have proven to be unpopular for hearing audiences.
When Rear Window Captioning™ equipment is available, theaters do not have signs to inform moviegoers or explain what it is, how to get screens to view it, and how to use it.
In many cases, captioned movies are shown when they are no longer popular at the box office. “Attack of the Clones”, which was released on May 16, 2002, first arrived with captions in the Washington, DC area on July 1, 2002 with one print for one day of showings. Joel Stein, writing in a TIME magazine article on May 20, 2002 said, “We’ve become a first-week culture...nowadays if you see an event after the first couple of weeks, you’re not really a participant but an observer, a sociologist trying to discover what it was that everyone was so excited about.” Those who depend on captioning for their movie understanding and enjoyment know this feeling well.
Numerous individuals have also reported that theater personnel have made negative comments to moviegoers which give the impression that captioned films are of a lesser quality.
Consumer Preferences
Consumers continue to report dissatisfaction with Rear Window Captioning™. Among the complaints: red captions make tough reading for some people with vision problems, captions are lost when a moviegoer stands up and blocks their reflection, reflector panels do not stay in place, seating is limited because captions are viewed best from specific areas of the theater, panels are not kept maintained, the panel makes it awkward to hold drinks and popcorn, and the panel gets in the way of people passing by the seat.
The Coalition for Movie Captioning considers Rear Window Captioning™ a “bridge technology” and encourages the development of better systems to eliminate these and other problems in order to fully meet consumer needs detailed in the coalition’s Statement of Expectations.
Legal Challenges
The Americans with Disabilities Act, passed in 1990, encouraged but did not mandate the captioning of films. Twelve years of voluntary encouragement has netted very low gains, despite the fact that open captioned movies in theaters and numerous captioning technologies were not available when the original document was passed.
In Oregon, a lawsuit was filed to require a number of theater chains to show captioned movies. This case was dismissed in mid-2002.
In the District of Columbia, a second lawsuit against AMC Entertainment, Inc. and Loews Cineplex Entertainment Corp. was filed in the U.S. district court.
The Coalition for Movie Captioning submitted amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs for the Oregon and District of Columbia lawsuits.
A third lawsuit against numerous movie studios was filed in the U.S. district court for the southeast district of Texas.
Survey Findings
Informal surveys were undertaken in June and July 2002 by three national organizations, the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, National Association of the Deaf, and Self Help for Hard of Hearing People.
Results showed that those who had seen a captioned movie would go to see one again.
The survey also found that consumers strongly felt:
Public Information
The “disability press” is providing more coverage on movie captioning and the activities of the Coalition for Movie Captioning.
In recent months, articles have appeared in publications such as Hearing Health, Disability News Digest, ADA Watch, Wired On Wheels, iCAN, Justice for All, and American Association for People with Disabilities. On A Roll had a radio interview with a member of the coalition.
The mainstream press is also beginning to take notice. A Vancouver, WA newspaper ran an article on Regal’s cuts of the captioned movie showings there.
Articles appeared by Lynn Smith of the Los Angeles Times on May 26, and Vickie Beck of the Tampa Tribune on July 7. Smith’s article was reprinted in Australia.
Joe Pinner of Jacksonville, FL did a piece on his radio program, and Nick News with Linda Ellerbee covered captioning of movies in a story.
The Future
Digital cinema will make captioning easy to do, but the question remains whether it will be done right.
Not one representative of the Coalition for Movie Captioning is being included in deliberations of the Digital Consortium set up by studios, theaters and manufacturers.
The Coalition for Movie Captioning feels strongly that coalition representatives should be involved in developing the captioning standards that they will have to live with in the future, including their family and friends.
The Coalition for Movie Captioning (CMC), a coalition of major national organizations, believes that individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing and late-deafened should be able to attend any showing of any movie in any theater at any time, with equal access through high quality captioning. We welcome new organization and individual members, especially frustrated movie buffs.
Links:
[1] http://www.nad.org/users/admin
[2] http://deaf.disqus.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nad.org%2Fnews%2F2002%2F12%2Fcoalition-movie-captioning