Miss-Delectable
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 17,160
- Reaction score
- 7
Chattanooga Times Free Press | Chattanooga: Theater to offer captioned movie for deaf and hearing-impaired
It’s only appropriate that members of Chattanooga’s hearing-impaired community will be able to screen a captioned version of the movie “Wanted” this weekend since many of them have wanted such a service for a long time.
Chattanooga State Technical Community College has teamed up with Carmike Cinemas to offer the open-captioned movie at Northgate Cinema 8 at 4 and 7 p.m. on both Sunday and Monday.
“We felt there was a need,” said Laqueta Soule, who directs the school’s Realtime Reporting Program. “I think the deaf and hard-of-hearing community welcome any chance to go see a movie. I think we don’t think about when it’s just sound, they can’t hear it.”
While many theaters offer assistive listening devices for the hard-of-hearing, an open-captioned movie, where the captions remain on the screen, is not generally offered locally.
Richard Twitchell, the local contact for the Chattanooga chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America, said he and his wife, Nelda, who is hearing impaired, have not seen a movie locally since the former theater in Hamilton Place mall stopped offering them about once a month four or five years ago.
“We’re thrilled with the aspect there will be open caption movies coming back to Chattanooga,” he said. “It’s like winning the gold medal at the Olympics.”
Mrs. Soule said she did not know whether Northgate 8 will offer the service regularly, but she hopes it will if the response is good.
Local and national Carmike representatives could not be reached for comment.
Jeremy Devine, national director of marketing for Rave Motion Pictures, said the service is not widely offered in the universe of theaters. But he said most top 50 markets will offer a captioned screening occasionally.
“It’s costly,” he said, and would be difficult for a theater to recoup its investment due to a relatively small audience.
Rave Motion Pictures offers the service in Fort Worth, Texas, and Fort Wayne, Ind., Mr. Devine said, and has plans to provide it in Omaha, Neb.
AMC Theaters, which has no locations in the Chattanooga area, “is very good about this,” he said. “They’ve embraced the technology.”
According to online information at Closed Captioning Web, the Americans With Disabilities Act guarantees hard-of-hearing people access to public movies via assistive listening systems. But there is no captioning guarantee for deaf or hard-of-hearing people who cannot adequately understand public movies with such devices.
The technologies for movie theater captions include open captioning; Rear Window captioning, which involves the use of a mirror-type viewing device on seatbacks; and the Cinema Subtitling System by Digital Theater System, which projects the captions directly onto the screen, according to information on the site.
Mrs. Soule said CSTCC’s Realtime Reporting Program officials had kicked around the idea of becoming involved in the sponsorship of a captioned screening in recent months, but the idea moved forward when Jed Mescon, who works with the school’s marketing department, agreed to contact the movie chain.
“They thought there was a need,” she said.
Before the four showings this weekend, a representative of the Realtime Reporting Program will give a brief mention of the courses offered at the school that benefit the deaf and hard-of-hearing community.
A movie trailer sent to hundreds of hearing-loss people also was coded with open captioning.
Mr. Twitchell said there are a number of people eagerly awaiting the first captioned screening. Even though he is not hard of hearing, he is used to captions from watching television with his wife.
“I’m almost uncomfortable if (captioning) isn’t there,” he said.
It’s only appropriate that members of Chattanooga’s hearing-impaired community will be able to screen a captioned version of the movie “Wanted” this weekend since many of them have wanted such a service for a long time.
Chattanooga State Technical Community College has teamed up with Carmike Cinemas to offer the open-captioned movie at Northgate Cinema 8 at 4 and 7 p.m. on both Sunday and Monday.
“We felt there was a need,” said Laqueta Soule, who directs the school’s Realtime Reporting Program. “I think the deaf and hard-of-hearing community welcome any chance to go see a movie. I think we don’t think about when it’s just sound, they can’t hear it.”
While many theaters offer assistive listening devices for the hard-of-hearing, an open-captioned movie, where the captions remain on the screen, is not generally offered locally.
Richard Twitchell, the local contact for the Chattanooga chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America, said he and his wife, Nelda, who is hearing impaired, have not seen a movie locally since the former theater in Hamilton Place mall stopped offering them about once a month four or five years ago.
“We’re thrilled with the aspect there will be open caption movies coming back to Chattanooga,” he said. “It’s like winning the gold medal at the Olympics.”
Mrs. Soule said she did not know whether Northgate 8 will offer the service regularly, but she hopes it will if the response is good.
Local and national Carmike representatives could not be reached for comment.
Jeremy Devine, national director of marketing for Rave Motion Pictures, said the service is not widely offered in the universe of theaters. But he said most top 50 markets will offer a captioned screening occasionally.
“It’s costly,” he said, and would be difficult for a theater to recoup its investment due to a relatively small audience.
Rave Motion Pictures offers the service in Fort Worth, Texas, and Fort Wayne, Ind., Mr. Devine said, and has plans to provide it in Omaha, Neb.
AMC Theaters, which has no locations in the Chattanooga area, “is very good about this,” he said. “They’ve embraced the technology.”
According to online information at Closed Captioning Web, the Americans With Disabilities Act guarantees hard-of-hearing people access to public movies via assistive listening systems. But there is no captioning guarantee for deaf or hard-of-hearing people who cannot adequately understand public movies with such devices.
The technologies for movie theater captions include open captioning; Rear Window captioning, which involves the use of a mirror-type viewing device on seatbacks; and the Cinema Subtitling System by Digital Theater System, which projects the captions directly onto the screen, according to information on the site.
Mrs. Soule said CSTCC’s Realtime Reporting Program officials had kicked around the idea of becoming involved in the sponsorship of a captioned screening in recent months, but the idea moved forward when Jed Mescon, who works with the school’s marketing department, agreed to contact the movie chain.
“They thought there was a need,” she said.
Before the four showings this weekend, a representative of the Realtime Reporting Program will give a brief mention of the courses offered at the school that benefit the deaf and hard-of-hearing community.
A movie trailer sent to hundreds of hearing-loss people also was coded with open captioning.
Mr. Twitchell said there are a number of people eagerly awaiting the first captioned screening. Even though he is not hard of hearing, he is used to captions from watching television with his wife.
“I’m almost uncomfortable if (captioning) isn’t there,” he said.