A High-Tech Assist For City's Deaf Film Fans

IN December of 1997, I went to see "Titanic" in a Los Angeles movie theater, and in just three hours, my movie-going experience was forever changed. It was the first time I understood all the dialogue, thanks to a new kind of captioning technology called Rear Window Captioning.

And now it is finally here in Seattle, at the downtown Pacific Place theater (and coming to the soon-to-open Cinerama). Equal access to movie entertainment for deaf and hard-of-hearing people is slowly becoming a reality, but as I soon discovered, there remain many barriers.

Going to the movies is difficult for anyone with a hearing loss and particularly so for those like me who rely on lip reading to understand the spoken word. Even though I have a hearing aid that helps me hear some sounds, I do not understand much of the dialogue in a movie. Trying to read lips on a movie screen is like a hearing person trying to understand someone talking from across a noisy room. In both cases, you end up missing a lot.

Nevertheless, I used to go to the movies for years because I simply loved the smell of popcorn, the thrill of seeing pictures come alive on the big screen and being with companions in a social setting. Eventually, I realized it was not worth my time and money trying to figure out what was happening and stopped going to see movies. Much later, with the advent of closed captioning (which are subtitles that can be turned on or off) for television and videos, I finally "saw" Rhett Butler's famous line, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!"

Rear Window Captioning is a boon for deaf people like me as well as those who are hard-of-hearing, because it allows us to see first-run films. If this system were installed in every theater, I would have the freedom to choose which movie I wanted to see on any day. I would not have to wait until the video release or for special screenings of open-captioned movies, which are subtitled, as in foreign films. Currently, open-captioned films are the only way for deaf people to see English-spoken movies in a theater. Although this allows us to experience the thrill of big screen effects, these films are never available on a first-run basis and screenings are as infrequent as the sun during a Seattle winter.

The way Rear Window Captioning works is very simple. A reflector panel, which looks like a car's rear-view mirror, is placed on an adjustable gooseneck stand that is attached to the seat, usually in the soft-drink holder. The panel reflects the dialogue that appears on a digital strip mounted on the back wall of the theater. You can easily adjust the panel so that the words appear at eye-level on the theater screen. These "personal subtitles" allow a movie patron to watch a movie without the captions interfering with the rest of the audience. In fact, Rear Window Captioning works without hearing people even being aware of it.

After I saw "Titanic," I started dreaming that every first-run movie would be captioned. I dreamt of attending movies with both my hearing and deaf companions, understanding every word of the movie, and afterwards, participating in an animated discussion of the movie. Never again would I have to elbow the person sitting next to me and ask, "What did they just say?"

Determined to make this dream come true, four other individuals and I started "Caption Seattle," a grass-roots group whose mission is to bring Rear Window Captioning to Seattle's theaters. Fulfilling our mission has not been easy. For the past seven months we have been working with theater owners to educate them about Rear Window Captioning and to demonstrate there is demand for the system in Seattle. We have found that the theaters are not willing to install the equipment unless the film studios provide captioned movies. But in a Catch-22, the film studios have not committed themselves to regularly captioning first-run movies because they are not convinced there is a market for captioning.

What theaters and studios fail to realize is that the market for Rear Window Captioning would encompass not only people with total or profound hearing losses, but many elderly individuals who have experienced gradual decline in hearing due to aging. Movies are also a large part of the social lives of many adolescents, and this technology would create new opportunities for young people with hearing losses. Plus, the cost of captioning a movie for the studios (about $12,000) is very small compared to the cost of production.

Caption Seattle has clearly demonstrated the demand for Rear Window Captioning in other ways: We have received hundreds of letters of support from people who never or rarely go to the movies because their hearing loss prevents them from understanding the dialogue. We are currently implementing a letter-writing campaign to the studios and publicizing our efforts in newsletters and through the media.

However, media attention has not been forthcoming; issues of accessibility and efforts of small grass-roots groups are simply not high on the agenda for coverage. This has to change, as this is a social-justice issue that concerns all of us.

I applaud Pacific Place for being the first theater in Seattle to have Rear Window Captioning and Sony Pictures for captioning its film "8mm" for the premiere. This is a first step toward making more theaters accessible, but we need to do even more. Remember to ask if Rear Window Captioning is available every time you go to see a movie. Each one of us has the obligation to promote equal access to movie entertainment for deaf and hard-of-hearing people.

Elizabeth Ralston is the coordinator of Caption Seattle, a volunteer, grass-roots group dedicated to bringing Rear Window Captioning to Seattle's movie theaters.