Off To The Movies
Today I am going to see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug with Eric and the Munchkin. I've wanted to see it since the first movie came out, but I am also annoyed. Our theater doesn't have the headset you need to listen to the audio descriptive track, so I won't be able to hear it. I will miss visual cues in the movie that everyone else will get to see. If Bifur starts speaking in Kuzdul (the Dwarves' language for those who don't know), Eric may be able to whisper the translation to me. Or he may not. depends on the crowdedness of the theater.
There is a wonderful app out there called MovieReading that allows you to download audio description tracks for some movies to your iDevice of choice. You then take that with you into the theater, put in your own headset, and sync the track with the movie. (The app uses your microphone to listen to the movie track and syncs the description with that somehow.) There's just one problem. For whatever reason, they are not allowed to put The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug audio description track into the app, so I can't use that as an option, I just checked five minutes ago, and it's not there.
As I said on twitter during a mini-rant: "When are we going to have the same right of access to audio description? When?" "We can't black out screens for sighted users, but they are allowed to not give me access to vital parts of the movie in any theater. Why?"
I also can't necessarily get audio description included on a dVD, so I'll still miss out at home when I watch it again. It happened with The Hunger Games. I didn't get a full sense of everything until I bought the audio description track from Solo DX (www.solo-dx.com) and watched the movie again with the track playing.
A Twitter friend of mine in Holland pointed out it can be much worse. They don't have audio description in theaters or on DVDs at all over there, so he has it much worse. It should not have to be that much worse. We should all be able to watch movies in whatever format just as the rest of you do.
the same applies to deaf movie-goers. a deaf friend on Twitter said they don't always have captions, so she misses what's being said. Literally.
This is not cool. I don't know what the solution is. I don't know how to make this better. But it has to be made better. Not just here in the US, but EVERYWHERE. We disabled people have a right to enjoy content just as the rest of you do. Or maybe, just for an evening, you all should have to pay full-price for a ticket, and go in and have no pictures, just sounds. Or no sounds, just pictures. And you won't know when it will happen or even why, It just will. And all you'll get is, "I'm sorry, we don't have a way to fix that." Or "We can't afford the equipment to get it so you all can access this." Because that is what I hear most often. "The headsets and equipment are too expensive." That equipment should not have to be so expensive. I don't know who sets those prices, and who determines if audio description is available. I wish I did. Then we could start a letter-writing campaign. Perhaps if you are able to figure this out, we can coordinate this. Captions and audio description tracks should be available in every single format that is sold, from movie theater versions to DVDs of whatever format, to iTunes and Netflix or Amazon streaming video.
I am going to enjoy "The Hobbit: The desolation of Smaug", but think about this, all of you who are able to take seeing the movie and hearing it as a given.
There is a wonderful app out there called MovieReading that allows you to download audio description tracks for some movies to your iDevice of choice. You then take that with you into the theater, put in your own headset, and sync the track with the movie. (The app uses your microphone to listen to the movie track and syncs the description with that somehow.) There's just one problem. For whatever reason, they are not allowed to put The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug audio description track into the app, so I can't use that as an option, I just checked five minutes ago, and it's not there.
As I said on twitter during a mini-rant: "When are we going to have the same right of access to audio description? When?" "We can't black out screens for sighted users, but they are allowed to not give me access to vital parts of the movie in any theater. Why?"
I also can't necessarily get audio description included on a dVD, so I'll still miss out at home when I watch it again. It happened with The Hunger Games. I didn't get a full sense of everything until I bought the audio description track from Solo DX (www.solo-dx.com) and watched the movie again with the track playing.
A Twitter friend of mine in Holland pointed out it can be much worse. They don't have audio description in theaters or on DVDs at all over there, so he has it much worse. It should not have to be that much worse. We should all be able to watch movies in whatever format just as the rest of you do.
the same applies to deaf movie-goers. a deaf friend on Twitter said they don't always have captions, so she misses what's being said. Literally.
This is not cool. I don't know what the solution is. I don't know how to make this better. But it has to be made better. Not just here in the US, but EVERYWHERE. We disabled people have a right to enjoy content just as the rest of you do. Or maybe, just for an evening, you all should have to pay full-price for a ticket, and go in and have no pictures, just sounds. Or no sounds, just pictures. And you won't know when it will happen or even why, It just will. And all you'll get is, "I'm sorry, we don't have a way to fix that." Or "We can't afford the equipment to get it so you all can access this." Because that is what I hear most often. "The headsets and equipment are too expensive." That equipment should not have to be so expensive. I don't know who sets those prices, and who determines if audio description is available. I wish I did. Then we could start a letter-writing campaign. Perhaps if you are able to figure this out, we can coordinate this. Captions and audio description tracks should be available in every single format that is sold, from movie theater versions to DVDs of whatever format, to iTunes and Netflix or Amazon streaming video.
I am going to enjoy "The Hobbit: The desolation of Smaug", but think about this, all of you who are able to take seeing the movie and hearing it as a given.