Background Notes
Captioned Movies Forum
February 25, 2000
Sydney
BACKGROUND
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has received a complaint under the Disability Discrimination Act (1992) alleging discrimination by a cinema chain because they do not provide captioning of movies.
The Disability Discrimination Act makes discrimination unlawful regarding access to services (section 24), except where providing non-discriminatory access would involve unjustifiable hardship. In a Notice issued November 2, 1999 the Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Ms. Susan Halliday, requested submissions to:
- assist her and the parties to the complaint to identify options for resolution of the complaint;
- assist her to determine whether the power to decline the complaint under section 71 should be exercised (on grounds including that the act complained of is not unlawful or that another more appropriate remedy is reasonably available);
- assist her to decide whether the subject matter is such that it should be referred to the Commission for determination.
In particular submissions were requested on issues affecting the feasibility of implementation in Australian cinemas of the Rear Window captioning system of closed captioning developed in the United States or other options for captioning of movies for the benefit of deaf and hearing impaired persons.
Ten submissions were received. After reviewing the submissions the Commissioner determined that further progress towards resolution of the complaint would benefit from an open discussion of the issues raised in the submissions and consequently scheduled the public forum to be held in Sydney on February 25, 2000.
PROCEDURE
The Forum is open to all interested parties.
All submissions are available for consultation on the Commission website (http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/current_inquiries/capmovie/capmovie.html) or by contacting Harvey Goldberg at 02 9284 9634 or disability@humanrights.gov.au . Parties have been requested to make additional written submissions, if any, by February 18. Additional submissions will be posted on the web.
The meeting will be chaired by the Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Susan Halliday. The Deputy Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Mr. Graeme Innes, will also participate.
All participants at the Forum will be invited to make a five minute presentation stating their position with regard to the issues outlined above. The floor will then be open for a general exchange of views and open discussion.
The objective of the discussion will be to reach a consensus on how the Commissioner should resolve the issues raised in the complaint in a manner consistent with the Disability Discrimination Act and relevant jurisprudence.
SUBMISSIONS RECEIVED TO DATE
Ten submissions have been received:
$ Australian Caption Centre
$ Australian Federation of Deaf Societies
$ Bridges Communications
$ Deafness Council Western Australia
$ Deafness Forum of Australia
$ National Working Party on Captioning
$ Personal Captioning Inc
$ Village Roadshow
$ Western Australian Deaf Society
$ WGBH Boston
All the parties making submissions, except one, believe that there are feasible options for making movies accessible to patrons who are deaf or hard of hearing. Two main options for doing this are identified: closed captioning and open captioning. These systems are briefly described below.
The only submission received from a cinema exhibitor, Village Roadshow, favours making films accessible to all patrons but contends that due to legal and technical constraints it is not possible to do so at the present time.
OPTIONS FOR MOVIE CAPTIONING
Open Captioned Showings
In films with open captions the text appears on the screen in a manner similar to foreign language sub-titles. The captions are burned onto the film stock frame by frame using a laser process.
Tripod Captioned Films (TCF) in the United States has been distributing open captioned current release movies since 1982. TCF is a not- for- profit company associated with a school for the deaf located in Burbank, California.
Since 1993 over 130 different movies have been shown in over 300 theatres. Captioned prints are normally ready within four weeks of general release.
Films are usually shown at special screenings aimed at deaf and hard of hearing audiences and their families. However, recently six theatres in six America cities have dedicated screens exclusively for captioned showings.
Studios pay the cost of captioning, prints and distribution. Exhibitors provide the screen, general advertising and promotion. Local advocacy and service groups promote showings. Patrons pay the same admission fee as all other customers.
A drawback of open captioning is the need to arrange for special screenings. Theatres are reluctant to use open captions for regular screenings as they may distract hearing patrons. Often captioned showings are restricted to off peak times. Patrons requiring captioned access, as a result, have limited opportunities to view captioned movies.
The cost of producing multiple copies of captioned prints and the need for special distribution of prints increases costs and makes availability of captioned prints difficult.
Closed Captioning Systems
Closed captioning refers to captioning systems where the captions are viewable only by the people who require them.
Many television broadcasts are close captioned. For normal viewing a captioned broadcast is indistinguishable from a non-captioned broadcast. However, by activating a caption decoder attached to their TV deaf or hard of hearing people can make the captions appear on their screen. Several systems are in use or under development to enable closed captioning to be used in movie theatres.
The Rear Window (RW) system, developed by the National Centre for Accessible Media (NCAM) at public television station WGBH in Boston, utilizes a LED display situated at the back of the theatre. The film captions are projected on to a small transparent screen that fits on the seat in front of the viewer. The viewer can then
view the captions and watch the movie at the same time. The system does not interfere with the viewing of the movie by non-caption users.
The Rear Window system would cost approximately $24,000 per screen to install in Australian theatres. The cost of captioning and the captioned data CD required to run the system are supplied to distributors at no cost by the film production companies. As captioning is done with the full cooperation of the film producers there are no problems concerning copyright.
The system is now in commercial use in sixteen theatres in the United States. It is also being used in specialized theatres in theme parks such as Disney World. RW captioned movies are available at the same time as the general release of the movie.
To date twelve films from seven producers have been captioned for theatrical release:
- The Jackal Universal Pictures
- Titanic Paramount Pictures Corporation
- The Mask of Zorro Sony Pictures Entertainment
- 8mm Sony Pictures Entertainment
- Entrapment 20th Century Fox Film Corp.
- Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace 20th Century Fox Film Corp
- Big Daddy Sony Pictures Entertainment
- Random Hearts Sony Pictures Entertainment
- Toy Story 2* Buena Vista Pictures
- The Green Mile* Warner Bros. Pictures
- Stuart Little* Sony Pictures Entertainment
- Hanging Up* Columbia Pictures
* Current release: all currently showing in Sydney.
As more theatres install the technology NCAM intends to increase the number of films captioned each year.
An advantage of the Rear Window system is that special showings are not required.
Patrons requiring captioning can attend any viewing in an equipped theatre. However, the number of closed caption movies is still small, limiting the viewing options available to caption users.
Development is underway of various Awireless captioning@ systems. These systems transmit the captions to a seat mounted TV type screen, a hand held monitor, or a heads-up viewing device similar to a pair of spectacles. This eliminates the need for a LED display at the rear of the theatre.
CAPTIONING AND DIGITAL MOVIES
Over the next five to ten years theatres may phase out the use of photographic film in favour of a fully digital transmission and projection system. This would involve converting theatres to use a cinema quality digital video system. Films would be transmitted to theatres via satellite or fibre optic land lines.
Closed and open captioning systems currently in use or under development should be compatible with digital movie systems. Conversion to digital should, in fact, make captioning cheaper by eliminating the need to physically distribute a caption data CD to the theatre. Captioning data will be transmitted with the movie electronically.
ISSUES TO BE DISCUSSED
- Captioning options and their feasibility;
- Preferred option for Australia;
- Should all theatres/all screens provide captioning or should it be done on a selective basis (x number of screens in each major market); and
- Possibilities for cooperation between consumers, exhibitors, distributors, producers, and equipment suppliers to consider implementing of movie captioning in the Australian market.
Annex A
STATISTICS ON THE MOVIE INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1996-97
- 325 cinemas
- 1050 screens
- 323,000 seats
- 73,262,000 paid admissions
- Total income: $832,200,000
- Operating profit: $119,900,000
Annex B
STATISTICS ON HEARING IMPAIRMENT
AND
COMMUNICATIONS
- 47,000 Australians over 5 have a profound or severe hearing loss
- 16,000 use sign language
- 136,000 lip read
- Approximately 600,000 Australians use TV captioning
