Movie Theaters To Improve Accessibility for Blind, Deaf

On July 29, 2010, Attorney General Martha Coakley announced a new era in accessibility in the Bay State, outlining an agreement with the state’s three largest movie cinema chains. The deal dramatically increases the number of movie screens with audio description for people who are visually impaired and with captioning for patrons who are deaf or hard of hearing. 

The technology has been available for many years, but movie theater's have not been outfitted with equipment to utilize it. That will change starting almost immediately, making a positive impact on hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents who go to the movies.

Movie theater accessibility improvements will include:

• 100% of theaters run by National Amusements, AMC and Regal Entertainment Group will have at least one accessible auditorium.

• Hearing and visually impaired individuals for the first time will have a choice of accessible movie options at their theaters with 10 or more screens.

• The total number of accessible auditoriums will increase 450% from 14 to 63 and the number of locations with multiple accessible screens will increase from 0 to 27.

Read details of the agreement on AG Martha Coakley's website.

“We think this is a good start,” said Coakley. “As the technology moves to all-digital film making, our hope is that captioning and audio description will be built in as a matter of course, no longer requiring retro-fitting.”

The Media Access Group at WGBH has been instrumental in creating the modes of access to movies, such as “rear-window” captioning and audio description.

Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library Director, Kim Charlson, spoke at the press conference about the very first time The Media Access Group tested audio description.

“It was 1988, I think. About 20 of us gathered in the Thorndike Room at Perkins. When the 30-minute TV show was over, we were speechless,” she recalled. “We couldn’t believe that for the very first time we watched a show and understood completely what was going on, even when the actors weren’t speaking. It was groundbreaking then, and this agreement will be groundbreaking now.”

Perkins President Steven Rothstein echoed Charlson's enthusiasm: "When [theaters] offer audio described films, Perkins students and all people with impaired vision not only get to enjoy going to the movies, they get to be more fully engaged in their community, society and modern culture.”

Area live performance theatres are already making strides toward accessibility as evidenced in this December ‘09 Boston Globe article featuring Charslon. Read the story.