Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Deaf Moviegoes Sue Cinemark

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Posted by Robert Crabtree (Member # 4795) on 12-04-2010, 03:34 PM:

According to this article , Cinemark is the defendant in a lawsuit over lack of captioning in its theaters.

If the article is correct that at the time of the suit, there were no captioned shows offered at a single location, then it would appear Cinemark has slapped together a "pilot program of appeasement". They now boast offering Devil and My Soul to Take with captions in a few locations.

On the one hand, I'm definitely appalled at such limited offerings for deaf patrons (2 out of date crappy horror flicks? SERIOUSLY?), and would think it simple good business sense to put such equipment in large/busy locations.

On the other...I don't believe ADA makes any stipulations about captioning. Lack of captioning doesn't constitute the same burden/safety hazard that early stadium builds posed for folks in wheelchairs, for instance. The suit originates from a heavily populated area in California, where there exist options for captioned shows.

Also, Cinemark is not alone in not providing captioning. A casual search of Carmike and Dickinson locations on their websites turned up no locations with captioned offerings. While RAVE lists that some locations have both "Hearing Impaired Technology" and assisted listening devices, I couldn't find evidence suggesting that these two amenities aren't one and the same, so I'd add them to that list as well.

My own position is that Cinemark is perfectly within its rights to drive deaf/HOH customers to other chains or Blockbuster, and I'm a bit uncomfortable with the prospects of a ruling to require it (depending on how such a ruling is derived and articulated). But as deaf folk, and disabled folk in general, tend to be at the receiving end of policies of what I call "benign negligence", I can't say I'm not slightly pleased at a public airing of non-accommodation.

Anyone know anything differently, or have their own two cents to throw in?

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 12-04-2010, 04:43 PM:

A company advertising that it has devices for the hearing impaired is definitely not meaning that they are helping the deaf with captioning and such.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 12-04-2010, 10:42 PM:

"Deaf" and "hearing impaired" are NOT the same thing, either legally or actually. Louis

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-05-2010, 12:23 AM:

This is political correctness gone way too far. Everyone needs to be taken care of and provided for. How much money would you make by dedicating an auditorium to an open caption movie? Not as much as you would giving it to another, regular movie. And how about the DTS thingy which superimposes captions on regular movies? Do you think you'll ever make your money back that you spent on the thing in the first place? Probably not.

Deaf people need to realize that they need to wait until the DVD comes out and turn on the subtitles. They have no right that guarantees them the chance to see a first run movie. Deaf people do not generate revenue. If they want to enjoy a night out at the movies, maybe they should try not being deaf.

What's next, blind people complaining that there isn't descriptive audio at a theater near them?

Posted by Jake Spell (Member # 5294) on 12-05-2010, 12:53 AM:

My personal 2 cents on the whole ADA is that its way out of proportion. These are privately owned buildings therefore the services offered (hearing impaired, handicapped parking, wheelchair accessibility, stadium seating) should be solely at the discretion of the owner. If someone doesn't like not having hearing impaired, then go somewhere that offers it. If you dont like stadium seating dont go to a theater that has it. There is not possible way to make everyone happy or a building that is accessible to everyone.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 12-05-2010, 11:33 AM:

We've alre4ady INVENTED theatre for blind people; we call it RADIO! ("and then John Wayne just rode away. . . . ." Louis

Posted by Jim Ziegler (Member # 86) on 12-05-2010, 05:56 PM:

The plaintiffs will likely find a sympathetic jury in Alameda County... On appeal, however, they will probably lose. This is most likely a ploy to force Cinemark to comply, which is probably why Cinemark is captioning the crap films.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 12-05-2010, 07:19 PM:

Here's a history of sorts of the legal path in the last decade.
Open Caption Info

I think Tripod has changed their names, but they've ben doing the open-captioned films for most of this time. They work with the studios, but do not caption all of the films, just the ones the studios want. We used to show one a month, but then Tripod changed their business plan to concentrate on the major chains and so we were cut out. So no open-captioned films in town for about 10 years.

Then Carmike started showing them here once a month. I've gotten lots of complaints about the presentation from one very vocal member of the deaf community. Apparantly this is what Carmike still uses its 35mm for and no one remembers how to work it.

Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 12-05-2010, 08:10 PM:

quote:
Movie Captioning App for iPhone and Droid in the Works

October 2010

I'm all for anything that makes it easier for people with hearing loss to understand movies, and captioning has made that possible. I support both open captioned movies (captions are part of the film and typically display at the bottom of the screen) and movies using the Rear Window system (captions appear on a plexiglass device that the viewer can position under the screen). I've never tried a handheld device, but I've heard from people who have that constantly having to refocus from the distant movie to the close device quickly causes eyestrain. I imagine it may be more of an issue for us older folks than for those who are younger. Be that as it may, a company is developing a captioning application for the iPhone and Droid that has the potential to make captioning available at a greater number of movies.

Oh great. I can't wait to see every teenager download the app and have the auditorium lit up even more than text messaging. [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-05-2010, 08:32 PM:

Can the iPhone even last 2 hours all powered up and turned on?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-05-2010, 09:42 PM:

An additional lawsuit will be filed to force movie theater operators to install AC plugs in every seat.
[Razz]

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-05-2010, 09:58 PM:

quote:
San Francisco Chronicle
Theater chain sued over lack of captioning
Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Deaf and hard-of-hearing moviegoers filed suit in Alameda County Tuesday against Cinemark, the nation's third-largest theater chain, for refusing to install closed-captioning equipment that would let them read the dialogue in films they can't hear.

"We just want the opportunity to go to the movies with our friends and family like everybody else," Rick Rutherford of El Cerrito, a plaintiff in the proposed class-action suit, said in a statement released by his lawyers.

About 36 million Americans suffer some hearing loss, which increases with age, said lawyers from Disability Rights Advocates in Berkeley, citing a national study. They said captioning is essential for those who can't use hearing aids.

Installing devices that would allow patrons to read captions at any seat, without affecting other customers, would cost $10,000 per theater, the lawyers said.

Of the three largest theater chains, only Cinemark has refused to use closed-captioning equipment, said attorney Kevin Knestrick. He said the other two leading chains, Regal and AMC, provide limited captioning - often at off-peak hours and in only one theater per multiplex - and have been sued in other states, as has Cinemark.

Cinemark has nearly 300 theaters nationwide, including four in Alameda County - in San Leandro, Hayward, Newark and Union City.

Bullshit statistics -- Yes, 36 million suffer SOME hearing loss. Of those, only a fraction are so impaired that the amplified volume in the theatre environment doesn't compensate for that natural aging loss. And of THAT fraction, an even smaller fraction can be compensated by hearing-assist systems that provide headset receivers which use infrared or UHF transmission of the soundtrack, and of THAT fraction, an even SMALLER fraction have such severe hearing loss that they cannot use hearing aids at all -- those being the ones who would need captioned presentation of a movie.

So for that much smaller number of people, they want theatres to spend $10,000 per screen? And then there is the question of how does a theatre, which is not the producer of the content, provide captioning if the producer of the content doesn't supply it? Is the theatre owner supposed to hire a captioning company to translate the dialogue for every movie he runs in his theatre?

We had an infrared/headset system in our three theatres. In the first five years, we might have gotten less than half a dozen people requesting headsets. And our demographics are lots of older patrons in a large polulation (Brooklyn NY -- 2.5 million residence -- no small town). Then the system broke down in one theatre after another and we just never repaired or replaced them. No one since has requested headsets. We are in the process of putting in a UHF system (MUCH cheaper than infrared, btw & much more reliable), but the ADA Act, while I recognize the need, it has some outlandish and unreasonable requirements. For example the requirement for number of headsets that you are supposed to have on hand is a percentage of seats and is something like 10%, so in our 2500 house, it means we need to supply 250 headsets. For any given show, we have never EVER had requests from more than two patrons at any one time. Can you imagine having to have 250 units available to comply yet having such a much smaller demand? And that's for hearing impaired patrons -- it doesn't cover deaf people.

So on the off chance we get a deaf person who needs to READ the dialogue, we would also have to install a closed captioning system? And I will bet that for a 2500 seat house, that system is going to cost a lot more than the quoted $10,000 in the article.

So now I put in a $10,000 close caption system for that one person who may show up for one show every two or three years; what films are going to be supplied by the distributor with CC? And what about live shows? How do I close caption a show that is live? For THAT we would need to provide someone to sign -- would a theatre need to provide a professional signer to translate? Where does it end?

I have no problem requiring business to provide REASONABLE accommodations for the disabled, but at some point where it become simply impossible or such an enormous economic burden as to threaten a business financially, you have to say, you know what, maybe some handicaps cannot be overcome just by passing laws. After all, a handicap is just that -- a condition that limits what is possible.

Let's take it one step further -- how is a theatre supposed to accommodate the deaf-blind person? Should it be required to provide someone to sit next to that patron and do tactile signing? Sure it could be done, but is it reasonable? I guess that is what lawsuits will determine.

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 12-06-2010, 01:32 AM:

Back when there were still a lot of theaters with mono sound, I should have thought to sue them, being that I COULD hear and they weren't meeting my needs.

Posted by Jonathan Smith (Member # 5609) on 12-06-2010, 11:27 AM:

Is this one of those things where they grandfather the older theatres in, but the new buildings have to have every conceivable piece of modern safety garbage, plus all the booth safeties that consider movies to still be made on nitrate film?

Then the fire marshalls come upstairs and say "Oh, so you don't just run DVDs up here?"

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 12-06-2010, 02:01 PM:

Seems like most of this kind of shit originates in California, can the other 49 states vote this idiot heaven out of the country?

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 12-06-2010, 02:07 PM:

In response to Joe, I use my iphone to watch NBA basketball games (2 1/2 hours) on wifi and it handles it fine.

Posted by Jonathan Smith (Member # 5609) on 12-06-2010, 02:17 PM:

If anything, they should be MOST tolerant of Cinemark, seeing as how any position there above the lowest tier of management suffers from deaf ears as well.

I've done hearing assistance at Cinemark. They were a bunch of little IR or LED transmitters, powered by *AA* batteries.

So my duties basically consisted of running around swapping in the I think i t was one reader that worked with bad ones that had good batteries. I had no tools of any kind to do this, I don't think even a multimeter.

So it was trial-and error out the port glass until a stupid red light lit up. I distinctly remember giving myself a bleeding scalp one day performing this operation. I commented at that time that I expected the vicodin in the first aid kit to be restocked by my next shift.

I've never done the subtitles at Regal (they don't exist at AMC at all here), but it was I think coming off the DTS disk and just played subtitles over and onto the screen using a digital preview projector.

That was a pretty smart, easy-to-use system.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 12-06-2010, 02:39 PM:

I've said it before, I'll say it again...the problem is in the way the law was implemented and how it was written.

Words like "reasonable accommodation" are very poor choices in law..."reasonable" is WAY TOO subjective and will forever require courts to refine it.

Also, there is a difference between discrimination and accommodation. While most of society will find it wrong to discriminate...accommodate is another idea all together.

How the Feds should have handled it, in terms of deaf/blind/hard of hearing is to standardized on specific frequencies for IR and RF to be for ADA use exclusively.

At that point, the theatre (or any business catering to the public) would then be responsible for broadcasting any audio (including descriptive for the blind) on those frequencies and that is it. The disabled would be responsible for their own receivers. These would work in theatres, malls, churches...whatever and wherever. In this way, the disabled can have a hearing system that is actually calibrated to their specific type of hearing loss. Furthermore, it would remove the disgusting aspect of wearing the headset worn by God know's who that hasn't bathed in God knows how long! If you need captions, you bring the receiver and display needed for such things.

At that point, all the theatre would need to do is post in the boxoffice what the frequencies you are broadcasting what on (IR or RF). That is it. The financial burden to the business is trivially low at that point as they are only buying an RF transmitter or IR emitters...which as compared to the speakers for the able bodies, are in-line. There would also be minimal maintenance to keeping the IR/RF system up and going.

Come up with some nice standards for coverage and signal strength in the venue and meters to measure it and the business can easily know if they are in compliance. As it is now...theatres are told they have to have what 4% of their seat count...but no standards on coverage of the auditorium. Why is the theatre responsible for providing the headset that, most likely , does not correct for the particular person's hearing deficiency.

-Steve

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 12-06-2010, 02:48 PM:

To add to Frank's rant, as we have an older demo also:

Then there is the small fraction of the smallest fraction that will even ADMIT they have a hearing problem (while spending the whole movie asking their friend "What did he say?" in the loudest voice possible). [evil]

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 12-07-2010, 01:49 AM:

Steve-
Excellent points. Sadly, it's exactly this type of well grounded, common sense approach that would NEVER make it thru the government clusterfuck... [uhoh]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-07-2010, 02:23 AM:

If the government wants to do something useful, it should pass a law making it illegal for babies to be in movie theatres, except for those "mommy matinees" or whatever they're called.

Posted by Jonathan Smith (Member # 5609) on 12-07-2010, 10:01 AM:

You're complaining about bureaucracy and then you suggest MORE LAWS be added to the bereaucratic structure.

I'm not advocating sweatshops and child labor and no minimum wages, but at the point where you get a TICKET for having a crying child, or a handicapped ramp at too steep an angle, or not having enough fire extinguishers up in the booth to handle a nitrate fire.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-07-2010, 12:10 PM:

Lighten up dude, it was a joke.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 12-07-2010, 01:58 PM:

The UK uses T-coils. Each hearing aid has a switch to disconnect the mike and add the coil. The cinema has a large coil wrapped around the seating area driven with a high power, lowimpedance amplifier.

Works surprisingly well and the coil is required-by-law on hearing aids, which the State pays for (socialized medicine.)

My college minor is Audiology; I tried to get language similar to what Steve wanted into the law, but the people who sell things had a bigger lobby.

We got what we deserved. Louis

Posted by Jonathan Althaus (Member # 5042) on 12-08-2010, 09:36 PM:

Coincidentally, we received kdm's for the open and closed caption versions of Narnia 3D today

Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 12-09-2010, 02:25 AM:

We received open and closed captioned kdms for Harry Potter 7.1, too.

Posted by Jonathan Althaus (Member # 5042) on 12-09-2010, 02:07 PM:

Ah ok, we didn't open Deathly Swallows.

Posted by Bernie Anderson Jr (Member # 410) on 12-11-2010, 11:26 AM:

If we can vote California out of the union then maybe we can get better terms on the product since they're a foreign country, just like china