DEAFNESS COUNCIL WESTERN AUSTRALIA INC

SUBMISSION TO HUMAN RIGHTS AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION INQUIRY: CAPTIONED MOVIES

The Deafness Council Western Australia Inc welcomes the inquiry by the Human Rights an Equal Opportunity Commission.

Hearing impairment is one of the most common disabilities. About 10% of the population has a hearing impairment of sufficient severity to benefit from captioning. Many deaf and hearing impaired people require captioning if they are to access movies.

Experience with captioning of television is showing that captions are also used by many people who do not have a hearing impairment, for example people from non English speaking backgrounds.

Captioning has been a focus of attention by the deaf and hearing impaired community for some years, and progress has occurred. For example in Perth the evening news on two channels has closed captioning with Channel 7 including captions on live interviews that are part of the news. A significant proportion of early evening programs is also captioned.

Although there has been progress in some areas, in others progress is slow or non-existent. Areas of concern include:

.provision of captions for news by other television channels,

.complete captioning coverage by captioning of all television at all times,

.captioning of recent release English language movies in cinemas,

.captioning of live theatre,

.provision of induction loops in cinemas and other entertainment venues,

.provision of television sets that provide closed captions by hotels, motels and other accommodation and entertainment venues and

.captioning of airline movies.

Virtually all film and entertainment starts with a written script. Surely only a minor effort is needed to make the script available for deaf and hearing impaired people by providing captions.

Many hearing impaired people also rely on induction loops so that their hearing aids can pick up the sound track. Many cinemas do not provide loops but should do so.

For movies in cinemas there are two options for captioning. The options are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Both could be provided.

One option is for open captions on the screen. This is commonly done for foreign language films in Australia with the captions shown in English. There would be few if any Australians who have never seen a foreign language film with captions and relied on the captions to enjoy the film.

The other option is for captions to be provided to some of the seats using a device such as the rear window captioning system

The rear window captioning system would be an acceptable way to provide captioning of English language movies in cinemas to deaf and hearing impaired people. However the Deafness Council Western Australia considers that open captioning is the preferred mechanism for the following two reasons.

Firstly, rear window captioning requires modification of existing theatres. Open captioning can be provided in all existing theatres by showing film with subtitles. Cinemas should at a minimum provide open captioning of all movies unless the rear window or similar system is provided.

Secondly there should be equal dignity and amenity in provision of access to any service for persons who have disabilities, not some inferior secondary access. Rear window and similar systems require users to sit in particular seats, often require users to adjust the system and seem to often require the users to change the focus of their eyes between the movie and the captions. Going to the movies is a social and family activity and people who require captions should be able to sit with their group whatever the group size may be and wherever the consensus of the group is for location within the theatre. Open captioning of foreign language films is already a well known and accepted technology that provides inclusive access to hearing impaired customers with equal dignity and amenity.

For live theatre the rear window system may be the only possible way to provide access to people who are deaf or hearing impaired, but for movies in cinemas open captioning is already a known, simpler and better technology.

Accordingly the Deafness Council Western Australia makes the following responses to the specific points as requested by the Acting Disability Commissioner.

Options are to provide either or both of rear window captioning or open captioning, with open captioning seen by the Deafness Council as the better option.

There does not seem to be any other appropriate remedy, bearing in mind the social aspect of attendance by groups of people at cinemas. Television stations already provide captions, including captioned movies some time after release to cinemas. It is clearly not an unjustifiable hardship to provide captioned English language movies.

The number of people who will receive improved access if movies are captioned is large and it is essential that the complaint is resolved. One satisfactory way to resolve the complaint would be to allow time for the cinema industry to develop a strategy and code of practice for captioned movies in consultation with the deaf and hearing impaired community. Milestones and dates should be agreed in advance. Alternatively if the industry does not propose an acceptable strategy to provide captioned movies then the complaint should be referred to the Commission for determination.