Movie Theater Accessibility

Captioning and Audio Description

Stadium Seating and Wheelchair Access

What follows is basic information to help movie theaters meet the rising demand for accessible services in their community and comply with ADA laws.  It also clarifies for persons with vision and hearing problems what services are technically available to them.

Captioning and Audio Description.

Many first-run movies are being produced today with open or closed captioning and descriptive narration.  Some of the movies include:  Amelia, Couples Retreat, and The Fourth Kind.  (See the Now Showing or Coming Soon lists.)  Yet most people with vision or hearing impairments cannot take advantage of this technology because most local movie theaters do not have the necessary equipment. 

Notes: 

• Essentially all accessible movies have captioning, but historically only 60% of accessible movies have audio description available.  Be sure to check the theater listing carefully for the "DVS" or "DA" indicator (meaning audio description).  Both the number of accessible films and percent of described movies are expected to rise.
• Regal North Hills offers open captioning, while White Oak and Beaver Creek have closed captioning, accessed via a chair-mounted screen which reflects captions from the rear wall of the theater via a system called RWC, or Rear Window Captioning.  The size of the captions increases the nearer to the rear wall you sit.
• For the Regal at North Hills, not every showing activates the captions.  Check the schedule carefully!  However, the audio description IS available for all showings on that screen.  Read a user's personal experience with audio description at Regal North Hills.
• All of the theaters listed above offer Assistive Listening Devices for all of their screens.  This is unrelated to the accessibility features encoded with some movies.

Here are the statistics for the increasing number of accessible first run movies released each year in the USA:

Few of those AD tracks make it to DVD, as you can see in the last column of the table above -- order them here.  You can help by writing the studios and producers.  You can also view a complete list of audio described DVDs produced by WGBH.

Description for Digital Cinema

As movie theaters convert from film to digital projectors, the old method of providing captioning and description has to change.  The industry finalized its efforts on creating a new standard in October of 2009 and set a deadline for implementation of April 2010.  WGBH Media Access participated in the process and offers this status report on Access to Digital Cinema Systems.

Sony Commits to Expanded Audio Description of DVDs! 

"PRESS RELEASE, September 3, 2009:  Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will partner with WGBH Media Access Group to release select film titles on DVD with Descriptive Video Service®, or DVS® as an optional feature for audiences who are blind or have low vision...  Among the first Sony Pictures Home Entertainment titles to be released with the description feature are The Taking of Pelham 123, The Ugly Truth, Julie & Julia and District 9...  Beginning in the fall of 2009, all Sony Pictures theatrical releases with descriptive audio will also include the feature when they arrive on DVD and Blu-ray Disc."  Congratulations, Sony!  (Read an article about the Sony announcement.)

Universal Pictures has agreed to follow the same procedure!

Background (Accessible Movies)

Sure, it costs the theaters money up front to install the equipment; but movie theater owners and operators can benefit in the long run from making their theaters more accessible by expanding their audience.  Often, however, they don't know where to start.

Movie accessibility for persons who are blind or have low vision, or who are deaf or hard of hearing is generally provided by a system called MoPix, which has two components:

• DVS Theatrical®, which provides descriptive narration to anyone wearing a special receiver and earpiece; and
• Rear Window Captioning® (RWC), which provides closed captioning not visible to audience members who don't need it.  (As of September 2007, 500 films had been captioned for RWS!)

There is an alternative system called DTS Access, which provides open captions plus audio description fully compatible with the MoPix system.  This company is no longer responsive to inquiries, and we have no contact information for them.

Here are several articles about MoPix and/or DTS Access installation experiences:

• Technologies Help More Enjoy Movies (Michigan, May 2009)
• New Technology Allows Hearing-Impaired Teens to Enjoy Movie Theaters (Massachusetts, June 2007)
• Lights, Camera, Description! (from the Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind, March 2006)
• Have You Read Any Good Movies Lately?  (from the Toronto Star)
• Roadmap to Movie Access -- One Advocate's Journey 

The cost per theater is roughly $16,000 for the entire MoPix system, including licensing fees.  Theaters are encouraged to install both components simultaneously in order to serve the largest possible audience.  There is no additional charge to the movie patron to use the service, and there is no extra charge to the theater operator for the captioned and described films.

Once theaters are ready for detailed information on equipment and costs, they can contact Susan Schneider, director of marketing for the Media Access Group, at 201-391-1610.  A hardcopy promotional brochure is available, as is a demonstration video.  (Arts Access can supply both.)

For more information, including a complete FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions), visit the WGBH MoPix website at http://ncam.wgbh.org/mopix/.  You will also find instructions there on how to subscribe to the mailing list for accessible films.  If you want to contact major theater chains to let them know you would patronize them more if they installed this equipment locally, find their addresses at http://ncam.wgbh.org/mopix/chains.html.  If you wish to ask motion picture studios to describe or caption films or thank them for doing so, their addresses can be found at http://ncam.wgbh.org/mopix/studios.html.

Patrons who are hard of hearing and could benefit from an ALD may wish to check out our list of Triangle movie theaters with Assistive Listening Devices. 

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Stadium Seating and Wheelchair Access.

All movie theaters have some kind of accommodation for wheelchairs; however, the newer theaters with so-called stadium seating have been particularly problematic for persons in wheelchairs.  The US Department of Justice has sued at least five theater chains for not providing proper access.  (See the links below.)

Stadium seating generally involves a rear-entrance theater with a ramp behind a wall on each side coming down to the front, then stairs up the side to get to your seat.  In this configuration, wheelchair users are often "allocated" seats in one of the front rows and are forced to look up at the screen from the seats that are generally chosen last by most movie patrons.  This can be particularly difficult and painful for patrons with certain conditions requiring their use of a wheelchair.

Proper accommodation for persons in wheelchairs would require that theater owners provide wheelchair access to various levels (but not necessarily every row), affording the patron with a physical disability some of the same degree of choice in seating that a person who could walk normally would have.

Here are some links of interest addressing this topic.

• Accessible Stadium Guidelines, US Dept Of Justice, Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).
• Cinemark Settlement Regarding Stadium Seating, November 2004
• AMC's Stadium Seating Ruled Discriminatory under ADA, November 2002.
• United Artists Settlement with Dept of Justice, regarding stadium seating.

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