Wednesday night, July 7th, 2010, marked a turning point in access to theaters for the deaf and hard of hearing in Eastern Kentucky.  The Riverfill 10 Theater in Pikeville, Ky. had it's first showing of a captioned movie specifically catered towards increasing access for the deaf and hard of hearing, EVER.  The movie was the 2010 version of Karate Kid.  Turnout was NOT huge, but it was a decent showing, and based on the reaction from both management and the attendees, I expect word to spread like wildfire and continue to grow the audience.

A few points about it come to mind:

1)  Several attendees had NEVER attended a movie at the theater, and therefore were not sure of the difference between Open Captions (OC) and Rear Window Captions (RWC).  The Pikeville theater offers OC.  While this is the preferred presentation modality of most of the deaf community, it does pose some issues in regards to amount of showings.  RWC allows for the deaf or hard of hearing to attend ANY showing of a movie, whereas OC is a set showing due to the words being on the screen.  Pros and cons both ways, and I have to say I personally prefer OC, just am concerned about attendance due to the more limited showings. 

2)  Theater management, at present, will have a minimum of one showing a week, on Wednesdays, around 7 pm.  When possible, they will also offer a matinee showing as well during the week, and have already set the movie "Grown Ups" for a 4:30 matinee on Tuesday, July 13th, and a 7 pm showing on Wednesday, July 14th.  This is good, and hopefully, based on discussions I had with them, they will consider showings on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays based on attendance.  I'm most concerned right now about the Wednesday showings at 7 p.m. due to many churches having services on this night, but summertime does increase the potential for attendance.  As we move closer to school going back into session locally, they will need to consider more weekend showings to ensure participation, particularly during matinee times.

3)  The management was FANTASTIC in taking the time to speak and answer questions to ensure that everyone had a good experience at the first showing.  The movie got off to a little bit of a late start due to a television interview of a certain someone *oops*, but otherwise went off without a hitch.  This management bunch was great, and I am appreciative of their efforts to make this a success.  Kudos to you all.

Now...everyone that attended was happy.  Management appeared to be very happy.... So, where do we go from here?  Well, WE have to attend the movies.  A Deaf "social night" is a potential draw to help build a steady flow of customers for this.  But WE have to show our appreciation by actually attending these movies. I can not say it any more plainly than that.  If the theater isn't making money from this, there is no incentive to them to continue it, so GO TO THE MOVIES and say "Thank You" for offering this service.  It's the least we can do now.  I will continue to advocate for increased access state-wide, hopefully other theaters will see the positive publicity (see links below) and benefits of increased customer traffic and implement this access on their own without legislation.  We can be a model for the rest of the state, and I believe we will be.

One other thing...I keep hearing reporters and so forth credit ME with this, and like I told one of them, it is not ALL ME.  I happen to be the biggest "mouth" of the bunch, I guess.  But many other people have also joined in to lead on this issue.  Those fine folks at the Kentucky Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (led by Virginia Moore), who sent 2 representatives to the first showing all the way from Frankfort (almost 8 hours roundtrip drive) have been particularly supportative of this.  They created a Captioned Movie Access study group, sent out an email blitz about this showing, arranged for all the wonderful interpreting and CART at the State House committee hearing on the bill, interviewed with NPR afterwards, and helped arrange MANY meetings with different state senators and state representatives to garner support for the bill.  They have been TIRELESS and DEVOTED to the issue, and we owe them all a big "Thank YOU" for their efforts.

State Senator Ray Jones and State Representative Leslie Combs have been tireless as well, in their support 2 years in a row of introducing a bill to make this kind of access mandatory across the state.  They have given supportative interviews, precious and welcome advice and guidance along the way, and personal support for which I am ever grateful.  Thank You, Ray and Leslie.  Take a bow.

For further review of the different (and wonderfully large amount) of media coverage, see the below links.

http://www.wkyt.com/wymtnews/headlines/98009304.html  (video with story not captioned, but story is verbatim of what is on video)

http://www.medicalleader.org/pdf/june_25_2010_b.pdf  (LARGE PDF file. Give it time to load)

http://www.floydcountytimes.com/view/full_story/8656398/article-Theater-offers-movies-for-the-hearing-impaired?instance=secondary_news_left_column

Eddie