Kelly Vincent – Vision Australia Interview on Cinema Accessibility
17/02/2016
On Wednesday, 17th February 2016 Dignity for Disability MLC, Kelly Vincent was interviewed on radio station Vision Australia to discuss the issues that people with sensory disabilities experience when going to the cinema. Kelly, also discussed her plans to introduce a Bill to the parliament to ensure that captions and audio description are provided more often by cinema providers. Here is the audio and transcript from the interview.
Pam Green: Time now to welcome to 5RPH Dignity for Disability MLC, Kelly Vincent. Hi Kelly.
Kelly Vincent: Hi Pam.
Pam Green: Well first off today, access to the movies for people with disabilities – are there any issues with this?
Kelly Vincent: Certainly there are unfortunately. Of course many of your listeners would probably be aware there hasn’t for a long time been the technology like captioning and audio description to enable access to cinema for people with disabilities with either hearing or vision impairment. Unfortunately these technologies often aren’t used so many people with sensory disabilities still miss out on going to the movies and enjoying the experience fully, because the cinema providers aren’t always aware of what they need to do to activate those technologies.
Pam Green: So what is the impact on people, Kelly?
Kelly Vincent: Well for example if Deaf or hard of hearing people do go to the movies and there are no captions or the captions don’t link properly, maybe not until a quarter or half way through the movie because of technological issues, then they’re missing out on much of the plot line and basically making it pointless to attend the movies in the first place. So it results in social isolation for people not being able to be included in a normal, enjoyable activity alongside family and friends. And the same goes for people with vision impairment if audio description isn’t provided.
Pam Green: So going to the movies at the moment, just isn’t an option for many people with disabilities then, huh?
Kelly Vincent: Absolutely, sometimes it’s a matter of contacting a cinema ahead of time and arranging for the pickup of the headsets for audio description or making sure that captions will be provided, given as I said that some of the technology that is used like CaptiView is very unreliable and sometimes it’s not even provided because cinema providers aren’t aware. In fact I’ve heard stories of a Deaf person requesting a CapitView device only to be given a pair of headphones, which of course for a profoundly Deaf person isn’t all that useful. So it’s all very well and good for the technology to be there but if the cinema staff and providers aren’t aware of how to activate that technology it really doesn’t do much good.
Pam Green: So how can we get better provision of these services for people then?
Kelly Vincent: Well as you would be aware, the industry has had voluntary compliance for some time now, but to date it’s clear that this isn’t good enough because of the lack of awareness around it. So Dignity for Disability, has turned to a legislative remedy to get better quality services in place. So we’ve had a bill drafted to be introduced to parliament in the coming weeks that would require cinema operators to screen a minimum number of movies each week with open captions on the main screen, as well as audio description being provided for a minimum number of screenings as well. So there’s lots to be done and there’s lots of opportunities each week to provide audio description and captions and to reap the economic benefits in terms of allowing more people to come into the cinema and enjoy that experience that they’ve paid for. So we think this is a win-win for cinema providers and people wanting to go to the cinema as well.
Pam Green: That’s great, once again thanks so much for your time today Kelly.
Kelly Vincent: Thanks Pam.
