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May 1998
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May 1998
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Film Will Play at General Cinema with Closed Captions and Descriptive Narration
Contact: Judith Navoy (617) 492-9258 (v/TTY) Judith_Navoy@wgbh.org
14 January 1998
The epic, action-packed romance "Titanic" is accessible to deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind, and visually impaired moviegoers thanks to a collaboration between General Cinema Theatres, Paramount Pictures, Digital Theater Systems, and the WGBH Educational Foundation.
"Titanic" is playing at General Cinema's theater in Sherman Oaks, California, with both closed captions and descriptive narration available for the entire run of the film on Screen 2. Descriptive narration is also available at the General Cinema theater in Framingham, Mass., in Cinema 2.
"Titanic," which opened on Friday, December 19 in approximately 2,600 theaters across the U.S. and Canada, is written and directed by James Cameron and stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Set against the backdrop of the ill-fated maiden voyage of the Titanic, the Paramount and Twentieth Century Fox presentation is produced by Cameron and Jon Landau and executive produced by Rae Sanchini.
Also starring in the Lightstorm Entertainment production are Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Frances Fisher, Gloria Stuart, and Bill Paxton. Hundreds of other actors round out the cast of one of the most ambitious films ever made. "Titanic" is 194 minutes long and is MPAA rated PG-13.
In November 1997, General Cinema Sherman Oaks became the first conventional movie theater to install the Rear Window(R) Captioning System and DVS Theatrical(TM). These innovative technologies--developed at WGBH in Boston--enable exhibitors to make films accessible to 34 million deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind, and visually impaired patrons, without interfering with the general audience. The technologies debuted last month during the presentation of the Universal Pictures film "The Jackal." The presentation of "Titanic" in Framingham is the first time that DVS Theatrical has been available in a conventional theater in the Northeast.
"The emotional impact that this technology has had on our guests has been overwhelming," said Bill Smith, general manager of the Sherman Oaks theater. "I'm proud to be a part of it."
"Paramount Pictures is delighted that deaf and blind moviegoers will be able to share the excitement of this remarkable film," said Wayne Lewellen, president of distribution. "We are thrilled to be part of this important initiative."
DVS Theatrical delivers descriptive narration via infrared or FM listening systems, enabling blind and visually impaired moviegoers to hear the descriptions on headsets without disturbing other audience members. The descriptions provide narrated information about key visual elements such as actions, settings, and scene changes, making movies more meaningful to people with vision loss.
The patented Rear Window Captioning System displays reversed captions on a light-emitting diode (LED) text display which is mounted in the rear of a theater. Deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons use transparent acrylic panels attached to their seats to reflect the captions so that they appear superimposed on the movie screen. The reflective panels are portable and adjustable, enabling the caption user to sit anywhere in the theater. The Rear Window System was co-developed by WGBH and Rufus Butler Seder of Boston, Mass.
These technologies, which were developed as part of WGBH's Motion Picture Access Project, have been available in specialty theaters for several years. Digital Theater Systems (DTS) of Westlake Village, Calif., enabled WGBH to bring the technology to conventional movie theaters.
DTS is the world leader in digital sound for feature films, providing multi-channel digital audio on CD-ROM. A special reader attached to the film projector reads a timecode track printed on the film and signals the DTS player to play the audio synchronous to the film. For this project, DTS adapted its technology to include the caption and description tracks on a separate CD-ROM, which plays alongside the other discs in the DTS player. In turn the DTS player sends the captions to the LED display and the descriptions to the infrared or FM emitter.
"This unique project truly exemplifies the flexibility of the DTS format," said Dan Slusser, co-chairman and chief executive officer of DTS. "A film can now be played utilizing digital sound and at the same time deliver closed captions and descriptive narration, and that helps make the movie experience more real and memorable for all patrons. We're proud to contribute to this technological feat."
WGBH's Motion Picture Access Project has been exploring ways of making movies accessible to deaf and blind audiences since 1992. The Motion Picture Access Project is funded by a grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, a division of the U.S. Department of Education. The research and development is guided by disabled consumers and representatives from the motion picture industry, including the Motion Picture Association of America, the National Association of Theatre Owners, the InterSociety, the International Theatre Equipment Association, Boston Light & Sound, Inc., and Trans-Lux Corporation.
Paramount Pictures is part of the entertainment operations of Viacom, Inc.
Twentieth Century Fox is a unit of Fox Filmed Entertainment, a News Corporation Company.
General Cinema Theatres, a division of GC Companies, Inc., is a leading motion picture exhibitor with 1,120 screens at more than 175 theaters in 24 states. General Cinema hosts more than 60 million customers annually and generates annual revenues in excess of $440 million. The screen at Sherman Oaks where the Rear Window and DVS Theatrical systems have been installed also features THX and digital sound. All screens at Sherman Oaks offer listening devices for hard-of-hearing moviegoers.
WGBH (www.wgbh.org) serves the greater Boston and New England region through three television stations and one radio station. It is the single largest producer of prime-time programs seen nationally on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), supplies a significant share of public radio programming, and develops new applications in educational technology, interactive multimedia, and access technologies.
Captioning for "Titanic" was provided by The Caption Center at WGBH, the world's most experienced captioning agency. The descriptions were created by WGBH's Emmy award-winning Descriptive Video Service(R), (DVS(R)) which pioneered video description for television, home video, large-format films and DVD.
NCAM | ncam@wgbh.org | WGBH Educational Foundation
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