November 10th 2005
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing this letter to show my full support for the implementation of Open Captioning for all movie theaters in the Greater Toronto Area.
I recently attended the viewing of the theatrical release of Jarhead (November 6th 2005) which provided open captioning. Before the movie I was "made aware" by the theatre staff that this movie was going to have Open Captioning. I found that the captioning was not at all distracting, in fact, when the sound was too loud and I could no longer decipher what the actors were saying, I as a hearing person relied on the captioning to let me know what was transpiring in the movie.
I attended this movie with friends and family who have no hearing loss and we were all of the same opinion, that movies theatres should provide open captioning for the Deaf, deafened and hard of hearing communities.
The practice of Open Captioning is practiced around the world; during a recent trip to Italy and Holland both movies that I attended had Open Captioning for their Italian and Dutch communities. Why is this not being provided here in the GTA? Toronto is supposed to be a model of diversity for the rest of the world and I strongly believe that not only users of American Sign Language would benefit from Open Captioning but also new comers to our community who are learning English as their second language.
Sincerely,Kimberly Banks