September 8, 2005
Greetings -
I'm a Canadian currently visiting family in Los Angeles. Thanks to a friend back home I just now learned about Caption Movies Now Coalition (CMNC) and could not agree more with its goals and objectives.
First, because I suffer from hearing loss and do benefit from the captioning on television programs and DVDs available for home viewing. When captioning is not available the effect is immediate. For example, my daughter's "state of the art" television and audio systems do not / can not provide captioning otherwise available on live TV. The result, even to my surprise, is I simply do not watch television, with the exception of live sports, while visiting in the great US of A. (The up side is I do a lot of reading).
I mention television because over the years I have stopped attending movie theatres with any sort of joy or expectation of a pleasant evening. Those times I do attend, it is because I am married and after forty years of marriage, have learned which sacrifices are necessary to maintain our loving relationship; attending the odd movie is one of them. But I do so grudgingly, knowing that within minutes from the opening scene I will have missed essential dialogue and be for the remainder "out of the loop".
Rear view closed captioning sounds wonderful and since most movies make captioning available on their DVD versions, I can't imagine the additional costs would be prohibitive for theatres to install such systems.
There is no doubt that with captioning available, I would cheerfully attend more movies, my wife and our fiends would be exceedingly grateful and the world would, in this one small way, be a better place.
Respectfully,
Terry Wilson