Interpretation for the Deaf

[derekleffew]

Originally Posted by Van

...< I have pictures of Garret Morris screaming in a little window at the bottom of my TV screen, in my mind all of a sudden.>

SNL Transcripts: Rob Reiner: 10/25/75: Weekend Update with Chevy Chase



Chevy Chase: And now, as a public service to those of our viewers who have difficulty with their hearing, I will repeat the top story of the day, aided by the Headmaster of the New York School for the Hard-of-Hearing - Mr. Garrett Morris.

[ Garrett appears in an oval over Chevy's right shoulder ]

Chevy Chase: Our top story tonight --

Garrett Morris: [ cups his hands and yells ] OUR TOP STORY TONIGHT!!!

Chevy Chase: President Ford is finally over that stubborn week-long cold.

Garrett Morris: PRESIDENT FORD IS FINALLY OVER THAT STUBBORN WEEK-LONG COLD!!!

[ Garrett disappears ]

Chevy Chase: [ smiles ] Well, that's the news tonight. I'm Chevy Chase. Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow.

Kids today will never know what they missed.

[Eboy87]

Originally Posted by Van

< I have pictures of Garret Morris screaming in a little window at the bottom of my TV screen, in my mind all of a sudden.>

Or R.J. Gumby

I have nothing constructive to add to this thread.

[GallyTD]

The ADA stipulates that accommodation must be provided in the event that it does not cause an "undue burden" to the company. Recently FedEx field in DC was sued by Deaf consumers who requested captioning for music and announcements for NFL games, and they won.

The question is- at what size (that is, revenue wise) does it cease to be an "undue burden" to provide accessibility services, such as open captioning (yes, they do it for theatre- we have an open captioning board at Gallaudet), interpretation (either voice or sign), or audio description for the blind.

I don't have the answer to *that* question- there are lawyers who handle such things.

Many theatres offer a limited run of interpreted performances, while others have the "as requested" policy.

I'm a techie and also an interpreter, so if you have more questions... ask :-)

[GallyTD]

Originally Posted by gafftaper

A deaf person is given a mirror on a gooseneck, with a base that snaps into the cup holder. You sit down, install your mirror on your seat, put it in a comfortable position and angle it to reflect the subtitles at you. Genius... and something you just might be able to build yourself.

This is called "rear window captioning" and is available in some movie theatres. At first it sounds like a great solution, but there are several hurdles

1- In most cases, the plexiglass reflector cannot be placed in such a way that it conveniently overlays the captioning over the picture or performance, thus requiring the patron to look back and forth for the entire production or film.
2- Typically there are a limited number of reflectors- so if you get a group of say 15 Deaf people who want to go see a movie together, and they only have 5 reflectors- what do you do? Its happened before (to me, with friends in fact).

My sense from being involved in the Deaf community (Gallaudet is the nations only Deaf University) is that rear window captioning (RWC) is not the favored access means.

[gafftaper]

Gally brings up a good point. Why not have a highly publicized set of nights that interpretation is provided. If you publicize it well enough in the right places, you might find a lot of your deaf community come out to see your shows that never came before. I think this would also meet any requirements for providing access.

Gally, if they publicized 4 nights during the run will be interpreted, would they be required to provide interpreters to a single person on another night? Couldn't they argue that they are providing access on these specific nights (as long as there are several performances on different days throught the length of the run). It's an "undue burden" to keep providing interpreters to one individual on a show by show basis. What do you think?

[Raktor]

xxx xxx– Manager of xxx xxx – approached Committee seeking approval to have one or two of our performances of Grease “signed” by people from Auslan. How wonderful to be able to give some hearing impaired children and adults the opportunity of enjoying our show.

From the latest newsletter from one of the companies I'm involved with.

[Jfisher2008]

yes gaff. if you look at Seattle Children's Theatre in Seattle, WA. i used to work there.

they do provide specific performance dates that will be interpreted, normally its on Opening night, weekday performance (if provide school performance dates), and one saturday matinee date.

in Seattle Area, there is a strong deaf Community that attends perforamnces in ahead if it adverise well ahead in time and adverise in local Deaf newsletter, daily digest emails, etc etc.

asGallyTD said, at gallaudet we do provide interpreting service for Deaf-blind, limited vision customers, but those are provided by the GIS (Gallaudet Interpreting Service), and again it depends on our Directors to do Voicing, open-caption, or what other access device we have. ( we do own a open caption board.)


Gaff. normally a Deaf person will be looking for specific term "interpreted performance" or the like, that will attract them to the venue that is providing the service on a regular basis. if its like once in a blue moon... the community would be overlook the venue itself.


as for RWC (rear window captioning). for me, being a deaf person... i do not like RWC at all... its ok for movie but for theatre?... where would you attach the mirror piece? placement of the caption itself makes a big different.

suppose a deaf person seats.. house left 4th row, and the caption board is set in 2nd floor balcony, to that person the caption would be the size of font 8.... again it depends on where you put the board, and how the deaf person is seated. (open seating or assigned seating? )


as for the cost of the interpreter. icewolf said about 1k per pair. that is the most faired priced PER Performance night. one thing you could do is make a contract with the interpreters that they do.. umm.. lets say that you do 6 production in one season and you do provide interpreted dates for all ( Saturday matiee ) thats 6 dates, plus Rehearsal times for the Interpreter to sit in to get the feel of the speed, accent, style, over all of the production, (2 weeks is enough time before the interpreted dates) to give them the best way to interpre the lines, sounds ( if needed) to the Deaf Community.
all that i mentioned would be in the contract to the interpreters for the Season. 2k-4k per person. instead of paying 1k per pair EVERY time.... thats my two cent.

[Jfisher2008]

Originally Posted by Raktor

"approached Committee seeking approval to have one or two of our performances of Grease “signed” by people from Auslan. How wonderful to be able to give some hearing impaired children and adults the opportunity of enjoying our show"



From the latest newsletter from one of the companies I'm involved with.

thats nice.... altho most deaf community would dislike the term "hearing impaired"... but thats totally different post to discuss... same idea as Technician vs Techie

anyhoo.... (goes back to reading the forums)

[gafftaper]

We've been trying to set up a well publicized series of interpreted performances here at the college. Unfortunately there's been a bunch of other stuff going on that's sort of distracted us from working on it. But it's definitely something we want to do. It seems like both a great way to provide a service to our community and develop a loyal audience base.

[HCP1]

Check out terptheatre.org. I saw them shadow interpret "To Kill A Mockingbird" recently. Not only was it fascinating for me as a hearing person, but the theatre was full of patrons who were deaf. I did not find that it distracted from the "regular" performance and one of the actors told me that they did some of their best performances while being interpreted because they were so alert.