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AMC To Add Onscreen Captions at Some Locations (nytimes.com) 139

AMC Entertainment, the largest movie theater chain in the world, will offer open captioning at 240 locations in the United States, a move that the company's chief executive described as "a real advance for those with hearing difficulties or where English is a second language." From a report: Movie theaters provide closed captioning through devices that some customers describe as inconvenient and prone to malfunctioning. Open captions, however, are displayed on the screen in a way similar to subtitles; everyone in the theater sees the same captions, on the same screen. Advocates for the deaf and hard of hearing have long sought more and higher-quality captioning, but theater owners worry that people who aren't deaf simply don't like seeing captions at the movies.

"In some cases, putting open captions on the screen diminishes ticket sales for the movie," said John Fithian, the president and chief executive of the National Association of Theatre Owners, although he noted that the evidence was mostly anecdotal. He said the industry, whose business has been battered by the pandemic, was studying the relationship between open captions and ticket sales. Christian Vogler, a professor at Gallaudet University, a school in Washington that serves the deaf, said in an email, "Detractors of open captions often have argued that the wider hearing audience would revolt over them, or that these would be a losing business proposition for theaters." He praised AMC's move, which was announced last week, saying, "The fact that a large national chain has had a change of heart is significant, and may even open the floodgates for others to follow suit."

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AMC To Add Onscreen Captions at Some Locations

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  • So you don't have to know Kilngon, Wookiiee, or Fremen...

    • by Junta ( 36770 )

      Actually captioning can ruin those.

      With captions off, you see the english translation of what the Klingon is saying.

      When you turn captions on, that caption is covered up with a caption that says [speaking Klingon].

  • Can't they design something like that for those that don't want the distraction?

    Disclaimer: have not been to a movie theater in almost 30 years.
    • Personally I would prefer not to wear glasses ever again after getting surgery so I would not have to wear glasses. I would rather have subtitles.
      • by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

        Scene: In the garage using a grinding disc.

        Wife: "Where are your safety glasses?"

        Him: "Personally I would prefer not to wear glasses ever again after getting surgery so I would not have to wear glasses."

        Wife: "Fool! He is so unknowing."

        • You do understand that safety glasses serve a different purpose than glasses for vision right? The surgery was to correct my vision not enclose my eyes in protective impact resistant plastic. I have never seen anyone required to wear safety glasses to watch a movie.
          • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

            You do realize glasses to read closed captions would also serve a different purpose. So you just invalidated your original point.
            No one would be required to wear the glasses to watch the movie. They would only need to wear the glasses if they wanted to read the closed captions. You would only need to wear the glasses because you can't hear the audio (and you need to be quite deaf to not hear movie theater audio) or you really like to read closed captioning.

      • Well if your ears are good, then you don't need the glasses. I know it sound's ironic, however for the number of people who are hard of hearing, if glasses, can be an assistance aid, then they should have them available, as it would be cheaper and less distracting to those who don't need them.

  • by AutoTrix ( 8918325 ) on Monday October 25, 2021 @10:39AM (#61924859)
    They could easily use the high refresh rates of projection screens to display the subtitles which would be accessible to anyone wearing a specific tuned glasses with out causing distortion of visual disruptions to the rest of the audience. I think you will find film makers won't like the fact that their art is being cluttered in AMC theatres. Also if there is such a demand for this then it should justify having separate views for the auditory impaired. Making it the default will further degrade the theaters experience which honestly is getting close to not being worth while anyways.
    • by NFN_NLN ( 633283 ) on Monday October 25, 2021 @10:48AM (#61924899)

      In order to tailor the movie experience every user should get their own screen with their own volume control. They can decide if they want subtitles or not, they can decide how loud the movie is. Hell, they can even decide when to have impromptu intermissions by pausing the movie. This can all happen in a private viewing booth with a couch that you can even lay on. For the ultimate theatre experience they can even bring this to your home so you don't need to travel. The future of theatres sure will be incredible!

      • I think the market for people who can afford a Dolby Cinema in their house is pretty slim. Your idea sounds amazing but it's just not realistic.

        • I think the market for people who can afford a Dolby Cinema in their house is pretty slim. Your idea sounds amazing but it's just not realistic.

          If only TVs had closed caption.

      • Man, I wish this was Reddit so I could give you gold or something for that.

    • What are the issues with Rear Window Captioning System [wikipedia.org]? I'm not sure how common it is, but I noticed it at a theater years ago and thought it was a clever system. Can anyone that has used it speak to how well it works?
      • This is pretty neat, I first noticed it while working in Walt Disney World as they had it available for all stage-type attractions.
        They were dark and not as transparent as glasses people are mentioning in other comments. If we could get them a bit more transparent, that might make them a nicer option too.
      • I think a system could be designed that would stream the captions to a users smartphone in real-time, based on a pre-movie QR code on the screen, with a cup holder with a long extension arm to hold your phone at your preferred level on relation to the movie (just under the screen in your field of vision?) and display thin white text on a dark background to minimize the distraction to other patrons.

  • Finally (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Whateverthisis ( 7004192 ) on Monday October 25, 2021 @10:45AM (#61924873)
    Maybe it's my age, but honestly I watch everything with captions at home these days. I catch every word with captions now when I don't always do by listening. Frankly with some experience it's not that hard to read the subtitles in your peripheral vision while watching the entire show.
    • Re:Finally (Score:4, Insightful)

      by algaeman ( 600564 ) on Monday October 25, 2021 @10:48AM (#61924897)
      Yes, it's fine for a TV show. But, if you are paying $10-20 for a movie ticket, you want a movie theater experience. Subtitles detract from the immersive quality, and there is even less chance (I see a movie once every couple years) that I would go see a movie with subtitles in the theater. If the closed captioning isn't going to work for you, watch the movie on Netflix, just like the other 90% of the viewers.
      • You know your argument works both ways, don't you? If you don't want the "distraction" of the captions, you may just watch the movie in Netflix without them.
      • I'm fed up with "emotional moments" in movies where the music goes blaring and the actors go muttering pshpshpsh wanting to sound dramatic. I'd love occasional screenings with subtitles.
        • I'm fed up with "emotional moments" in movies where the music goes blaring

          Forget emotional moments, someone turn the volume down on Hans Zimmer! If you've ever watched Inception, you know what I mean.
      • I have tinitus and what many who don't have it don't recognize is that the frequencies I can hear, I can hear exceptionally well. I can recognize the UPS truck coming down my street from half a mile away while inside the house.

        So I too watch everything with captions now because between the soundtrack and the subtle tones in speech, it's really easy to "not understand" even though I hear the noises being emitted.

      • Yes, it's fine for a TV show. But, if you are paying $10-20 for a movie ticket, you want a movie theater experience. Subtitles detract from the immersive quality

        For me that depends on the film. If it is a film with foreign languages, I would prefer subtitles over dubbing. Even the best dubbing cannot match lip movements all the time. For example, Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings [wikipedia.org] had parts where the characters speak Mandarin.

        • I'm fine with captions in movies with large amounts of mixed dialog. I just watched a German one that was about half and half.

          It's movies solely a different language. I want to watch the movie and hear the voices, not be constantly looking down to do so.

          Really, the novelty of the superior quality of the original speaker's inflection and emotion, as opposed to the dubbing actor's, is lost on me.

          • And don't get me started on not mirror imaging Japanese comics because they read right to left. Boy now that is the visual equivalent of an audiophile's imagination about the greatness of gold-plated cords if ever I saw one.

          • It is interesting to compare the original language audio with the translation dub and with the subtitle if you know the languages. A friend of mine fluent in Japanese was talking to me about Death Note and how all 3 may not match exactly up in a scene. I know a little Spanish and I can see that. For example if a character says: "Qué tal?", the dub might be "How are you?" which is a literal translation but the subtitle might be "How's it going?" which is closer but the character might have meant "How
    • Maybe it's not you (Score:5, Informative)

      by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Monday October 25, 2021 @10:55AM (#61924933) Homepage Journal

      Maybe it's my age, but honestly I watch everything with captions at home these days. I catch every word with captions now when I don't always do by listening. Frankly with some experience it's not that hard to read the subtitles in your peripheral vision while watching the entire show.

      It might not be related to you at all.

      There's a movement in Hollywood to make the effects louder and dialogue less clear. It's based on a theory that in real life the car crash would interfere with your understanding of a person talking next to you, and this enhances the immersive quality.

      As an example, check out "Tenet". It's a very good movie, but Cameron obscures the dialogue on purpose at times, and it's really easy to lost track of what's being said throughout the movie, and you have to keep guessing about key information. You can google various reviews that point out that the obscuring is on purpose.

      As an example, check out Dave Chappelle's new special, and see how many words you miss. If you can understand a professionally mixed comedy special, there's no reason to expect that missing words in a movie is due to old age.

      • It might not be related to you at all. There's a movement in Hollywood to make the effects louder and dialogue less clear. It's based on a theory that in real life the car crash would interfere with your understanding of a person talking next to you, and this enhances the immersive quality.

        Yeah, I hate the theory of directing that says that if the events are jumbled and confusing to the characters they're happening to, the film should be jumbled and confusing to the people watching.

        The worst example of this was Game of Thrones, where they shot a major battle sequence in the dark, apparently in the belief that since the people on screen couldn't see what was happening, you shouldn't be able to see it either.

        • It's cheaper to shoot. That's why they do shit like that, nothing to do with art.

        • M*A*S*H the film did this very well, with overlapping dialogue. It's totally possible to follow the main characters' lines even while the background chatter is distracting, and still gets the feeling across of being confused and overwhelmed.
      • As an example, check out "Tenet". It's a very good movie...

        Tenet sucked.

      • Yeah, that sounds idiotic. And therefore all too likely. Create a story, and deliberately make it hard to follow, because...reasons. Obfuscating dialog may contribute to realism, but not all parts of reality are things we want to preserve. The last television series my wife and I watched, there were multiple times in every episode where one of us had to ask the other "what did they say?". And sometimes neither of us knew, rewind, listen again, and we still couldn't make it out.

        Contributes to Immersion? No

        • It's fine to obfuscate dialog if its content is not intended to advance the story, but rather the confusion, and hence missing it is irrelevant.

          They sometimes also blot out vision, or hearing after a loud explosion, and you see mouths moving but nothing or a high ringing for a bit.

          If it's hard to understand, don't sweat it. Unless it was a goof, but that is pretty rare.

          Now I have seen plenty of examples where I don't understand the words in clear situations and I have to back up, or even turn on CC to unde

    • by ip_vjl ( 410654 )

      Open concept floor plans don't help.

      While they are popular for the visual openness and ability for light to be everywhere, they also make it so that sound anywhere makes it to you. There's a lot more competing audio than if you're viewing in a dedicated room with limited entry/exit that can be blocked to mute the other sounds.

      Combine that with volume levels that are normalized for the explosions and music interludes, the scenes where the people are whispering to each other don't rise above the sound of some

      • by Jerrry ( 43027 )

        "Open concept floor plans don't help."

        For a true, immersive movie experience, they don't help at all. That's why I have a home theater that's fully light and sound controlled. Having such a theater gives me almost no incentive to see movies in commercial theaters anymore. Just about the only time I do go is if I can't wait until a particular movie is available on Blu-Ray or streaming. Otherwise, I can do without the sticky floors, people talking and texting during the movie, $6 popcorn, and now, the intrusi

    • Frankly with some experience it's not that hard to read the subtitles in your peripheral vision while watching the entire show.

      I agree, but it is still extremely distracting if you do not want or need subtitles to have them there. However, provided they clearly label whether or not there are subtitles then I'm fine with that - just make sure we have the information to make a choice when buying a ticket.

    • Maybe it's my age, but honestly I watch everything with captions at home these days.

      I think that may have more to do with Christopher Nolan's popularity than your age. There's nothing quite like watching a scene like:

      The Protagonist: So it turns out that all along the killer was *HANS ZIMMER ORGAN CHORD AT VOLUME 11*.
      The Love Interest: I can't believe that *ANOTHER HANS ZIMMER ORGAN CHORD IN MINOR KEY AT VOLUME 11*.

      Audience: WTF they say?

    • by Hadlock ( 143607 )

      My wife speaks english as a second language, we have the subtitles turned on about 95% of the time. Youtube's auto-captioning feature has been incredible.

      Over the last couple of years I've gotten used to captions, and I think so used to it, that it's actually impacted my listening comprehension, as I just read everything on the screen. Then Google Meet introduced live captioning in meetings. Incredible. Except I just changed jobs and we use Zoom which (I think) doesn't offer this feature, so I'm "re

    • Nope. Not your age. It's a combination of "actors and actresses in Hollywood don't know how to enunciate their words anymore and what comes out is pure mush" combined with "let's blast music and explosions so you can't hear them anyway." The end result is audio nonsense that no one can make out. The same thing happens on regular TV shows these days as well. I turn on subtitles for everything.

      "A real advance for those with hearing difficulties" is a bunch of hogwash, baloney, and malarkey. The reality

  • by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 ) on Monday October 25, 2021 @10:48AM (#61924891)

    The auditory version of the poorly-lit or jumbled action scene is one where the dialogue is drowned out by sound effects, music, or other noise in the scene.

    I'm not saying everyone needs to project their voice and speak while speaking with the mid-Atlantic Katherine Hepburn accent, dubbed over in post, but maybe less mumbling and less whispering of things the audience is intended to hear.

  • This sounds more like desperation to reach a maximum possible audience. I haven't looked for awhile, I know they've since received a /r/WSB bailout from the ignorant. But, that does nothing for their exclusivity contracts which is where they made the majority of their money (not overpriced concessions, as is popular lore). Now virtually everything is released on some streaming service or another simultaneously.

    I maintain that long term, they're probably fucked. They were swimming in debt (Chinese debt,

    • This sounds more like desperation to reach a maximum possible audience.

      Curious use of the word desperation. In a competitive industry that is suffering greatly in the USA why would anyone right now do anything which leaves money on the table?

      • by waspleg ( 316038 )

        They seem to be willing to alienate regular audiences. Why? Because they're already not coming.

    • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

      The exclusivity contracts didn't/don't contribute to the theaters bottom line directly. The studios don't need to pay the theaters more for exclusivity (if anything the theater probably had to give up more percentage of ticket sales). The exclusivity contracts mean that the theaters don't have to compete with home streamers and have a better chance of getting butts into seats (since a lot of people want to see a movie at the first available opportunity). The theaters make more money because there are more t

  • Here in Norway, subtitles are the norm on most movies. We don't like dubbing - except for content for small children - so most foreign content has captions at the movie theatre and on TV.

    Works great.

    • I suspect your populace is mostly capable of reading. Here in the USA, we've amply demonstrated this last couple years that we have problems in that area.

    • I don't think this story is about foreign films. The captioning is for the hearing impaired.
      I'd guess there aren't that many movies released in Norwegian, though I do remember Kitchen Stories [wikipedia.org] was one of the last DVDs I ever rented from Blockbuster. I quite enjoyed that. But foreign movies aren't really mainstream here anyway.
      So of course Norwegians would be used to subtitled movies, but Americans are definitely not.

  • It would seem if they can do it for some they should do it for all as a reasonable accommodation. I’ve pretty much given up on movies anyway and this for me is a last straw. I get why it is useful but I would find them annoying and so simply avoid cinema releases with them.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Subtitles don't bother me, unless they are in a different language and I understand both the speech and the text. Then it just gets confusing, because they never match up and in some cases the translation is heavily paraphrased.

      • Subtitles don't bother me, unless they are in a different language and I understand both the speech and the text. Then it just gets confusing, because they never match up and in some cases the translation is heavily paraphrased.

        Those are the worst; sometimes it's as if you are watching two different movies.

  • Personally I can't stand captions when the language of the film is English. They distract me and I can't not read them. That screws up the timing of jokes and really distracts you from the movie. On the other hand, there are people who need this and can't enjoy the show otherwise.

    So a good compromise is to let us know in advance if captioning will be on. Those of us like me will avoid those showing. Those who like it can seek them out. We can both get more or less what we want. And it'll be interesti

  • by dlleigh ( 313922 ) on Monday October 25, 2021 @11:25AM (#61925049)

    With comedy, the timing of spoken lines is vital to the humor. Captions often spoil the effect by showing the punchline before it's spoken.

    I'm older too and often turn on TV closed captioning to make sense of the less-audible dialogue. But I have to leave the captions off for comedies (at least the ones I care about) because otherwise, as I listen to the spoken dialogue, I'll glance down at the captions and see what the actors are saying before they say it. Punchlines and timing are ruined.

    There exists technology to show captions on a seat-by seat basis, without glasses and without showing the captions to the entire theater, but it's more expensive than just just turning them on for everybody.

  • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Monday October 25, 2021 @11:39AM (#61925119)

    Why is it that movies being displayed full screen in letterbox mode have black space under the picture but they do not put captions there?

    • Never mind movies, I want VLC to do this. And not just the captions either; all of the crap that's plastered over the video should be moved to the black bars if available: video controls, volume indication, all of the functions that place text over the video (audio delay, subtitle delay, etc.).

    • by jbengt ( 874751 )
      This.
      I guess it could depend on whether the captioning part of the film that is being letterboxed or is added by the TV.
  • I am hearing impaired, not deaf, so I hate it when there are (easily detectable) bad subtitles.

    E.g.

    "{garbled}" - no, it's not garbled, it's recognizable - just not by whoever you had do the transcriptions. It's just out of date British slang or something, say. Hire someone who knows the subject matter to do the transcriptions.

    {soft piano music playing} - this is sometimes okay, but I love it when the subtitles actually tell me what the music is. I would love that even if I were not hearing impaired. Good subtitles can enhance viewing for everybody. This was really well done in, say, the 2002 "Forsyte Saga". It tells you what piece is being played on the piano, or what opera they are attending, etc. Wonderful.

    Out of sync subtitles - no, just no. Maddening. Get them reasonably lined up with the speech. Especially do not have them appear too soon and ruin dramatic tension.

    Completely wrong subtitles - I've seen subtitles from a completely different TV episode playing. Insane. Have some QA, for pete's sake.

  • Just have a second shorter screen below the movie screen that displays the captions through a video projector?

    That would ensure the deaf is accomodated, and people won't complain that the text is covering up the action on screen. This is an obvious no brainer.

  • It's just I have a quirk where if there's text on the screen I'm drawn to that at the exclusion of pretty much everything else going on on screen. What would be great is if they could matrix them in somehow and then give people glasses that allow them to see the captions, while it would be invisible to everyone else, or maybe there could be dedicated seats in the back couple rows with a special transparent display that shows the captions like the teleprompter things politicians use. Or they could just have

  • Granted, I haven't been in a movie theater in years, because the experience has become imho unpleasant. But I do watch the odd movie at home, and often I cannot understand parts of the dialogue. In action scenes, the explosions drown out the actors; in love scenes, the actors are speaking to softly. In lots of cases they are just speaking too fast, like they have some weird time limit to get their lines out.

    The loudness/softness is a bit strange. In the music world, everything has been flattened: lots of

  • Here I just spent good money to see Dune in the theater (figured this movie would be worth it), but only made out about 2/3 of the spoken words due to the atrocious sound mix. Subtitles would have been welcome throughout.

    And may that "BWAAH!!" sound meet a swift and years overdue death while we're at it.

  • AMC has been doing this for a while with a few of their movies in my hometown of Huntsville, AL. "Dune" has a 6:10pm showing today with "Open Subtitles".

    AMC also shows non-English language movies with subtiles, they played "Titane" here with subtitles for over a week.

  • Yesterday, I took the family to a treat: Dune. In the cinema. Small room, for a cinema. 4 rows of 8 seats, plus 3 pairs in the back. We got the centre seats on the second row. Which was almost in the middle of the room, which is normally okay. The movie was not dubbed but subbed. Unfortunately, here in Switzerland, that means subs in German and French. But wait, there's English subs for the alien/Chinese/sign language parts. That is already at the bottom, so the rest gets shifted up.

    So, for the privilege

  • by xlsior ( 524145 )
    As someone who grew up with on-screen subtitles: having them forced upon me in the cinema means that I won't be watching movies there -- because it's REALLY distracting any time the subtitles don't don't match 100% what is being said... And it is pretty much guaranteed that it won't, because if you've ever used closed captioning you know that there are many times where there's simply too much information and it get abbreviated or rephrased, taking you out of the flow of the movie

    Nice sentiment, but while
  • Note that the linked article (yes, I may have to turn in my /. membership card for looking at it) says:

    AMC said that only select, clearly designated showtimes would feature open captioning and that the “vast majority” of its showtimes would still be offered with closed captioning.

    As long as such showings are really clearly designated, what's the problem?

    I personally, in general, dislike open captioning as I end up reading the words and taking my attention off of the rest of the screen so miss li

  • Much to my chagrin, my teenage daughter prefers to turn on subtitles (closed captioning) when she watches movies. I find it crazy-making, but I think it helps her stay focused on the movie.

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