Deaf Awareness Week, co-ordinated by UK Council on Deafness is a campaign in which many different organisations participate, each able to promote their own work within the broad spectrum of deafness.
Many organisations collaborate and work together in a joint campaign of UK wide national and local events to raise awareness of the needs of the 1 in 6 deaf or hard of hearing people in the UK. Deaf Awareness Week aims to promote the positive aspects of deafness, promote social inclusion and raise awareness of the huge range of local organisations that support deaf people and their family and friends.
There are many ways in which cinemas and exhibitors can get involved to promote d/Deaf awareness within their organisations and for audiences. From staff learning some basic BSL signing to programming more captioned subtitled films to always adding subtitles to social media content, here are some resources to get you started.
When planning film exhibition initiatives online it is important to think about access and inclusion for everyone.
Things to think about regarding d/Deaf awareness and online film exhibition:
We would love to know about your film or cinema project at Inclusive Cinema. If you’d like to submit your own case study, please download this Inclusive screening case study template and submit it to toki[at]filmhubwales.org, so we can share your experiences, too.
Project overview Community Cinemas operate on a tight budget and primarily screen from DVD using equipment aimed at the “home” market or a little better. Venues also are multi-use and not purpose built and therefore often suffer from poor acoustic qualities and do not offer tiered seating. However their audience demographic includes a significant proportion … More
We recommend using professional subtitling and audio description services for your film wherever possible, to ensure the best possible standard and accessibility for your screenings.
To provide subtitles which are accessible for D/deaf audiences you will need to provide caption (descriptive) subtitles for your film, which provide extra information about the sound onscreen as well as dialogue. Subtitling often used for foreign language films translates the dialogue only and assumes a hearing audience. Please check with the individual subtitle supplier whether they provide this.
For foreign language films, you will need a Subtitler and/or Audio Describer who can translate for screen.
Here are details of some UK based organisations who may be able to help:
Matchbox Cineclub – Subtitling.
Day for Night – Subtitling , audio description, translation in 45 languages.
Voicebox – Subtitling.
Glocal Media – Subtitling and BSL translation for media.
Zebra Uno – Subtitling and BSL translation for media
Capital Captions – Subtitling, audio description and translation.
Screen Language – Subtitling, audio description and translation.
Matinee Multilingual – Subtitling, audio description and translation in 80+ languages.
Mind’s Eye – Audio Description
Vocal Eyes – Audio Description
Audio Description Association – Offers a directory of freelance Audio Describers, sorted by region.
Sign Language Media – BSL translation for media.
Reflect BSL – BSL translation for media.
Red Bee Media – BSL translation for media.
Bradford Talking Media – Subtitling and BSL translation for media.
Sign Language Direct – BSL translation for media.
Tarjuman – Subtitling and translation.
If you are looking for a BSL interpreter for your film screening, event or meeting, here is a list of Interpreter services and organisations who may be able to help:
Action On Hearing Loss – BSL Interpreters, Deafblind interpreters, Lip Speakers, Sign Supported English (SSE) Interpreters.
Clarion UK – BSL Interpreters.
Sign Language Direct – BSL Interpreters and Lip Speakers.
Sign Solutions – BSL Interpreters.
Deaf Umbrella – BSL Interpreters, London and South East (Kent).
Prestige Network – BSL Interpreters.
Zebra Uno – BSL Interpreters, Lip Speakers, Sign Supported English (SSE) Interpreters, Deafblind Interpreters, international Sign Interpreter.
LanguageLine Solutions – BSL Interpreters.
BID Services – BSL Interpreters.
Royal Association for Deaf People – BSL Interpreters, Lip Speakers, Deafblind Interpreters.
Link Hearing – BSL Interpreters.
List of BSL interpreter contacts.
AVSTTR (The Association of Speech-To-Text Reporters) – Speech-To-Text Reporters
Action on Hearing Loss – Speech-To-Text Reporters
MyClearText – Speech-To-Text Reporters
Clarion UK – Speech-To-Text Reporters
NRCPD (The National Registers of Communication Professionals working with Deaf and Deafblind People) – Speech-To-Text Reporters
BIVR (British Institute of Verbatim Reporters) – Speech-To-Text Reporters
Stagetext – Subtitling and live captioning
AI Live – Live captions
Transcription City – Subtitling and live captioning
Capital Captions – Live captioning
Streamtext – Realtime caption solution
CC Extractor – produces subtitle files from closed captions
Rev.com – transcription, subtitling and captions
Zubtitle – captions for social media
Speakertext – cloud-worker generated captions
One of the things I like best about Darius Marder’s feature directing debut Sound of Metal is how unsentimental it is. The temptation is certainly there as you watch its main character struggle to overcome a massive physical change that impacts his entire life.
FAN supported BFI Musicals in autumn 2019. This was a nationwide cinema season celebrating the spectacle and craft of Musicals on film. This major season was led by BFI, Independent Cinema Office and Film Audience Network (FAN).
FAN member cinemas could access screening support to present films, mini seasons or events as part of the season. With screening support, they received help to fund their own independent programming and events plus support to do wrap around activity related to the seasons core titles.
For exhibitors who wanted to include Captioned Subtitles on their screenings, Sweet Charity was bookable from the ICO touring programme. Tommy and Singin’ in the Rain was available from the BFI.
Exhibitors who wanted to run a Dementia-Friendly screening, could take a look at our downloads section. Screenings are adapted to make the environment more suitable for people living with dementia. You can find more about running dementia-friendly screenings here. Dementia-friendly screenings are also sometimes called Relaxed Screenings, though these can also be suitable for people with multi sensory sensitivities or different conditions such as autism or learning disabilities.
Exhibitors who were interested in running a relaxed screening, could find out more in our quick tips for running relaxed screenings. There is also some transferable advice in our autism-friendly screenings guide, though bear in mind much of this advice is specific to people living with autism, not necessarily those who are Learning Disabled. Ideally, consult with Learning Disabled groups in your area for advice and expertise.
Every design decision can make the user experience better or worse. Successful inclusive design requires informed decision-making at the concept stage, because it can become prohibitively expensive to make changes later on. This kit describes the four main phases of inclusive concept design: Manage: Review the evidence to decide ‘What should we do next?’ Explore: … More
Whether you already caption, aren’t sure if you need to caption, or are completely new to closed captioning, you’ll find something to learn in this guide.
Subtitles are something that many of us don’t even take notice of but their importance should not be underrated. Here we take a look at what subtitles are, where they are most used and how they are made.
Project overview Part of BFI Comedy Genius, Sign for All collaborated with Women Over Fifty Film Festival (WOFFF) and The New Black Film Collective (TNBFC) in screening silent short films for the deaf community in Birmingham’s MAC and London’s Stratford East Picturehouse. The screenings also included stand up Deaf Comedian Rinkoo Barpaga. Why the project … More
Scottish Queer International Film Festival (SQIFF) was founded in 2014, holding its first one-off screening in September of that year and 3 annual Festivals since then. Attendance has grown from 1801 at our first festival in 2015 to 4609 in 2017 (a 156% increase). SQIFF’s audiences are made up of diverse LGBTQ+ communities and a … More
