Does Your Movie Theater Offer Audio Description?

photo: a still from Netflix's Daredevil in which a woman reads Daredevil the newspaper

Movie theaters around the country are increasingly under a legal mandate to accommodate blind and visually impaired customers. For the most part, that means providing audio descriptions for films that blind moviegoers can use to hear a visual description of the film. But for various reasons, these services aren’t always available. Here in the Bay Area, a local group of disability rights attorneys are investigating audio descriptions at AMC theaters, and need your feedback.

The announcement is below:

Disability Rights Advocates and Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld are investigating complaints from blind individuals who have been unable to use audio description services at American Multi-Cinema, Inc. (“AMC”) movie theaters. We are interested in speaking with legally blind individuals who have encountered problems when attempting to use audio description services at AMC theaters in California.

Audio description refers to recorded audio that provides synchronized descriptions of a movie’s key visual details during natural pauses in dialog during the movie. Many popular films are released with the audio description feature. Movie theaters provide access to audio description by issuing upon request wireless handsets and headphones that play the audio description track during the movie. This configuration allows blind customers to listen to both the dialog and sound effects in a movie and descriptions of the visual aspects of the film.

If you are legally blind and you have been unable to access audio description services at AMC theaters in California because the audio description equipment was malfunctioning, because AMC staff did not know how to configure the audio description equipment, or for any other reason, we would appreciate speaking with you about your experiences. To share these with us, please contact Charlotte Landes by phone at (415) 433-6830 or by e-mail at Clandes@rbgg.com.