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Actiview

This Thanksgiving, the Actiview App Brings Video Description to Five New Theatrical Releases

11/16/2017 LightHouse Staff

This week, LightHouse partner Actiview is delighting blind and low vision movie fans across the United States with the announcement that the app will provide audio description tracks for Thanksgiving’s biggest theatrical releases. The app is now supporting five current theatrical releases, both for independent and major Hollywood films.

Actiview put out word this week that the platform will carry description, amplified audio and foreign language support for Disney•Pixar’s new musical adventure Coco and Bleecker Street films’ Dickensian origin story, The Man Who Saved Christmas, in addition to more late-2017 studio releases such as Dealt, Breathe and Wonderstruck.

Starting with this summer’s theatrical release of Cars 3, Actiview has been pushing theaters and consumers alike to think differently about what movie theater accessibility looks like. Calling it “a broader platform” for movie access, TechCrunch profiled the startup back in July, noting that it may be an uphill battle to convince a very established industry to accept a new, smartphone-based system, despite the obvious advantages for blind and hard of hearing moviegoers.

“The accessibility content already exists for all these movies,” says Paul Cichocki, who left Pixar last year and now works at Actiview, ”most people just don’t know how to deliver it to the audiences who need it. We’re the platform that simplifies access, so that everyone can pay for movies knowing they’ll get their money’s worth.”

In 2015 the LightHouse partnered with Actiview as they started their venture, incubating the company in our Market Street and Ed Roberts offices. The partnership continues, as we are dedicated to full video description for all. Here’s why LightHouse community member Aerial Gilbert uses Actiview:

See below for full details about this Thanksgiving’s new films, and stay tuned for more information about local December screenings of Dealt, co-presented by the Roxie Theater in San Francisco!

DOWNLOAD THE APP: Actiview (App Store)

LEARN MORE: ActiviewApp.com

SUPPORT: team@actiview.co

——————

New Films

COCO

Rated: PG (Trailer)

Release: November 22

Studio: Pixar Animation Studios

Actiview will provide:

Audio Description
Amplified Audio / Hard of Hearing track

——————

THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS

Rated: PG (Trailer)

Release: November 22

Studio: Bleecker Street

Actiview will provide:

Audio Description
Captions in English and Spanish
Amplified Audio / Hard of Hearing track

WANT YOUR FILM ON ACTIVIEW?

http://activiewapp.com/studio

FOR MORE INFO, CONTACT:

team@actiview.co

Featured, LightHouse News, Resources in the Community

Win Two Free Tickets to Tomorrow’s Accessible Pre-Screening of ‘Wonderstruck’ at Mill Valley Film Festival

10/12/2017 LightHouse Staff

Following in the footsteps of accessible festivals like Superfest International Disability Film Festival, more mainstream festivals like Mill Valley Film Festival (October 5 – 15) are starting to catch on to the importance of accessible viewing.

In collaboration with our partners at accessible moviegoing app Actiview, we’re offering you (and a plus one) a chance to attend Mill Valley’s VIP accessible pre-screening of the 2017 film ‘Wonderstruck’ (Julianne Moore, Amazon). The screening is tomorrow, Friday, October 13 at 7 p.m. at The Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center (1118 Fourth Street, San Rafael, CA 94901). Actiview will be providing Audio Description and Closed Captioning through their app, which you can download online.

There will be press, potentially some of the people that worked on the movie, and more. It’s an opportunity to show filmmakers that access is crucial—and that blind and deaf people want to attend their movies!

The film travels through two different eras — 1927 and 1977 — and follows two deaf children who secretly wish their lives were different. In the earlier time period, Rose (Millicent Simmonds) begins a quest to find her idol, actress Lillian Mayhew (Julianne Moore). Fifty years later, Ben (Oakes Fegley) searches for his father in New York. “Wonderstruck” is adapted from a novel of the same name by Brian Selznick. In his Cannes Film Festival review, Variety’s Owen Glieberman praised Haynes’ direction, writing, “For a while it plays like two movies in one, and Haynes is so on his game in staging each of them that the audience gets swept right up in the bittersweet mixed-media rapture of his filmmaking.”

To enter to win tickets, contact LightHouse Producer Camilla Sterne at csterne@lighthouse-sf.org or 415-694-7306 before 10 a.m. on Friday, October 13. Please be absolutely certain you can attend the screening before you enter!

Actiview is collaborating with Mill Valley on a number of accessible screenings throughout the weekend, particularly two on Sunday, October 15 that you can still purchase tickets for! It’s a great opportunity to try out the app and see a few well-regarded new films, for only $15 with advanced ticket purchase.

Here’s the info:

Breathe (Andrew Garfield, Bleeker Street)
Watch the trailer.
Sunday 10/15 Century Larkspur Theater at 11:30am.
Tickets available in advance for $15

Last Flag Flying (Steve Carell, Lionsgate)
Watch the trailer.
Sunday 10/15 Century Larkspur Theater at 2pm.
Tickets available in advance for $15

Featured, LightHouse News, Resources in the Community

New Movie Tech for the Blind and Deaf, Actiview, Launches with Disney’s Cars 3

06/21/2017 LightHouse Staff

If you’re blind or visually impaired, you know that going to the movies isn’t as simple as smothering your popcorn in butter and leaning back in a cushy chair. While you wait thirty minutes for the manager to locate and set up assistive devices, you’ve already missed the beginning of the movie — if the device even functions properly.

But over the last year, LightHouse partner Actiview designed and prototyped a mobile solution to this problem within the walls of the LightHouse headquarters, and even 3D printed their streaming devices in our Toyota Innovation Tech Lab as part of our startup accelerator. They have since moved their base to our Berkeley satellite location.

On June 16, Actiview launched in the App Store to offer widespread accessibility for the summer Pixar release of Cars 3.

The team and their direction were influenced by many hours of feedback from LightHouse blind staff. We supported Actiview through their beta version because we think it is a huge step in the right direction towards accessibility for all moviegoers.

There is a strong buzz about this new technology as the wider community understands that Actiview will be able to provide affordable access to thousands of movie screens. Last week, industry reporter TechCrunch wrote a fascinating feature on this LightHouse-supported technology. You can read the whole story here.

The newest release from Disney•Pixar, Cars 3, will be fully supported by the Actiview app, delivering both amplified audio and audio description, free of charge, to anyone who downloads the app and shows up at the theater. Audio description is for blind users, with a voiceover track describing what is happening on screen. Amplified audio takes the audio of the movie and makes the dialogue clearer and louder, for hard of hearing attendees.

Here’s what to know:

Available on the App Store (http://appstore.com/activiewempoweredentertainment)
Audio Description for Blind and Low Vision
Amplified audio for Hard of Hearing
Captions and Languages coming soon
Works with Cars 3 in all US theaters
Assistive services are free

How to use Actiview:

Download the Actiview App from the App Store.
On June 16, Cars 3 assistive audio (assistive tracks will be available to for download in advance. Download over Wi-Fi before getting to the theater if you want to save on data use)
Go to the Cars 3 screening of your choice, open the app, and choose either Audio Description, Amplified Audio or the two tracks combined.
Give us your feedback by emailing comments to team@actiview.co or by calling our hotline at 1(844)-399-2789 to sound off!

Please note: The first time a user opens the app, there is a 30-second tutorial helping the user to understand how to navigate the app which requires headphones to go through.

LightHouse News, Open Call

Meet Actiview, the Ultimate App for Movie Theater Accessibility

09/06/2016 LightHouse Staff 1 Comment

If you’ve been to one of the LightHouse’s film festivals, our party at Pixar, or even just watched a movie in one of the living rooms at the New LightHouse, you’ll know that we care about making films as accessible as possible, no matter what kind of vision you have. That’s one of the big reasons why, when a new company called Actiview showed up at the doors of our old office this spring, we knew it was something great.

Fast forward six months, and Actiview now runs their operation out of the LightHouse’s new Toyota Robotics Innovation Lab, building the next big thing in entertainment technology. We’ll post more about the tech behind Actiview soon – but first, we’d like to give you an exclusive preview.

Bay Area residents can try out Actiview for the first time this Saturday, September 10th. To request an invite, send Actiview an email by Thursday, September 8th.

Founded on the basic principle that everyone deserves easy access to entertainment, Actiview is a San Francisco-based startup that promises to set a new standard for moviegoing. With close captions and any available secondary audio tracks (descriptive and amplified) bundled into one clean, easy-to-use app, Actiview aims to do what DMA did for Pixar films, for all movies in any theater across the world. And they need your help.

Actiview has put together its first version of its audio description and closed captioning tools and wants to show theaters and studios how powerful this new tech can be for audiences. They’ve set up a special user testing opportunity this weekend for kids, families, and individuals with an interest in the app to come, watch Pixar’s “Up”, never before seen with audio description on the big screen, and have feedback recorded to further the app’s development. It’s your opportunity to tell Hollywood what accessible movies mean to you.

If you’d like to attend the (free) event on the morning of Saturday, September 10, email alex@actiview.co with your name, age, and the number of family members or friends you’d like to bring along while you test the app. If there’s enough space, we’ll put you on the list. Meet you at the movies!