Yep, I finally bought my own domain. I also decided to replace the blog template with a new one. For these who have me on the blogroll, you may have to change the web address from my old address to banjosworld.com.
I don't have much to blog about at the moment. I just wanted to let everybody know about the change here at Banjo's World.
Have a great day!
Some of you may have watched the movie earlier tonight on CBS. If you haven't watched the movie and don’t want to read anything spoiling the movie; Then I suggest that you hold yourself back from reading this. Also, I have to emphasize that this blog entry is not about the cochlear implants. It is about the movie and what I thought of it.
Jeff Daniels and Marlee Matlin play the leading roles in this TV movie. I just finished watching it on CBS. It was quite an emotional roller coaster ride. So were the Hallmark commercials. All of them were basically short films with a touch of heartwarming story to each of them. Hee hee.
Anyway, back to the movie. This kind of movie is rarely made. Tonight, this movie was aired to millions of viewers. It may open up some people's eyes to a whole another world that some of us live in. I reckon that quite a few bloggers, both deaf and hearing will be talking about it for the next few days.
The controversial subject of cochlear implants is not the focus of the movie. It is a subplot, which entails the struggles within the couple's marriage to unravel both emotionally and politically.
As many of you know, the deaf world and hearing world are two whole worlds apart. Many of us share a role in both worlds. The husband is a hearing person and he is married to a deaf woman who he truly loves. Their son, Adam was born hearing. He went deaf when he was a few years old. One day, the father becomes interested in the technology of cochlear implants after bringing Adam to the emergency room. A doctor made the suggestion that he should consider the surgery. He was hesitant at first.
After a while, he started making a few decisions that doesn't settle too well with his wife, Laura without any prior discussions. Therefore, their marriage begins to struggle. The parents of Laura's are both deaf, her father holds a lot of pride in Deaf Culture and even wrote a book on it. I can see some people jumping the gun to label him a Deaf militant. Truth is, I don't feel comfortable using these labels to describe people. The thing is, I don't see people with labels on their foreheads. I see them as human beings. All of us have our flaws. We have our opinions. Everybody is different and unique in his or her own ways.
What I really liked about the movie is how they made every single character appear human, simple and plain. They don't make anyone out to be a heartless monster. The movie itself is neither supportive of nor against cochlear implants. It is because it is not the focus of the movie. It focuses on the political and emotional clashes between the couple that are acting in what they believe to be the best for their son.
I do have to mention a few flaws that I had spotted in the movie. For instance, the signing isn't always fully shown. In many instances, they are cropped off and they used a narrator to do voiceovers for the non-speaking characters. I realize that it may put some people off because they used the same voice for some characters. So I can see why it may be confusing.
Myself, I would have preferred that they subtitled the signing rather than doing voiceovers. Although, we all know how some people just cannot stand reading subtitles. As ridiculous and ignorant that may had sounded, but it's true. If you ask me, I think some people are just taking too much for granted to appreciate life.
Also, one thing bothered me about the movie. Why didn't they ask Adam if he wanted a cochlear implant? The parents nearly destroyed their marriage because of their political differences. I wonder if the screenwriter even thought of this during the process of writing the screenplay, which was based on a play. Really, just think about it. The boy is eight years old, I am pretty sure the boy would have been able to answer the parents' question.
A friend just mentioned the same thing to me. Great minds think alike, I must say.
My biggest disappointment was how they ended it. I felt that it was rushed and rather abrupt. That's Hollywood for you. They usually go for the happy ending. I wonder why they chose to end it the way they did. At least they showed that it is important to keep a family together and that love triumphs all.
Overall, I did enjoy the movie despite its flaws. You will be able to buy the movie on DVD this May. This movie really hit close to home for me at some points during the movie. This is one of the best portrayals of the Deaf culture I have seen in a long time.
It's a good website to check out. They tell you all of the problems associated with captioning and more. As I mentioned earlier today about captioning issues with HDTV and high-definition media/video players such as Blu-ray and HDTV receivers.
They will tell you what you need to know and have the sources to back it up. It is amazing how much power the corporations wield when it comes to passing accessibility laws. They always try to find a loophole to weasel their way out and make excuses. Corporations always send their lobbyists to the government buildings and put the pressure onto the politicians to make some changes. For example, before the digital TVs came out, the government only mandated that analog TVs with a screen size of 13 inches and above must be CC-ready.
Then they had to make a few things once they started selling HDTV displays. Today, the standards are still incredibly weak. We need to start mandating the media/video players including DVD players, Blu-ray players, HDTV receivers and more to be CC-ready. It shouldn't be just the TV sets anymore. Even portable DVD players with built-in LCD screens should be able to display CC.
It is sickening that many people are still living in blissful ignorance while we are fighting to break down the barriers. It is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to get what we want because not enough people are backing us up. Enough is enough. This needs to stop falling onto deaf ears. No pun intended.
Equal access for all.
The HDMI cable, it is a wonderful thing to have. It can carry the 1080p signal bringing you true high-definition video and audio quality. The bad news is that there are drawbacks. The cable itself is only able to transmit a video signal and an audio signal simultaneously.
What this means is that you cannot put any other signal through a HDMI cable because it will not be recognized at the other end. This is an issue for many deaf and hard of hearing people. A lot of deaf people use closed captioning to read the dialogues and background noises so they can become aware of what is going on.
Closed captioning and SDH are different. SDH itself is image-based while closed captioning is ASCII-based. For the last 10 years with the HDTVs on the market, people are still facing issues with built-in CC decoders on their HDTV sets. There are a few factors in why these are happening. For example, many DVD players are unable to send the CC signal to the HDTV when it is enabled in the progressive mode. The reason why this happens is because the analog CC fills in every 21st line in the interlaced mode. So when it is in the progressive mode, all lines appear at once so the CC signal is unable to find a place to fill in the information.
So, the best way to solve that problem is to use a software decoder rather than a hardware decoder. It is available on many DVD playback softwares on both PC and Mac. The CC signal will overlay the video signal rather than being sent directly to the monitor, projector, TV, HDTV and other types of displays.
The fact is, there are no Blu-ray players out there that offer such a feature to overlay the CC signal onto the video signal. I don't know about the other Blu-ray players, but if these players’ firmware can be updated; then it may be a possibility. I am pretty certain that it is entirely possible to do it on the PS3 (Playstation 3) with a firmware update.
Now, even though most movies on Blu-ray are subtitled for the deaf and hard of hearing. There are still many deaf owners who own movies on DVD. Many of these movies on DVD do not use subtitles, they use closed captioning instead.
I have brought this issue up with some film industry insiders including Bill Hunt of ‘The Digital Bits’ and more on several occasions. Whether some people like it or not, Sony, Fox, MGM and Warner Bros holds a bad reputation for not subtitling or captioning the lyrics in the main feature (movie) and the special features. I sent Sony an e-mail regarding "Across the Universe" and how they abused the use of the term, SDH (subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing) when a large number of lyrics were not subtitled mainly because they were copyrighted. Actually, it isn't a copyright infringement. It seems like some people may be misinformed on that part. But it is too common these days. It's that simple, if you can't subtitle the lyrics, don't use the term, SDH to describe the subtitle track because it isn't fully accessible. They still haven't responded to the e-mail since it was sent more than a month ago. So yes, I do believe Sony is not being responsive to our needs.
Disney, DreamWorks, Paramount, Genius Products, New Line Cinema and more caption/subtitle all of the contents including the special features. They do care about our needs. There are thirty million Americans with hearing loss. It is not a small number of people at all.
Accessibility is important and should be made a top priority by every studio out there. Especially when the deaf and hard of hearing consumers pay the same price as everybody else. Just like the blind people deserve descriptive audio tracks on the movies they buy or rent.
There should be no barriers, but there are and we are constantly fighting to break them down. Sometimes, it's just easier for the majority to live in ignorance because it is blissful. However, ignoring it isn't going to make the problems go away. We do constantly face naysayers and audists on many occasions. I'm pretty much used to seeing ignorant remarks being made toward us. I don't let it get to me and I continue to fight for what I believe in.
We demand equal access. That is all we are asking for.
The other day, I stumbled onto a preview for an upcoming documentary that was recently screened at the Sundance Film Festival. It won an award. It is about a deaf couple in their sixties. They get cochlear implants together. The interesting part is that they are both fluent in ASL (American Sign Language). As you know, it is still controversial to even speak of cochlear implants in some of the deaf circles. Though I must say that a lot has mellowed out over the years and are more accepting than they used to be. After watching the preview, it seems to be a very intriguing documentary and quite different from "Sound and Fury", a documentary from 2000.
Paul and Sally Taylor, the deaf couple are the focus of the documentary. The story is told by their daughter, Irene Taylor Brodsky, she is a filmmaker. This is Irene's debut as a filmmaker. Her mother, Sally Taylor was also featured in the PBS documentary, "Through Deaf Eyes."
You can find more information on the documentary by going to their official website.
The documentary will be aired on the 8th of May. Unfortunately, I do not have HBO. I don't subscribe to any movie channels in Canada. So chances are it will be on DVD one day. Although I can tell you that it is a documentary that I am looking forward to seeing.
It would be nice if I would be granted the opportunity to be given a look at the movie itself. It's a common practice with a lot of film critics to be granted access to advance screenings. However, I am not a syndicated film critic. This is quite a subtle way of hinting that I would like to review this movie and then share my thoughts with my readers.
I'm not being so subtle now, eh?
It doesn't matter if you support cochlear implants or not, this may be worth checking out. If you were lucky enough to have seen this documentary, please feel free to share your opinion of it.
