Celebration Cinema Offering Open Captioning Statewide

celebrationcinema34-10
celebrationcinema34-10

Celebration Cinema in Benton Harbor started showing a limited number of open captioned screenings this weekend. The chain’s Emily Loeks tells WSJM News this means they offer subtitles up on the screen for everyone to read.

“This is the preference for a lot of people in the deaf and hard of hearing community, as well as some who are English language learners, and even sometimes for me when I’m watching a movie where there’s accents or sort of muttered asides,” Loeks said. “You get some extra layers to the dialogue with the extra captioning  that can make it fun.”

Loeks says the chain previously offered closed captioning, which enabled someone to read the dialogue on a handheld device. They tested the opened captioning in Portage and Grand Rapids and it was well received. The opened captioning will be available with select screenings on Sunday afternoons and Wednesday evenings in Benton Harbor. The theater will clearly mark which screenings that have the open captions.