{"id":20463,"date":"2017-01-26T16:37:31","date_gmt":"2017-01-26T22:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=20463"},"modified":"2017-01-26T16:38:00","modified_gmt":"2017-01-26T22:38:00","slug":"movie-theater-accommodations-proposed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=20463","title":{"rendered":"Movie theater accommodations proposed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Movie theaters would provide special accommodations under a bill heard by the Judiciary Committee Jan. 26.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Sen. Dan Watermeier<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Under LB269, introduced by Syracuse Sen. Dan Watermeier, movie theaters with five or more screens at one location would be required to provide open movie captioning at two weekly showings of each movie produced with open captioning through 2021.<\/p>\n

A movie with open captioning projects dialog on the bottom of the screen, viewable to all audience members.<\/p>\n

Watermeier said handheld captioning devices currently are available but can distract from the experience and lessen enjoyment of a movie for viewers who cannot hear well. Movie theaters can obtain open captioning movies at no additional cost, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to the Hearing Loss Association of America, 20 percent of Americans have some level of hearing loss,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s important we provide the means by which deaf and hard of hearing Nebraskans can enjoy the movie experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Violations would be considered a discriminatory practice and subject to a penalty of up to 30 days in county jail, a fine of up to $100 or both.<\/p>\n

John Wyvill, executive director of the Nebraska Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, testified in support of the bill. He said handheld captioning technology often is ineffective or unreliable.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Unreliable technology] prevents approximately 20 percent of our population from enjoying the movie-going experience,\u201d he said. \u201cAll we\u2019re asking is very simply to have captioning on the movie screen, the same as you\u2019d see if watching a movie with captioning on Netflix.\u201d<\/p>\n

Representing the National Association of Theatre Owners, Jeff Logan opposed LB269. He said most theater owners are accommodating of all movie viewers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOpen captioning is really an older solution. I think there are better solutions now that the technology is evolving,\u201d Logan said, adding that many hearing individuals prefer not to watch a movie with open captioning. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to exclude anyone from the theater experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee took no immediate action on the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Movie theaters would provide special accommodations under a bill heard by the Judiciary Committee Jan. 26. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[107],"class_list":["post-20463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-sen-dan-watermeier"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20464,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20463\/revisions\/20464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}