Transcipt: The Your Local Cinema website is no more

1 January 2012

Roberta:  For several years now Media Access Australia has provided cinema information and session times for movie fans who require captions or audio description on Your Local Cinema website. Now the website is no more and cinema information has moved over to mediaaccess.org.au.

Online Communications Coordinator Eliza Cussen is here to talk us through the changes. Hello Eliza.

Eliza:  Hi Roberta.

Roberta:  Now what service did Your Local Cinema provide?

Eliza:  Well basically Your Local Cinema provided information on cinema technology for people with a disability and most importantly the session times for sessions with option captions, closed captions and most importantly audio description.

Roberta:  So why was it shut down?

Eliza:  Well it sounds like a bad thing, but it’s actually very good. Your Local Cinema was a project that was set up to assist the cinema industry in promoting accessible cinema.  Now we’re handing the torch to them, handing over the baton and we’re no longer holding their hand with that. So as accessible cinema expands nationally in Australia, we’re encouraging the cinemas to do their bit in promoting accessible cinema in the same way they promote cinema without access features.

Roberta:  Well exactly, because they’ve all got websites haven’t they?

Eliza:  They do, yeah.

Roberta:  And those times should be on there as well as the times for people, sighted people.

Eliza:  And they are. And the really good thing is that there are more and more accessible sessions going up every week...

Roberta:  Oh that’s good.

Eliza:  ... as more cinema locations became accessible. So we just found it was too much work updating it. It just seemed the most logical thing to pass the baton back to the cinemas and make them o the work. 

Roberta:  Well that’s right. It gives them ownership of it and more responsibility for it doesn’t it?

Eliza:  Exactly. Yeah. We just decided that we couldn’t hold the industry on this anymore, so it’s about a change in responsibility.

Roberta:  Of course. Now what cinema information now features on Media Access Australia’s site?

Eliza:  Well we’re not listing the session times anymore as I mentioned. But we’re actually providing more information. So we feature information on the technologies, so things like CaptiView and audio description units, and perhaps the most exciting page is the at the cinema page, which talks cinema goers through the experience of seeing an accessible movie. So what it’s like to go in, to hire your piece of technology, your CaptiView, your AD unit, what it’s like to sit down and see a film with access features. Because although these accessible movies are becoming more and more accessible, people I think are still quite hesitant to go and try it for the first time. So what we’re hoping this page will do is just give people a bit of a nudge.

Roberta:  Oh that sounds very good. Now how can people stay updated?

Eliza:  Well our site is being updated all the time with new information, new pages are going up almost every day, which is terribly exciting for me, keeping me busy. And we’re also distributing the same cinema news that we put out on Your Local Cinema. So what people can do is go on to our site and subscribe to cinema news alert. So whether you’re blind or vision impaired or sighted you can subscribe to these news alerts.

Roberta:  Well that sounds really good. So the website is mediaaccess.org.au and all the information can be found in the cinema and the arts section, where there’s also information on theatre performances that are accessible to the vision and hearing impaired.

Well it’s the start of a new year Eliza, what would you like to say to our listeners?

Eliza:  If I could I would just like to give a little plug for our social media. So we’ve just hit over a thousand fans on twitter which is...

Roberta:  Wonderful.

Eliza:  ... very, very exciting. And twitter is one of those social media which is slightly more accessible for people who are blind and visually impaired. If you feel like doing a bit of research give the work EasyChirp, so e-a-s-y-c-h-i-r-p, give that a Google and that’s a more accessible version of twitter which was developed for people who are blind and vision impaired, and that’s where we put out a lot of our social media... a lot of our cinema news.

Roberta:  Yeah.

Eliza:  So if there’s a change to a session time or a cinema that has just become accessible twitter is a great way to get to the minute updates.

Roberta:  Well thank you very much Eliza.

I’ve been speaking with Eliza Cussen who is the Online Communications Coordinator for Media Access Australia. And Media Access Australia are supporters of this program.