Ready & Abled

Now that the thrust of the holiday movie season is upon us, let’s talk about something not so cheerful: Going to a film and not being able to hear it. Thousands of people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing miss out because they can’t follow dialogue on the big screen.

Big chains like AMC Entertainment and Regal Entertainment, having been sued countless times for not having captioning systems, have agreed to settle lawsuits by installing some caption systems, in some cities. As a result, a few movie theaters in Fairfield County (and beyond) have this technology in place.

The bigger nut to crack is finding a particular film, when you want it, where you want it. It’s almost fanciful, like trying to catch Santa in your chimney on Christmas Eve. Movie chains say they don’t want to disrupt their hearing audience, so they tend to run captions on just one or two new films — of their choice — each week, often at odd hours.

For example, this week’s film at AMC in Danbury is “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” That’s it. If you drive 35 miles to Stratford you can see Invictus, but only at 3:20 p.m. or 9:50 p.m. That’s fine if you’re a night owl, but most people would like more choices.

People who are deaf and hearing impaired would also benefit from a complete, searchable list of what’s playing around town. Forget the movie chains’ rambling hotlines or their websites, unless you want to spend hours hunting for films on their “accessibility” pages and finding very little.

A great new website, Captionfish.com, does the work for you. It’s a local movie directory of all captioned films playing for the day or week in your area. You can get email notifications when Captionfish finds a particular film in your area, or set up an RSS feed. It also plays captioned trailers, a great feature that doesn’t exist on any other movie site I’ve ever been on. And Captionfish also lists movies with have descriptive narration voices, for people who are blind or visually impaired.

A quick Captionfish search found all captioned movies playing within 60 miles of Greenwich. Still, the results can disappoint. To see Avatar this weekend you’d have to drive to the Connecticut Post 14 Cinema de Lux in Milford — the only place, locally, to see this flick with captions. Ironic, as Avatar is about a man with a disability.

Another website, Fomdi, provides a similar directory, but is more barebones. Also, WGBH Boston’s National Center for Media Access, which developed a proprietary captioning system called Rear Window Captions, has listings of theaters that have bought their system. In Connecticut, this includes the AMC in Danbury and the Connecticut Post cinema in Milford, as well as three Showcase Cinemas in Buckland Hills (Manchester), North Haven and Southington.

If you’re in need of a captioned film, definitely check out these websites. You’ll save time and frustration — and if you’re lucky just might find the flick you’re looking for.

It was a roller-coaster ride that sparked Chuck Bergen’s interest in helping kids with disabilities. Many years ago Bergen and his family attended a theme park in Pennsylvania and stood on line for a roller coaster. The ride was accessible, in the sense that people who used wheelchairs could transfer from their chair to the coaster car on a separate platform, which seemed like a reasonable arrangement to Bergen until the ride operator cried out: “Will ANYONE give up their seat so the disabled kid can ride?”

Besides the shear embarrassment Bergen says he felt for the young girl in a wheelchair, he was even more shocked at how many people refused to give up their seat so the girl could ride with her companion, who happened to be her mother. “It pretty much hit me that a virtual reality roller coaster ride for special-needs individuals would be a nice alternative to the awkward situations some theme parks put people through,” Bergen says.

A software developer by trade, Bergen knew he had a unique opportunity in front of him. He founded VTree in 1999 and began creating virtual reality education software such as I-CE-ME, which packages entertainment with education – from soccer and volleyball games to memory and word-matching challenges — to help special needs kids both learn and play.

But he still kept thinking about that roller coaster, and wanted to give kids an imitable experience though video games. “One thing that struck me was that almost all the popular software video games were strictly designed and developed for the mass market, which excluded physically and developmentally challenged individuals and families,” Bergen, president of VTree, says. “I decided I wanted to break through this wall.”

Ultimately, Bergen and his team settled on a making a football video game for kids with physical and cognitive disabilities that would look and feel almost exactly like the traditional titles. After all, football is the most popular sport in America, and games like Madden NFL and NCAA Football are proven bestsellers.

The next challenge was getting the idea to market. Luck played a role when Bergen attended a trade show in California for accessibility technology, where he had the opportunity to meet video-game maker EA SPORTS’ Chief Technology Officer Rob Moore. He pitched his idea to Moore on the spot, emphasizing the need to help kids as well as the thousands of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan whose serious physical or mental injuries now prevent them from enjoying the video games they grew up with.

Moore got the green light for VTree to redesign all of EA Sports video games for gamers with physical and cognitive disabilities. VTree’s first title, ‘My Football Game’, was released last month. Up next is ‘My Golf Game’, due out in early 2010.

‘My Football Game’ is a CD-based game for the PC that can be played on any desktop or laptop with a Windows XP or Vista operating system. The game is compatible with a USB XBOX 360 game controller, a keyboard and most USB adaptive devices. ‘My Football Game’ is $39.95 and VTree offers free shipping through the end of the year.

“’My Football Game’ proves that you can make a game for the special needs community that looks and feels like a traditional game,” says Mark Barlet, founder of AbleGamers, a website that ranks video games for accessibility. “The game does everything right, from the design of the box to the features that it has built in. It’s almost exactly like Madden NFL,” he says.

Features include 20 customizable playing speeds to allow nearly everyone to play the game, regardless of disability. There’s also a skill drills feature that allows the gamer to practice running, passing, tackling, and kicking at a comfortable speed to improve their skills before moving into full game competition, providing positive feedback and instructions along the way.

Personalization is another option, with gamers being able name their player avatars. U.S. Armed Forces members, who have access to the games at VA facilities, can create teams with authentic uniforms for each branch of the military service and special units such as Seals, Rangers and Special Forces. And a My Championship Ring feature takes cues from real-life football to help players earn a full set of diamonds as they master their playing skills.

Readers, I’m giving away a copy of VTree’s ‘My Football Game’. Send me a comment about this story, and I’ll choose a winner at the end of today. Be sure to also check back later this week for my list of the best accessible video games and other holiday gifts for people with disabilities.