Captioning: Bonus Feature or Required?

Originally written for Houston Deaf Network

Imagine that after a long day, you'd love nothing more than to sit on the couch and watch the newest cutesy animated movie from Pixar. No doubt, you cannot be disappointed... after all, it is Pixar, right? They have delivered pretty stellar movies in the recent past and this should be no different. Now, imagine being confronted with the shock that the DVD has no captioning at all. Maybe you don't have to imagine it. Maybe it happened to you, just like it happened to me.

My roommate scolded me, "Tsk, you should have checked Netflix and Redbox first to see if it had captioning or subtitles." No, I didn't check before I rented the movie, but in this day and age - practically every movie has either captioning or subtitles that most of us don't even think to check anymore, right? It was silly to think that I could have vested so much importance into a cute animated movie to help me unwind, but the fact is - I was extremely disappointed!

At first, I thought I was alone. I must have gotten a bad DVD somehow. Just my luck, huh? Then over the next few days, I began to see steady streams of complaints from friends and fellow Deafies asking about the captioning on "Up."

First it was a "marketing decision." Then it was a "manufacturing error."

In a country where closed captioning is considered mainstream, this was a pretty big shock. Pixar (and Disney) released their newest full-feature animated film to all major rental companies without captioning or subtitles. If you required captioning in some form and wanted to watch "Up," you were out of luck. Well, no... not exactly. If you wanted to watch it bad enough, you could buy the retail version. Conveniently, the retail version has captioning along with the bonus features.

Pixar considers closed captioning/subtitles a bonus feature. Really? Shame on you, Pixar. Back in the heyday, captioning might have been a luxury but today, it is expected. In a place where we have captioning practically everywhere, it is expected of major motion picture companies to produce their movies with captioning.

After a pretty big uproar from the community, Pixar has announced that they will release a new batch of DVDs that includes the bonus features to rental companies.

Let's analyze what Pixar meant by "marketing decision." Could it be that they wanted (or needed) to save money by removing the bonus features? Surely, the animation giant would already have all these features someplace. All it would take is a little manpower (and technology) to integrate them with the feature film. So it couldn't be about saving money. When I sat down to think about it, the only (and most obvious) answer came to mind. If adoring fans wanted to watch "Up" bad enough, they'd buy the DVD, right? Or maybe not. It may be safe to assume that in this economy, Pixar might be suffering just a tad bit just like the rest of us. Apparently, they thought the best way to boost sales was to force those of us who require captioning to buy their DVDs. Lame.

Let's look at "manufacturing error." Error? Yeah right. A complete set without bonus features conveniently ended up at rental places while the other batch (WITH bonus features) ended up in retail stores? A mistake can't get any more perfect than that. For Pixar's sake - let's believe for a second that it truly was an error. With the movie being passed through so many hands from start to finish, it's appalling to even think that everyone could have missed that.

Thousands of devoted fans have become disgruntled customers overnight. I guess Pixar just never accounted for how many there are of us out there. And by "us," I mean those who need captioning to enjoy their movies and those who just like to have captioning on their screen. If everyone stands together and makes one united voice, we can truly make a difference.

Let this be a message to Pixar and anyone who will listen. Captioning is NOT a special feature!

A difference 15 minutes could make

For most of my life, I was governed by the 15-minute rule. It was not taught by anyone nor was it passed down by my parents or any of my relatives. It was something that I came up with as a child and I have stuck with it thus far. And I don't know why. I didn't even know I had a rule until my friend complained "ME - you ALWAYS say it's 10 minutes!" Back then, I lived by the 10-minute rule. Whenever someone asked me something about how far something was or how long it would take me to do something - I'd always answer the same. 10 minutes. Somehow, somewhere along the years, I've changed it to 15 minutes.

My 15 minute rule is as follows:

Ask me where my parents live and I'll tell you that they're 15 minutes away from me.

Ask me how long it takes me to get ready in the mornings and I'll say 15 minutes.

Ask me how long it takes to get to church from my old apartment and I'll tell you 15 minutes.

When friends ask how far away I live, I tell them 15 minutes (if we're in the general NW area). Not 10, not 20 - it's 15.

Ask me how long I typically hit snooze in the mornings and I'll tell you that I snooze for 15 minutes. To be accurate, I snooze for 18 minutes. If you round it out, it's 20 minutes. My clock snoozes for 9 minutes each snooze and I typically snooze twice. I can't snooze once and three times is too much. Two is just the magic touch for me.

I am either early or late - I am rarely on time (Except for work. For some reason, I'm on time for work and late for everything else). If you ask, I'm either 15 minutes early or 15 minutes late.. most often, it's late. I'll be the first to admit that.

Recently, I had two appointments in the Cy-Fair area. One at a school and one at the district building. With appointments at places that you don't really go to often, you most often debate how long you should take to get ready and how long you should allow for driving time. Me - I just solve all my problems by saying "15 minutes." 15 minutes to get ready and 15 minutes to drive. Realistic, huh? Realistically without traffic, it IS possible to get to these places in 15 minutes - but when you factor in Houston traffic, that 15 minutes goes right out the window.

I decided to allow myself an EXTRA 15 minutes each to ensure that I get to wherever I'm going on time. When morning comes, I end up snoozing that 15 minutes out of fear that I will have ended up wasting 15 minutes of precious sleep.

Most mornings, I think about how much difference 15 minutes could make. When I'm late, I start thinking "If only I got up 15 minutes earlier. If only I left 15 minutes earlier." But when I'm early, I always think "Man, I could have stayed home and slept an extra 15 minutes."

So I wonder... how many of you out there are like me?