by Robyn McKenzie
Classic Cinema, Gordon Street, Elsternwick, Victoria
Dear Manager,
Just thought I’d send you a quick note to let you know how important you have become to me. Our relationship has ramped up a bit this year. I hope you have been enjoying the extra time we are spending together as much as me. We began our first correspondence back in February. My friend Joy and I dropped by to see the movie All Of Us Strangers. Remember Joy? We love seeing films together. We have a similar taste in cinema and love to go to lunch afterwards to discuss the plot, the actors and the cultural references. We had three films in mind to see, back on that day in February, but I was happy to see whichever one was available audio described.
Emma, our server at the ticket counter, said that all the cinemas were AD capable so we could see any movie we chose. She understood the difference between AD and captioning. This pleased me greatly because so many cinema staff confuse captioning for people who are deaf with audio description where the action on the screen is narrated via a separate audio track for people who are blind or vision impaired. All Of Us Strangers was our first choice. So, Joy and I were very pleased to buy our tickets for the 10:00am screening. As she handed over the audio description headset, Emma told me to let her know if there were any problems with the headset or the AD. I suggested that it might be better if she popped into the cinema about five minutes into the movie starting so that she could check if everything was working okay. This was my preferred option because on previous occasions, when the AD track or the AD headset wasn’t working, I would miss the first 20 minutes or so of the movie while I popped out of the cinema, waited in line again and reported the problem.
As you are now aware, unfortunately the AD didn’t work. Jem, I assume Emma delegated the task to him, came into the cinema with an extra headset. He confirmed that the AD track wasn’t running. Given that Joy and I were the only people in the cinema, he paused the movie while he tried out some strategies. This is the benefit of having a preference for seeing movies early in the day. He popped in and out a few times to check if the AD headset was working in other cinemas. Fortunately, Joy and I love a chat, so we were content to sit there waiting for the situation to be rectified.
Unfortunately, the problem couldn’t be fixed so Jem pressed play on the movie, and we watched it without AD. This process took about one hour. Joy commented that it was most unfortunate that the movie was paused on a shot of leftovers in Andrew Scott’s fridge. She would have much preferred looking at a frozen image of his face or perhaps even his butt! I was very impressed with Jem’s attempts to fix the situation. He apologised for the inconvenience and gave us a free pass for our next visit to the Classic. He said he will raise the matter with his manager. He believed the problem was something to do with the transmitter.
Joy and I have visited you and seen several fabulous movies since that day. You took the time to investigate the matter. It turned out that something was wrong with the transmitter. Given that nobody had complained up until then, the problem had not been identified. I was impressed with the way you kept in touch with me to explain the technical issues. You also explained that cinemas 5 and 8 are still not audio description capable because they operate on a different system, and it is currently too expensive to rectify. You have been very understanding when the movies I want to see all seem to be scheduled in cinemas 5 and 8. And I have been grateful that you have given me free tickets when the AD hasn’t worked.
We eventually got to see All Of Us Strangers again but this time with AD. The movie was screened in Cinema 9. I don’t know if you scheduled the movie on a different screen as a result of me cheekily requesting a change of screen. Perhaps movies, as they near the end of their run, are moved into different cinemas. Either way, I finally got to see it audio described. And this time, I was able to point out to Joy some of the visual references in the film that she missed!
I am looking forward to spending much more time with you.
Kind regards,
Robyn.