[nabs-l] Question for a student org

[Kaiti Shelton]

Hi, fellow students,

I hope that you all are doing well as finals approach, and that you
high school seniors especially aren't too stressed out over your
applications for schools.  I, for one, am excited about Christmas
coming up and hope you all are too.

A disability awareness club at my college has just started up this
semester.  One of our community outreach events that will be an
on-going project is to host accessible movie nights a few times per
semester.  Tonight we're hosting one and will be watching The Grinch
with DVS.  I have a few questions for those of you who might use
described DVDs more than I do.

1.  Where can you get the DVDs?  I wasn't very impressed with the
service from my state's library for the blind and physically
handicapped.  Their catalog seems fairly out of date.  Apparently the
only two Christmas movies they have are something called "The
Christmas Miracle," and "Scrooge," which is a musical.  I ordered
these over a week ago in anticipation of the event and was told they
should be here in 3-5 business days.  Longer than that has passed and
those movies are not there.  Thankfully, I have a little video/record
store within a short walk of my house and was able to pick up the
Grinch for just a few bucks, because I knew it had DVS on the DVD as I
used to have a copy in my family.  I was shocked that they didn't have
the modern classics like Elf or the Polar Express, or even the
standard clay-mation videos I grew up watching with my parents.  I
suppose it worked out better because the Grinch is something college
kids would actually watch sooner than they would want to watch the two
movies the library had, but I'm looking for some more current titles.
Is it possible to buy them directly from WGBH where I know a lot of
the descriptive tracks are recorded?  Are there other venders that any
of you are aware of?

2.  Is it possible to have DVS and captioning playing on a DVD at the
same time?  The lady at the library didn't seem to know anything about
this, but as we're trying to be as accessible as we can we want to be
accommodating for anyone, and if I as a blind person want to watch a
movie with a deaf friend, that should also be a thing, right?  We've
talked about partnering with the sign language club and possibly have
them sign parts of the movie, but that could be a lot of work for them
even if members took shifts, and it wouldn't be as accommodating to
any deaf people watching as they'd have to watch the screen and the
signing person off to the side.

3.  Are there any general thoughts on this?  So far I think we have a
nice set up with a wheelchair accessible room big enough for a large
group of people, audio description, and hopefully captioning if we can
work it out.  I as treasurer sell snacks for a very minimal price and
admission is free.  This is just to help us make a little money off
the event while still showing people a good and inexpensive time.  I'm
interested to see if anyone outside our little group has suggestions
though, so anything at all would be received with gratitude.

Thanks,

-- 
Kaiti Shelton
University of Dayton-Music Therapy
President, Ohio Association of Blind Students 2013-Present
Secretary, The National Federation of the Blind Performing Arts
Division 2015-2016

"You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you back!"