I was delighted to learn that the Kinema in the Woods at Woodhall Spa has a pair of WatchWord subtitle glasses. These can be used with any new film.
I need to watch movies with subtitles because otherwise, I don’t understand what people are saying.
Sadly, subtitled movies in cinemas are usually shown at inconvenient times and days. Only a limited selection of movies are available weekly.
So, in theory, with the WatchWord subtitle glasses I could go and watch anything at any time. It doesn’t have to be a specific subtitled screening.
Currently only 9 cinemas and theatres in the UK have WatchWord glasses available, and they all seem to be independent. None of them are from the likes of Odeon or the other big cinema companies. It just goes to show how much they value hard-of-hearing customers.
This is surprising because the big corporations can surely afford the glasses much more easily.
Anyway, I was eager to try the WatchWord subtitle glasses out so I went to watch Captain America: Brave New World with them.
I first booked the tickets online and asked for the subtitle glasses to be available. Then they gave me a pair of them when I arrived and set it up for the right film.
The subtitle glasses are designed to be worn like regular glasses with lenses on the front and arms down the side. The subtitles are projected onto the lenses.
I found them awkward to wear with my regular glasses as they didn’t sit comfortably over the top. They kept making my glasses slide down my nose due to their weight, so I needed to ask for them to be pushed up repeatedly. This is not ideal in a quiet cinema.
Once I tilted my chair back, they stopped sliding, but getting them in the right position was still difficult.
Eventually, we balanced them on top of my normal glasses so I could see the subtitles and the movie reasonably well. But it was still an unnatural position for me to sit when watching a movie. I was scared to move in case it made my glasses slide down or the subtitle glasses needed to be readjusted.
The lens seemed a bit unclear, too; maybe it needed cleaning.
I think it would be better if they were wider so they could sit more comfortably over a person’s glasses. And also have some way of stopping them sliding down.
But looking at other people’s reviews, they seem to work well with their glasses. So maybe they are more adjustable than I previously thought and might work well for me next time.
I didn’t enjoy the film as much as I would have if it had just been subtitled normally, but I am willing to try the subtitle glasses again.
I have since found out that you can move the subtitles around using a keypad and change the size so I will try that next time.
If I can get it working well for me, then that would be fantastic as I would not be limited in which movies I can go and watch.
In an ideal world, cinemas would show just as many subtitled films as non-subtitled films to give deaf and hard-of-hearing moviegoers the same choice. Currently, they don’t, but they could do if they really wanted. It’s not hard.
But until then, these subtitle glasses are a useful way to improve cinema accessibility, and I look forward to giving them another go soon.
