Annotated Listing of Selected Videos
Elaine Ostroff and Polly WelchExcerpted from Strategies for Teaching Universal Design, Polly Welch, Editor. Adaptive Environments and MIG Communications, 1995
This 1995 selection includes videos on the lives of people with disabilities, accessibility and universal design.
Able to Laugh.
Michael J. Dougan. 27 minutes. Available from Fanlight Productions, 47 Halifax Street, Boston, MA 02130, (800) 937-4113. Six professional comics-who happen to be disabled. This video is about the awkward ways disabled and able-bodied people relate to each other, and about how humor can remove some of the barriers of fear, guilt, vulnerability, and misunderstanding.
Accessibility and Historic Preservation (1994).
National Park Service and Historic Windsor, Inc. Available from Historic Windsor, Inc., P.O. Box 1777, Windsor, VT 05089, (800) 376-6882. Resource guide and videotape.
Accessibility Regulations (1992).
The U.S. Architectural and Transportation Compliance Board (Access Board). Approximately 13 minutes, open-captioned. Available for loan and copying, (800) 872-2253. One of two useful videos produced by the Access Board, it provides a brief but very clear overview of the federal accessibility regulations and whom they cover. It explains the origins of the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards and introduces the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG), along with a limited introduction to Title III of the ADA.
Accessible Design (1992).
The U.S. Architectural and Transportation Compliance Board (Access Board). Approximately 19 minutes, open-captioned. Available for loan and copying, (800) 872-2253. This is the second of two useful videos produced by the Access Board. The technical specifications of the ADAAG are illuminated by showing them in use in several facilities by people with a range of disabilities. Both this video and Accessibility Regulations emphasize the universal-design aspects of these minimum standards, in creating buildings that can accommodate the eventualities of life.
Another First Step: From Institution to Independence, A Family Saga (1994).
Michael Whalen. 51 minutes. Available from Filmakers Library, 124 E. 40th Street, Suite 901, New York, NY 10016, (212) 808-4980. This film introduces viewers to the concept of heritage. While it should be obvious to anyone that a person with a disability has both a family and a cultural heritage, this fact is too often missed.
Breaking Barriers (1989).
The United Nations. 29 minutes. Available from The Altschul Group, 930 Pitner Avenue, Evanston, IL 60202, (800) 421-2363. Produced by the United Nations as part of the International Decade on Disabled Persons, this film focuses on the rights and abilities of disabled individuals cross-culturally.
Building and Remodeling for Accessibility (1993).
Hometime. Approximately 30 minutes. Available from Hometime, 4275 Norex Drive, Chaska, MN 55378, (800) 535-7300. This do-it-yourself video from the public television series Hometime provides information and assistance for modifying entrances, bathrooms, and kitchens for accessibility. It also includes a segment on the construction of a new accessible home that shows construction details.
Building Better Neighborhoods (1984).
Concrete Changes. 15 minutes, open-captioned. Available from Concrete Changes, 1371 Metropolitan Avenue, SE, Atlanta, GA 30316. This useful educational tool features a construction engineer for Habitat for Humanity discussing Habitat's practice of making every house it builds accessible; an architect describing how simple and cost-effective no-step entrances are to create; and several disabled individuals advocating universally designed and built housing.
For the Rest of Your Life: The Hartford House.
Modern Talking Picture Service. 24 minutes. Available from Modern Talking Picture Service, 5000 Park Street North, St. Petersburg, FL 33709, (800) 243-6877. An overview of the Hartford House, a model accessible house designed and built by the ITT Hartford Insurance Group to raise public awareness of how environments through products and architecture accommodate an aging population.
Here. 13 minutes.
Available from Advocado Press, P.O. Box 145, Louisville, KY 40201. Poetry performance by Cheryl Marie Wade, a poet who will forever alter any preconceived ideas about disability. Includes printed text of the nine poems performed.
The History of Disability Rights (1993).
22 minutes. Available from Adaptive Environments Center, 374 Congress Street, Suite 301, Boston, MA 02210, (617) 695-1225 (v/tdd) ext. 29. Chris Palames, a disability rights advocate, presents a personal and articulate description of the disability rights movement, which led to the passage of the ADA. He highlights the political background along with the legal and philosophical connections to other civil rights movements. Although this is a poor-quality video, shot at a bad angle during the UDEP Colloquium, it offers students a perspective and historical background not available elsewhere.
A House for Someone Unlike Me (1984).
Written and produced by Bruce W. Bassett for the National Center for a Barrier Free Environment. 38 minutes. Available from Adaptive Environments Center, 374 Congress Street, Suite 301, Boston, MA 02210, (617) 695-1225 (v/tdd) ext. 29. This video vividly documents the architectural design studio led by Ray Lifchez at the University of California, Berkeley. Viewers get to witness the consultants with disabilities, the design students, Lifchez, and co-instructor Barbara Winslow in the midst of a creative and reflective design process, illuminated by personal stories of the consultants.
Interpretations.
Black Boot Productions. 25 minutes, open-captioned. Available from Fanlight Productions, 47 Halifax Street, Boston, MA 02130, (800) 937-4113. Janice, a freelance photographer who is deaf, has taken on her first professional assignment. She has hired her long-time hearing friend Maureen to work for her as a make-up artist, as well as to serve as her interpreter for the project. The film is particularly successful at conveying the difficulties and frustrations of many deaf men and women who must work with interpreters in the hearing world.
Key Changes: A Portrait of Lisa Thorson.
Cindy Marshall. 28 minutes. Available from Fanlight Productions, 47 Halifax Street, Boston, MA 02130, (800) 937-4113. This elegant video profiles a highly successful jazz singer who uses a wheelchair. Weaving performance footage with interviews, the video demonstrates how she challenges stereotypes and advocates for people with disabilities through her work.
Open for Business (1992).
Ward and Associates, with Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, Inc. (DREDF). Four versions of varying length, including closed-captioned and audio. Available from DREDF, 2212 Sixth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710, (510) 644-2555. Call for information and special discount rates. This fast-paced video shows two communities working together in one small town to learn what the Americans with Disabilities Act requires and how to achieve compliance with the requirements of Title III, Public Accommodations. The video explains the law and demonstrates attitudinal and architectural changes and the removal of communication barriers.
People in Motion (1995).
WNET-TV. Available from People in Motion, P.O. Box 2284, Burlington, VT 05407, (800) 336-1917. Three-episode series. Episode 1, "Ways to Move," profiles dancers with disabilities; the 1995 Miss America, who is deaf; and a candidate for a California congressional seat. Episode 2, "Ready to Live," profiles Ed Roberts, a national disability rights activist and founder of the Center for Independent Living; Marilyn Hamilton, whose new wheelchair design gives people with disabilities more independence; and Luka Kristo, a Bosnian militiaman, who can write and draw pictures using prosthetic hands. Episode 3, "Redesigning the Human Machine," examines how space-age technologies assist people with disabilities.
Towards Universal Design.
James Mueller. 15 minutes, open-captioned. Available from Universal Design Initiative, P.O. Box 222514, Chantilly, VA 22022-2514, (703) 378-5079. This video clarifies what the term "universal design" really means-design that considers people of all ages and abilities. It features candid viewpoints of design critics, educators, professionals, and students as they discuss the issues driving universal design: the growing power of older consumers in the marketplace, the implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the limitations that come to everyone who lives long enough.
When Billy Broke His Head (1994).
Independent TV Service and Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 57 minutes. Available from Fanlight Productions, 47 Halifax Street, Boston, MA 02130, (800) 937-4113. An award-winning NPR producer and journalist who is partially paralyzed from a brain injury embarks on a road trip to chronicle the lifestyles and views of fellow Americans with disabilities and discovers the political dimension of disability.
The following commercial films are available on video and provide insightful perspectives on the lives of people with disabilities: Awakenings, Children of a Lesser God, The Miracle Worker, and My Left Foot.
