Broadcast Writer

I just watched the movie Through Deaf Eyes, a production of PBS station WETA and Florentine Films/Hott Productions, Inc. It was produced by Lawrence Hott and Diane Garey. It was released on January 10, 2007.

While I’m naming names, perhaps I could drop the names of a few famous Hollywood folks who are in Through Deaf Eyes: actress Marlee Matlin and narrator Stockyard Channing.

To top it off, Through Deaf Eyes features short films by filmmakers who are deaf.

The films in Through Deaf Eyes were produced by:

Wayne Betts, Jr., Vital Signs
Kimby Caplan, Listen
Arthur Luhn, Destination Eyeth
Andrean Mangiardi, Equilibrium
Tracey Salaway, That’s My Marshmallow
Rene Visco, Audism

Did you know that there are deaf film festivals? North American Deaf Film Festivals include Toronto, Seattle, Portland (Maine), Rochester (Minnesota), Chicago, and Beloit (Wisconsin).

As a ‘hearing person,’ this film opened my eyes to Deaf history, the Deaf Culture, recognizing ASL as a formal language, the complicated choice between a sign-language school or an oral deaf school or program at a public school, and whether or not to get a cochlear implant. Also, the movie showed many examples of people who are deaf doing storytelling. Their movements were so expressive and rich. In my opinion, sign language enhances storytelling.

I’m a ‘hearing person.’ I don’t know what it is like to be a person who is deaf. And this movie didn’t change me from a person from the planet EARth to a person from the planet EYEth, but it did educate me on some of the experiences of people who are deaf.

This movie featured interviews with people who are deaf. The people who are deaf who signed during their interview, an ASL interpreter wearing a TalkTechnologies Sylencer/Stenomask interpreted the interview subject’s signing and that audio was recorded as a separate audio track for the director and editor to use later. The Sylencer (Trademark) contains the voice of the interpreter so that the interpreter’s speech would not be heard in the background while the interviewee was signing. Some people who communicate with sign language also make vocal sounds while signing. The movie production team wanted to record those vocalizations for the film’s audio track without any other audio, such as the interpreter speaking, interfering.

Oh, yeah, and another thing… The descriptive captions of non-speech information were exceptionally rich in capturing the essence of the sounds.  There were many NSI descriptive captions I could mention, but the first one that comes to mind is in the short film Equilibrium by Andrean Mangiardi. Describing the sound sensation of putting on a cochlear device, depicted as a squeaky garbage truck scraping against concrete:

[Loud, grating screeching]

That description is so palpable! I love it. I tip my hat to the person who came up with that description.

Through Deaf Eyes is an incredible documentary about a subject that is often portrayed inaccurately in fictional media. I was shocked and troubled by the history of how deaf people were isolated and were treated in the past, especially in the years prior to 1955 when ASL made a remarkable rebound. (Watch the Through Deaf Eyes movie to find out why.) From my perspective as a ‘hearing person,’ I got the impression that Through Deaf Eyes presented examples of life with deafness appropriately and accurately.

Fun Fact: In the DVD Extras, it is revealed that the TTY (Teletype) machine was invented by a brilliant man who was deaf, Paul Taylor. Actually, the concept for TDD (telecommunications device for the deaf) was invented by two ingenious men who were deaf, James C. Marsters and Robert Weitbrecht.

There was much to like about Through Deaf Eyes. One of the qualities of this film that was most meaningful to me is that this wasn’t just a hearing person’s film about people who are deaf; this was a film of people who are deaf, and that people who are deaf worked on the production of, and that the hearing producers of this film sought input from and learned from people who are deaf.

Yours verbatim,
Caption Breaker

“Closed captions: so hard to make; so easy to break.”