Hard of Hearing

Film Article

Do filmmakers and audiences have a tendency to pretend the deaf and other similarly
disabled people arent there? With the release of the innovative short film Hard of Hearing which uses sound and visuals in a way to explore what its like to lose your hearing
ability, were taking a look at cinemas history with deaf audiences and filmmakers with:

Sound & Vision

Originally, film was silent, save

an accompaniment of orchestral
music. While this music often
helped to create and develop
suspension a prime example is
1922s not-quite-Dracula horror
Nosferatu it wasnt at all essential to the storytelling and often
considered as an afterthought,
with a composer composing the
music to the already finished
film as opposed to the more
collaborative process that goes
into scoring a film today. Those
today who think subtitles are
obtrusive should watch one of
the old silent movies: Any essential dialogue would interrupt the
footage and be placed in a card
in frame for up to seven seconds.
Film was conceived as a visual
medium, being as accessible to
people who couldnt hear as radio plays are to the blind. It was
the emergence of talkies that
first developed this divide. Often
joked as the original destroyer
of cinematography as directors would frame their actors
awkwardly in order to maximise

proximity to the sound recording talkies were expected to

destroy cinema.
The last film I saw that didnt
use dialogue to explain the majority of the plot was the Shaun
the Sheep Movie commented
Zayn, a deaf reader who responded to us after we reached
out for opinions of hard of hearing readers.
But even then, while I was able
to understand the plot entirely
there was a moment when the
sheep were singing that Im sure
would have been very touching... had I been able to hear it.
While subtitles are always useful,
there is always the knowledge
that what youre seeing isnt the
full product. And also, reading
subtitles and looking back to the
characters is harder than youd
think, especially when you dont
know whos talking. The closest I
can get to an entirely equal viewing experience of a movie with
my friends is watching something foreign, with subtitles.
Amelie or Battle Royale or some-

thing like that. But even then...

It was trying to explore the
difficulties of living as a hard of
hearing person that prompted
Thomas Byrne to write the script
initially.
Living with a brother whos partially deaf means a lot of things.
It means a lot of repeating long
sentences because he didnt hear
the first time; it means subtitles are on every time we watch
something and it means that
sometimes you see him being
left out, just because people
dont understand or have the
patience to understand what he
goes through sometimes. Thats
why I wrote the script. This was
my attempt to try and replicate
what it must be like to be hard
of hearing and to not hear well.
Like Lip-reading and the difficulties that come from that.
While obviously considering the
use of sound in the movie, its a
film aimed more at the hearing
audiences as opposed to the deaf
community, theres a huge hope
that someone would see the

People who
cant see or
hear exist,
and Id like to
remind audiences of that.

STOP PLAY
Shooting was paused after a
performance from lead Nick
DeCruz resulted in injury

short and to try to come up with

a way to make films more accessible to deaf viewers.
The use of sound is a defining
feature of Hard of Hearing,
something that made shooting
and editing a lot more extensive than it could and perhaps
should- have been, considering it
was a student film.
This was a film created for media studies in my second year of
sixth form. Combined with the
two other subjects I did that year,
I should have done something
simpler. Like a zombie movie or
something. Basically, I had to
shoot everything twice. I was the
only one in the crew so I had to
shoot the visuals and then got
the actors to do it all again to
record the sound on a separate
external recorder. Then, when
it came to editing, I had to sync
everything up initially, and then
research how to make the sound
design as in-depth as I imagined
it. I wanted to present to us
hearing people what itd be like
to lose a sense. We only have five

of them. Imagine not being able

to smell or taste well, Ive got
a bit of a cold at the moment, so
its not that hard to imagine. But
theres obviously not many deaf
or blind characters out there. Off
the top of my head, I can only
think of Daredevil whos a blind
superhero (see page 98 for our
feature on the upcoming Netflix
series - Ed) and other characters
played for laughs like the three
blind mice in Shrek. People who
cant see or hear exist, and Id like
to remind audiences of that.
If I were to revisit the theme
Id want to show sign language
as a part of it and how not all
deaf people sign. And hearing
aids as not being the cure to
deafness. They dont miraculously make people able to hear
they just make everything, like
everything, a lot louder until its
not understandable. Being deaf
isnt a death sentence, and theres
still ways for hard of hearing folk
to enjoy themselves.
Hard of Hearing is avaliable On Demand now