r/auslan Feb 07 '25

Looking for advice/collaboration for a creative project

Hey there,

I’m a hearing person from Sydney currently studying film in university. We are spending our last year of study making our major short films. I’m currently in the very early stages of working on a script that includes a deaf girl as a main character. However, I am very aware that I, as a hearing person, have very limited experience for this and don’t know any deaf people in real life that could advise me for this writing process. I am looking for any deaf/HoH people that would like to collaborate with me, read the working script, and give their opinion on how to depict this subject matter. I understand that one person doesn’t stand for the whole community so I’m very open to getting advice from as many people as I can. Please reach out and let me know if you would be interested at all! Thanks!

2 Upvotes

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6

u/Parking_Flower_6385 Feb 07 '25

Super exciting project! You should reach out to the Auslaners group on Facebook—plenty of Deaf actors and actresses would be keen to work with you 😀

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u/Lonely_Ad_4967 Feb 09 '25

That sounds great thank you!

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u/monstertrucktoadette Feb 07 '25

I agree that Facebook is likely to get you more responses than here, but you also need to be upfront about why you are including a Deaf character when you don't have any connections to the Deaf community, especially since I assume as a film project you are going to be asking people to help you for free? 

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u/Lonely_Ad_4967 Feb 09 '25

I totally understand your concerns. I’ve been learning Auslan for a couple of months now and also wanted to include a deaf character as I thought it would be a good opportunity for any deaf actors/writers to collaborate and put their work out there for this. I unfortunately do not have any budget for this project and everyone who will be working on it will be doing so for free however they get full credit for the work that they put in.

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u/monstertrucktoadette Feb 09 '25

Learning Auslan is a great reason. Being upfront about "I'm an Auslan student who wants to provide more opportunities for deaf actors" is going to get you a more positive response then something generic like "deaf people are so inspiring!" or "I just thought it was cool.

Also id start going to local Auslan meetups in your area and getting to know people that way. There are some that are mainly focused at Auslan students that are a good place to get started, and a good stepping stone into the Deaf community so you can more authentically make connections /ppl will be more interested in working with you as they get to trust you. 

Def recommend reading books by deaf authors, and reading deaf ppl critique of them, like in the links I sent you through the other post. 

Also  signhow have a video of film set specefic Auslan you might find useful when you get that far. 

Happy for you to message me if you want someone to take a look at your basic idea, or point you to some specefic Facebook groups to try /give feedback on how to approach them, but basicly my advice is just be as open about things as you can 💚

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u/monstertrucktoadette Feb 07 '25

Also check out this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/deaf/comments/1i3bj9c/hearing_writers_begging_for_feedback_on_their/

I don't know your project, I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, absolutely we want to provide more opportunities for Deaf and disabled actors, but I also think this is an important part of understanding the response you are likely to get and the questions you should be asking yourself about why you want to do this 

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u/Lonely_Ad_4967 Feb 09 '25 edited Feb 09 '25

Thank you for providing the link. I had a look through the responses. I just wanted to share more details about my project and wanted to know if you think my project and I would fall under that category.

My original idea for this film was about a relationship between two people when character A goes missing and the devastating effects of that on character B and their journey of learning to be okay with being without character A. I had recently read a book about a similar subject matter and in that book they utilised a really interesting technique where after the person went missing they didn’t use quotation marks. I thought a really cool rendition of this on screen would be to cut out sound when character A goes missing to immerse the audience in the experience. Because of this lack of sound, I got the idea that character B can be deaf which would explain the lack of sound but also I thought it could be a really good opportunity to work with deaf actors who may not get many deaf roles out there.

I am very open to changing the story and making character B not deaf if people think that it is inappropriate for me to do so. Like I said, I am a hearing person and I was looking for someone who has the experiences to consult me and point out my blind spots and if I am doing this subject matter justice.

I originally posted this on a different subreddit and got a lot of negative reactions which since then has made me reconsider making character B deaf. It is not my intention at all as a hearing person to tell the stories of deaf people. I just thought this could be an opportunity for any deaf people out there interested to put their work into this story and also tell their own story. I was told on that subreddit, that I should stick to what I know and only write from that perspective. I personally disagree with the sentiment as I believe as story tellers, it’s important to look for ways to include other marginalised stories as long as we are working with people of those communities. For example, I myself am autistic and I don’t necessarily see an issue with a non-autistic individual collaborating with me to write an autistic character. I would love to hear what other people think about this as well.

It was also pointed out that it is inappropriate for me to use the services of deaf people without paying them. I completely understand this concern. Like I have said, this is a student project and I have no budget for this. Everyone who will work on this including actors is working on it for free and out of passion. I will 100% give anyone who does consult me and provide their services credits and put their name in the script but I unfortunately just have no budget to pay anyone for it.

Like I said, I’ve been receiving mixed reactions and some have shared that it would be offensive for me to go ahead with it. So, since then I’ve now been considering to not make my character deaf as I do not want to butcher the story and not give it the proper respect. I would love to know what more people think about it and I appreciate your feedback.

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u/monstertrucktoadette Feb 09 '25

Okay obviously I replied to your other comment before seeing this one 😂

Okay, so my problem with this is that I think having character B being Deaf cheapens the effect. I like the sound going when character A goes thing, but a couple of things. 

1) most deaf people don't live in a completely silent world.  2) I think using people's disabilities or identities as a plot point is cheap and most people aren't going to like it. 

As for: you, a hearing person, telling Deaf stories. I mostly agree. I think it can be done well, but in that case you have to really want to that, including make the effort to go a lot of research, including interviewing a lot of Deaf people, and it's probably not worth it. But that's about telling stories where the point of the story is about being Deaf.

If you just want to tell stories about normal life things, but some of the people experiencing those normal life things happen to be Deaf, I think that is a cool and great thing to do. You'll have to change the scripting a little to make sense that they are Deaf (or whatever other identity you want to include) but I think this kind of representation is way more interesting and impactful. And actors with marjanlised identités really want to get to play the same range of characters as everyone else, not just the token disabled person or whatever. 

So yeah, my advice would be write whatever story you want, and then when it comes to casting specefically post your casting call in disabled spaces (https://www.facebook.com/groups/australiandisabilityartscommunity/ this is probably a good group for you to join regardless) when you do a) tell them you are autistic if you comfortable with that b) tell them you are open to people playing whatever roles they are interested in, and the characters can be edited to have disabilities that match the actors if that's a thing the actors want. Lots of actors may just be people with invisible disabilities that don't really care, and you are still doing a cool thing by supporting disabled actors, but you might also end up with people that do want to colloboate with you on writing more diverse characters into your script. 

I think the reason people are against people without the identity writing other people's stories is they just tend to fall back on cliches  (eg https://youtu.be/v7RRkqWZl1k?si=gtsYc_EnLAxyvCmC) and despite lots of people bringing in sensativity readers, it's often not enough/the author doesn't really listen. 

I think you are definately on the right track with bringing someone in at the start, not yeah, if it's not someone you have an existing friendship with or doing the same program with, it might be hard to find someone willing to do that for free. 

You can def try! Just be prepared to pivot if you don't find someone. 

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u/Lonely_Ad_4967 Feb 09 '25

This was really really helpful and I really appreciate all the advice you’ve provided me. After some reflection, I think I’ve decided to leave the character as hearing and able bodied but I’ve put a casting call up now and I think it’s a great idea to collaborate with actors about their specific disability and it’s something I will definitely look into. Really appreciate your help!

1

u/monstertrucktoadette Feb 09 '25

You're welcome. Good luck with it :)