SYNOPSIS OF THE SHORT FILM AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE DRAMA, “BEYOND ESSAYS”
A college writing professor, Genevive, frantically tries to finish her dissertation before the deadline tonight. When a disgruntled student, Wanda, unhappy with her grade refuses to leave her office, Genevive is forced to cross boundaries with the student in order to finish on time.
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Gallaudet University was the main source of inspiration for this short film. I was an undergraduate student there for four years, and anyone who’s been there knows this: Gallaudet University is a unique campus that is almost utopian in it’s own way– for the deaf community. It supports the deaf community in many ways that people don’t realize. For instance, the role model of all the professors there. Half of the teaching department is deaf or hard of hearing, and the entire teaching department uses American Sign Language to teach their students. Anyone who’s studied deaf history also knows this: this place was the first place to encourage deaf people to start obtaining doctorate degrees after 1988, the week of the Gallaudet revolution, when they wanted a deaf president to represent their university.
Now, in addition to this, since the deaf community is known for coming in flocks, that says one thing: they often stick together, and live with each other, even if they may not like each other. They share the same language and culture, and they recognize their needs for people who share that language and culture. And, that, in itself can also cause unique relationships between people who are taught to not cross a certain line initially, but have to break it, because of their need to share their language and culture.
For instance, professors and students. It’s been known in the past time and time again that deaf professors and deaf students have crossed the line, and became friends, or got married, or had the kind of relationship that is usually considered forbidden or taboo in our society. Deaf people have to resort to ignoring the taboos and unspoken societal codes in order to get what they simply want: to share with others who are just like them.
The key point I must bring up here that makes this project even more unique: the approach used for the dialogue in this film is very uncommon in the Hollywood system, or even the theatre, arts, and home movies.
Let me back up a little bit. Here’s what I see is the problem. I, myself, a deaf individual, am very fluent in American Sign Language. So one would think: if there was a film in ASL, I would be able to enjoy it just like a hearing person would enjoy hearing their language spoken on their film. That’s not quite the case for me. Simply because of the common approach they used with American Sign Language, the script is always originally written in English (just like how hearing people would speak it) and then is translated into ASL. Because of that, the original spirit of ASL is lost.
There’s much that’s difficult to explain, but essentially, the natural feel of ASL is not there because of the original script in English. So because of this approach, I am unable to have ever seen an ASL scene that’s loyal and true to the authenticity of the deaf characters, and for me to actually relax, enjoy and feel the characters for once.
In “Beyond Essays” I have chosen to “write” in ASL originally, have the actors get the signs directly from me, and make it work with their characters, just like the privilege of any hearing actor with their English dialogue. Because of this approach, I am not forcing my actors to translate the written English into ASL. They are able to add layers to their lines just like anyone else would.
By doing this, I wrote the script by thinking the ASL out in my head, recorded it on video and handed it over to the actors. They would take the lines I have given them, and do it without having any dependency on English whatsoever.
I sincerely hope to see a positive artistic outcome from all this, and to be able to find a method that would work for the acting process for ASL-fluent artists, and at the same time support the deaf community and have more films to authentically represent deaf characters better.
We are looking for your help to support us. To help support this film and find more backers to raise at least $2,000 to help produce this film by April, please click this link:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/julesdameron/fundraising-for-beyond-essays-a-damname-film-p
To learn more about “Beyond Essays,” go to http://www.damname.com/Beyond_Essays
Jules Dameron is a filmmaker with a Master’s degree in Film Production from the University of Southern California. She’s also an avid supporter of all who are frequent users of American Sign Language. Hailing from Minnesota, she extends a friendly demeanor towards all she works with. Jules pursues her abiding love for directing films, having directed a large number of short films. She has additionally directed a few short plays for Deaf West Theatre. Jules is the CEO of her film production company, Damname Productions. She resides with her husband and three cats in North Hollywood.