Deaf news: Deaf filmmaker looks for inspirational deafies for short film

A few weeks ago, deaf filmmaker Ted Evans (who made The End) was asked to contribute to a Deaf Professionals Day in a secondary school in London.

The day is set up to inspire deaf kids to aim to achieve more. He was asked to make a short film about himself, but has decided to make a short film that will show the kids about deaf people out there, and he’s looking for deaf people in and around London to be part of it.

Ted says: “When I was growing up I wish I’d had role models to look up to, who were like me. I honestly thought, until I was about 10, that me and my friends were the only deaf people in the world… I’d like to remind people these were days BEFORE the internet.”

Ted is looking for inspirational deafies to make a short film that will be inspired by internet film Life in a Day, which drew together footage of different lives to make a compelling film of one day in the world (see below).

He said: “Life in a Day is a great film (with subtitles!) and you can see how you can film a section/small part of someone’s life… in a really simple but effective way. For my film I’d just spend a few hours showing what this person does, and why they are unique and special.

I asked Ted a few more questions…

What’s your aim?

With this short film I hope to be able to put a bit of hope into young deaf people who may be feeling a little bleak and unsure about their future. At the same time I think it would be great to show the diversity and variety within the Deaf community. We are an interesting bunch of people and many of us go on to do great and interesting stuff – but these kids don’t see what we do and they struggle to find role models.

Who are you looking for?

Anyone who has a particular talent, skill or job. It could be someone running their own restaurant/business, someone who is amazingly talented at football, someone who makes beautiful bouquets of flowers, someone who can play a musical instrument , a teacher, a builder – anything!

You just have to be D/deaf.

You can be a BSL user or someone who speaks. You can be Deaf, deaf, hard of hearing or soft at hearing – whatever, it does not matter; I want to film the deaf community as a whole and we all know that it consists a wide range of versatile people with all levels of hearing.

Filming would be very short, a few hours max and you have to be based in or around London. This is because the film is voluntary at this stage and we have very limited time and resources.

What do you hope the final film will be like?

I also have been watching ‘Life in a day’ recently – an amazing film and it has been lodged in the back of my mind for a while. Obviously we can’t film deaf people all around the world, in a single day but the way it is put together and edited is just awesome. I’d love to do something like that but at the moment this is something very small and compact but you never know, we might be able to pull together some funding and develop this idea further and make a longer film, covering more people nationally.

How can people contact you?

The best way is to email me: ted.evans@hotmail.com or you can find me on Facebook or Twitter!

Please be brave and put yourself forward or nominate someone you think is unique. Cast yourself back to when you were a kid – didn’t you strive to find a role model? and wouldn’t it had been inspiring to know that people, who were deaf like yourself, were doing pretty cool things in their lives?

It’s up to us, to show the younger generation that the sky is the limit.

In other news, some students from Bath University are setting up a project and are looking for three Deaf teenagers girls to be part of the film.

The project is a 2 minute trailer for a new book being released by Templar Books called Whisper.

It’s about a teenage girl who becomes profoundly deaf and how she learns to accept herself. The ages they would be looking for are 16 year old girls, and it will be filmed mainly in Bristol and Bath.

Unfortunately it’s not paid, they can pay expenses however. The filming dates will be from the 12th – 14th of March.

You can contact the filmmakers by email: esther.ridings09@bathspa.ac.uk.