Nicholas Mugridge: Deafness hasn’t held me back from a career in video production

Experience is such a wonderful thing. You live and learn. It is a challenging affair for a deaf person to succeed in a hearing world.

I’ve spent a decade working in TV in Commercial Advertising, across top agencies
in London. Right now, I freelance as an editor and Director Of Photography, in the field of short form video production and content creation.

My passion for videography and editing came from working in the advertising industry. Like most, I began my career at the bottom of the ladder after completing my A-Levels and worked my way up by gaining experience that prepared me for the working years ahead.

Today, the biggest satisfaction is the end result of any content I produced. It is truly satisfying when you deliver good work that exceeds client expectations, which originated from just a brief.

An example of this was when I had to adapt a case study video I created for a client to present to the CEO of Proctor & Gamble in the USA, a global consumer goods company.

As a person with a profound hearing loss, how exactly did I achieve this?

Well, the great advances in technology has unquestionably made the biggest difference. My hearing and general responsiveness is helped tremendously by wearing highly sophisticated hearing aids, such as the Resound Enzo – which enables me to edit audio, record voiceovers, add SFX and carry out final sound mixes, while linked through to my iPhone.

If seeing is believing, then hearing is feeling. With the world becoming ever increasingly dependent on technology, I think this will only continue to favour the
deaf, in the sense that the use of the telephone is becoming less and less the main form of communication, as we shift more to visual and written interaction.

I only got to this stage by having great belief in myself. I put in a lot of time,
effort and resources by working hard on dialogue and lip-reading after being diagnosed from the age of two.

I focused on improving how I might be able to cope better in a hearing world and my parents were hugely pivotal in my decisions.

The question I’m often asked the most is. ‘’What advice can you give to the young or the deaf who are considering how they might want to shape their career?’’

I’ve always long believed that, whatever the disability or disabilities one carries, it should never act as a barrier.

It’s about persistence and working hard to achieve what you really want in difficult and challenging, but to some extent, completely workable circumstances.

The societal interaction between deaf and hearing people can be somewhat blurred. One of the thorny issues is ‘deaf-awareness’, a debatable topic that shows no signs of abating.

My experience has been that, yes, many aren’t deaf aware and wouldn’t be, but it is equally our responsibility as individuals to ensure we make it clear what our needs and limitations are.

A combination of having confidence and assertiveness needed will remove any doubt in people’s minds.

However you look at deafness and the way you go about it, it is only ever a hinderance if you let it be.

Find out more about Nicholas at: his website: www.nicholasmugridge.co.uk or on Twitter: @MUGRIDGE

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