Samuel Dore, Kate Bazini and Mike Ballinger: Sign language interpreting for deaf people who work in the media (BSL)

Deaf filmmaker and unit stills photographer Samuel Dore, along with BSL/English Interpreters Katie Bazini and Mike Ballinger, have been working in the media industry for many years, they are now working together again to bring back and expand upon their previous courses about interpreting in media environments. The new online and face-to-face courses look to reflect the recent changes in the media landscape as a whole and highlight some of the deaf creatives working in this space.

In recent years, we have seen an increase in demand from mainstream TV channels, commissioners, production companies and audiences for more authentic storytelling. The success of BBC’s Reunion, written by William Mager, starring a mainly deaf cast led by Matty Gurney and Sophie Stone, ITV’s Code of Silence starring Rose Ayling-Ellis as well as her BBC prime time documentaries; Signs for Change, directed by deaf filmmaker Ted Evans, and Old Hands, New Tricks, show the appetite for original narratives driven by the communities they are about.  

With more productions planned over the next few years spotlighting deaf content and hiring deaf professionals in both mainstream and ongoing deaf-led productions, the need for high quality media literate interpreters has never been greater.

Working in media is competitive and working on a par to hearing peers has never been more important. Interpreters who are able to match the pace and reflect the skill set of a deaf creatives are imperative. Lack of adequately skilled interpreters is ever present in deaf people’s lives. This is not to say there aren’t many brilliant interpreters, more that they haven’t been trained in specific domains to meet deaf people’s needs.

Often when deaf people are working in a new domain it falls on them to be responsible for educating interpreters about jargon and expectations of the setting. This undue burden acts as a hand-break on deaf people’s careers. While ‘learning on the job’ is a common situation for many people, when their job is to provide access it can lead to them providing more barriers than bridges.

Media offers a very specific environment with many moving parts with a wide array of crew, along with actors or presenters, each with their own responsibilities, skills and jargon, and all working towards the same goal so interpreters have to navigate a controlled chaos set where 100% clear communication from everyone is vital to a successful shoot, therefore considerable pressure falls onto the interpreters.

Simultaneously for the deaf professionals, the interpreters are their gateway to demonstrating their skills and experience to others, to further their careers especially in a hearing-dominated industry so they need to feel they have full confidence in their interpreters.

There is also a misconception that set work is the only type of media work. There are many media roles that do not take place on set that interpreters need to have a good understanding of the media landscape for. 

The recent articles in Limping Chicken were timely for us as we had the wheels in motion to re-launch the courses. We had heard from deaf people and interpreters alike that there was a need for training on a bigger scale and delivered in different regions. Giving deaf professionals and production companies a much wider choice of media-experienced interpreters to choose from, wherever their production is based, particularly when there aren’t enough media experienced interpreters from outside the M25. 

The first face-to-face Media Interpreting weekender took place in Nottingham this year with 50 interpreters attending and ScreenSkills partnering with us to make the costs as affordable as possible. We are partnering with ScreenSkills again to deliver the course to 50 more interpreters, this time in Manchester applications can be made by clicking on the link. 

After the success of the live sessions, we have now made our online course in a pre-recorded format, in the hope that it is more accessible for interpreters. It includes additional materials to boost your CPD with some unstructured learning. 

We hope to continue to work with deaf media professionals to expand on the training we can offer interpreters to give the fullest reflection of the profession we can. As with every part of our profession, providing appropriate access has to be paramount. To be fair to interpreters, it is hard to work in a field where there is not much of a template, until now.

For more information about the courses please see https://signuptrainingltd-media.com/