Filming is always an incredible adventure. We already have a small green screen studio for filming Sign Language. But filming is just one of the many steps necessary for successfully creating content for our ASL Lessons.
Finding the right people
The work of filming the first lessons started long before we hit the record button on our camera. First, I looked for fluent native ASL speakers who were interested in working with us. After a little research on social media, I found someone who had written an impressive post about the development of sign language. So I asked the author of the post if it would be possible to have a Zoom call with them.
That’s how I met Tyler Pugeda. A young deaf man who is fascinated with ASL. By the way, he is the one wo gave the TED Talk An Aspiring Deaf Doctor: Making my Dream a Reality. He taught me a lot about ASL and the deaf community in America.
As a hearing person myself, getting to know people from the deaf community, their stories, their wishes and their dreams, is the most important thing. During the hiring process for our ASL lessons I worked as a photographer for the magazine SONOS from the Swiss Deaf Association of the same name and so I already knew a lot about the Swiss Deaf community. For me, learning about the differences and similarities was truly fascinating.
Tyler Pugeda suggested to ask Monica Keller-Knörzer a deaf linguist, who also recommended Erica Parker, to sign for us in our filmed ASL lessons. Both women have experience signing in front of a camera and have ASL as their native language. Having two people to learn ASL from has several advantages, firstly each person signs slightly different, and secondly the overall picture becomes more interesting.
Preparing the lessons
The next step was to prepare the individual lessons. We took the lessons we already had ready for our learning application in Swiss Sign Language DSGS and translated them to ASL. In addition to the translation we made sure that it matches with the American culture and its topics. For example the word „Peperoni“ in Swiss German means bell pepper, in English it is a variation of spicy salami. Chaos ensued.
To make our lessons as interesting as possible we filmed all of them in front of a green screen in our studio and replaced the background later with an image that matches the topic of the lesson. In addition to this, the actors wear clothes which also match the subject.
In the weeks before filming, I went to various clothing stores and looked online for suitable outfits. Our most interesting piece of clothing was a diving suit for the lesson “Water Animals”. A store for diving goods near our film studio had some for rent, but they informed us, that it is necessary to have a diving license to be able to rent a diving suit. Thankfully, Monica had one and the store gave us the most beautiful diving suit with pink stripes. The seller even made her outfit more realistic by giving us oxygen cylinders and diving goggles.
Filming for one week
During one week our ASL experts were in our studio and we filmed the first 16 lessons. Thanks to our preparation and planning, filming went very well. I fondly remember how much love and care the actors put into signing. Of course not everything went perfect. For example it was planned, that we also film some side content for social media. But I had to learn, that even when videos on social media often look casual, it’s not that easy to make them.
I’m very grateful that we had such an awesome team for our first ASL filming session. We were an new team, working together for the first time, speaking different languages, and despite all that, the result was great. Is it allowed to write, that I am a bit proud about this week? All our team members have worked really hard and focused to get one step closer to the dream of being able to offer a service for learning ASL.
