You are witnessing an exciting behind-the-scenes look at the development of our ASL lessons, highlighting the remarkable journey of our talented signers, producers and beautician! As we continue to create high-quality content, we invite you to stay tuned for more updates and lessons that will make learning ASL a vibrant and enjoyable adventure!
Since American Sign Language (ASL) and Swiss Sign Language (Schweizerische Gebärdensprache) DSGS are different! We were faced with the difficult task of finding a competent person in this area residing in Europe and got lucky with our companion, Monica Keller! She is a native Deaf with American Sign Language as her mother language alongside English, bilingually. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Deaf Studies and Linguistics. Two master’s degrees in Sign Language Education and Education Technology. She is currently finishing up her doctorate, remotely as well! Her background holds an abundance of experience behind and in front of the camera for various reasons so she is such a natural in our lessons! We feel quite fortunate to have someone like Monica on the team.
We also need a second signer to develop the first lesson, she introduced us to Erica Parker who also lives in Europe. Erica has a similar background to Monica’s especially specializing in sign language storytellers skills! After meaningful correspondence, we started to plan the filming week. Sonos prepared every detail such as booking a hotel and round-trip tickets to provide a warm welcome to Switzerland!
Arrival
Nothing foretold troubles, but on the day Monica had to fly from London to Paris there was a strike of local train employees. The streets were jammed but somehow she managed to get to the airport in time with her determination. But her adventures didn’t end there, the flight from Paris to Zurich was delayed and she had to stay for one night there. On the next day, our ASL actresses landed at Zurich airport with beaming smiles on their faces! Lukas provided a warm welcome gathering to have the preliminary joy of having everybody in the team together.
Filming Process
On the following day, our filming project started well! The actresses were in a cheerful mood and on positive wave. First step was trying on clothes according to the topics of our learning application. Then we had to iron them, create a hairstyle and makeup. I tried from time to time to capture photos of our workflow (you will see some of them in this article). We treated the project very detailed and responsibly as the time of filming was limited, keeping us on our toes, sharply!
One of the bright spots in my memory was renting a diving suit for filming. Without diving permission, we weren’t permitted to rent it but we were lucky, that Monica is a fully certified scuba diver herself! With her license, we were able to incorporate a full visual representation in those lessons! The diving goods seller made her outfit more realistic by giving her oxygen cylinders. In my opinion, she was given the best one they had in the shop! It was with rosy stripes and a cute mask that looks great on your screen in the lessons.
I’m sure for every clothing set and every word was carefully selected, that every one of you for sure will use it in everyday life. We made the content with the same quality as the Swiss watch. You will see it after subscribing to ASLTrainer. The learning process will be more interesting with our application. You will plunge into a special atmosphere that we created for you with our team. Forget about boring grey backgrounds and tired actors. It’s not about us!
Stay Tuned!
Our filming story is to be continued with more lessons in mind to create for you! We are dreaming of a world where communication knows no boundaries and we strive to work hard everyday to make that dream a reality.
