I essentially wanna do a story about a deaf character that deals with the normal high school angst but also addressing the struggles a deaf person has to deal with in a hearing world all shown through this one person's experiences. When imagining this story I imagine a teenage boy, possibly a sophomore, because when framing this story I would want him to be young enough to tackle the struggles of a "growing boy" but I also want to frame the story with him getting use to his environment and being able to continue in that environment if that makes sense. So in this sense I would want a sophomore because I would be able to have him start off at a new school but also at the "end of the school year" which would be at the end of the film, he would still have future years to develop as a person at said school. To best develop my idea of my character I looked back at some of the films and TV shows I talked about in my research.
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| Anthony Hall |
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| Sean Berdy |
Sean Berdy plays Emmet Bledsoe in the TV series Switched at Birth, where his character plays a proud deaf teenage boy who has deaf parents and goes to a deaf school.
Anthony Hall plays Brian Johnson in the
film Breakfast Club who plays a stereotypical nerd but is revealed to
have depth and the true extent his academics play a part in his
education.
Creating this character I imagine a independent yet awkward boy. I want this character to be slightly stubborn and isolated taking on the teen clique of "me against the world" but depicted more as that is how his life has turned out; not wanting to feel like so but him feeling as though that is how life has to be. Yet at the same time I want to show him as quirky and slightly awkward; not necessarily as some cool lone wolf, but rather just trying to figure out his place in the world on his own. I want to show him as a normal teenager with average teenage boy problems and not show him as weak or/and dependent. In a way I want to model him as Emmet because I want to show him as a normal deaf teenager with his own interests, but similar to Brian in the sense where he has learn about how to be himself and deal with life on his own demonstrating growth and depth. I think one of the best ways I'm going to be exemplify this is through showing his passion in art. I think not only focusing on his deafness but his pure teenage spirit and giving him something to express himself with and be passionate about will really make him a lovable and well rounded character.
My biggest worry though is finding the perfect actor, or lets be honest, a actor.
I have started to fall in love with this movie concept and really want to do justice with it. As you could tell from my research on the deaf community, there is barely representation of the deaf community in the media but on top of that proper representation. With that being said I talked to my American Sign Language (ASL) teacher about if she could help me advertise this more in the deaf community and do right by this film. I am currently taking ASL 3 at my school and my teacher constantly helps and throws events for the deaf community and she constantly encourages us students to do so as well so she was also excited to here me doing a project with my main character being a deaf character. The main problem is because I am a high school student with a time limit and no budget, she was telling me it was honestly going to be extremely difficult to find an actor that would, one match the character characteristics I'm looking for but two, find a deaf person that would even be willing to work with me in the first place so she told me to keep my options open. Therefore although a deaf teenage boy would be ideal, I need to keep my options open to a larger age range and no gender limit. Now I know your thinking "well if anything couldn't you ask someone in your ASL 3 class that knows how to sign to act for your film?" and essentially I could, BUT I know with such limited ways for the deaf to get properly represented in the deaf I don't feel its right to just get a hearing person to pretend to be a deaf person, not really knowing what its like to be deaf. I want to do this project right, even if that means I put it at risk and make it harder. I was talking to Mrs.Stoklosa (my AICE Media Studies A teacher) and she is urging me to find a back up plan. It hurts me to think it wouldn't work but I know its the smart thing to do, I am going to think of other ideas but hopefully it won't resort to me having to essentially start this process all over.
That's a Rapp on this post, till next time!
Sources:
“Emmett Bledsoe.” Switched at Birth Wiki, switchedatbirth.fandom.com/wiki/Emmett_Bledsoe.
Shmoop Editorial Team. “Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall) in The Breakfast Club.” Shmoop, Shmoop University, 11 Nov. 2008, www.shmoop.com/the-breakfast-club/brian.html.
Pictures:
“UPDATE: SIGNin' in the Street at the Downtown Disney District and Your Chance to Attend 'Switched at Birth' Finale Preview.” Disney Parks Blog, disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2012/03/update-signin-in-the-street-at-the-downtown-disney-district/.
https://imgur.com/gallery/w3kBthttps://www.pinterest.com/bokukokoaha/anthony-michael-hall/
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