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We had the pleasure of working with Cadbury and Guardian Labs to create a film for British Sign Language. Our role was to capture all spoken interviews of the St John’s Deaf Ladies Football team members, sound across all various scenes as well as capturing intimacy for 'signed' scenes throughout.
The focus of the film is to highlight the importance of BSL (British Sign Language), the role it plays for inclusivity and the potential it can offer to everybody. We spoke with 2 players from the club, Kimberly, Elise (above) and coach Becca (below) who all shared their experience of playing deaf sports, the role that BSL plays in their lives and a bit about their personal experience.
Capturing sound for this film was a highly considered process. For the most part, capturing spoken or ambient noise required fairly traditional in our approach ensuring that a rich, deep and honest sound was captured to ensure the film maintained integrity. When Kimberly was signing however, she was not speaking, therefore we felt it was important to capture the intimacy of signing, especially for the audience not familiar with BSL. Considering the purpose of the film was to bring awareness to BSL, we had to make sure it was 'felt' by the audience. Therefore, capturing body taps, rubbing hands, body movements and the occasional subtle nosies from the mouth became a focus.
In the intimate interview sequences, we took our time to use some of our most loved Sennheiser kit, to mic up the interviewees, and with creative placement and accurate dynamic adjustment, we captured a fully immersive sonic experience for the hearing audience.
Integrity is something that we place heavy value on at Acre Green, and working on a project such as this required huge amounts of integrity, especially since we are in the business of 'sound'. The duty we had was clear; Capture sound that adds emotion to the words, when the words can't be heard.
We feel truly honoured to have worked on this project, entrusted with capturing the thoughts and feelings from these incredible young women using BSL daily. We encourage everybody to watch the film, support the National Deaf Children's Society explore the value of BSL.
As Kimberly expressed so well in her interview, "It's very important to learn BSL... even simple signs like, 'Hello. How are you?' Just be kind. Be nice. Be polite". A simple, but a clear message that we often know more than we think and that everybody deserves kindness and politeness in their daily lives.
