Adding BSL captions to film – reflections on some work experience.

Scarlett Danher describes her work experience with Thinking Film which has been adding BSL captions to one of our films.

Man doing BSL superimposed on two older men giving an oral history interview

We recently worked with Thinking Film to film BSL for our ‘Visions’ film (made by students at St Vincent’s School for Sensory Impairment). We had a work experience young person support this – Scarlett Danher who would like to be a film maker. She has written the following and made a mini vlog:

She also writes:

Hi guys! My name is Scarlett and I recently had some work experience at Thinking Film as I want to be a film maker when I get older. I also happen to be profoundly deaf and rely on cochlear implants to help me hear.

On the day I went in for work experience they were filming some BSL for a short film they had already produced to make it more accessible. I found this so amazing to see the effort that people actually go to to make a piece of media more accessible. When I was younger I used to rely completely on sign language and I am thankful for that as I feel it enhanced my communication skills and widened my vocabulary. However in recent years I have let my sign language slip and watching this inspired me to take it up again!

The process of filming BSL was fascinating and very impressive. Even though Thinking Film had never filmed anything like this before it was good to see how well they adapted to the situation. It was quite surprising to see how long the filming actually takes. It looks easy from the outside, watching the programmes. But it’s only when you witness the process you realize how much work and energy goes in to filming it. Thank you for reading!

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