Deaf Teenagers Work with Professional Actor Colin Wells
Author: The Ear Foundation
Published: 2010/10/13
Category Topic: European Disability News - Academic Publications
Page Content: Synopsis - Introduction - Main
Synopsis: A group of young deaf teenagers take part in a film making day hosted by the Ear Foundation.
Introduction
A group of young deaf teenagers, who all wear cochlear implants, were lucky enough to take part in a film making day, hosted by the Ear Foundation and run by professional actor Colin Wells, best known for his role as Johnno Dean in the long-running television drama series, Hollyoaks.Main Content
Colin, whose daughter Rachael has a cochlear implant, owns a company called Interaction Films which runs workshops for schools, colleges, universities and the community in general.
The deaf teenagers were given a unique opportunity to work with one of television's leading actors with hands on experience of what it's like on a TV set. Using state of the art equipment they spent the day creating their own television drama, which involved camera work, deciding on camera angles, learning professional scripts, acting, directing and sound engineering.
This is fairly unusual as young deaf children are not always exposed to opportunities which enable them to stretch their communication and language skills as well as expose them to issues and vocations they may not have thought of. All the teenagers rose to the challenge, delivering their lines and calling for silence or action when needed and taking an active part in the creative process.
This hard work was then expertly edited and each teenager was left with a professionally crafted DVD to take home. Interaction films.
The Ear Foundation is an independent, national charity that helps deaf people and their families make the best use of technology to improve hearing, communication and spoken language.
