No doubt, we should all strive to make our sets and working environments as inclusive as possible for all members of our crew. This fantastic video gives seven very practical and actionable tips on how to make your sets more inclusive for hard of hearing crew members.
Coming to you from Bryan Redding of the Deaf Director, this excellent video discusses seven different ways you can make your set more inclusive for hard of hearing crew members. Hearing loss is far more prevalent than many of us might realize, with an estimated 1 in 8 adult Americans experiencing it to some degree. This makes it very likely that you will work with someone with hearing loss at some point in your career and is why Redding's advice to be proactive in making the set more inclusive beforehand is so important. One tip I thought was particularly clever is using the voice-to-text feature on your smartphone to help communicate. We almost all have smartphones nowadays, and all major models have this feature, making it tremendously easy to use. Pretty much all the tips are very easy to implement and cost nothing more, so there is really no reason not to use them. Check out the video above for the full rundown.
This is brilliant, thank you for recognizing this and calling attention to it. Video and photography are natural mediums for Deaf and hard of hearing - NOT 'hearing impaired' - creatives to express their vision in, and I applaud the creator of the video and FStoppers for sharing it. Hands waving!
It's a good video. But I was surprised simple things like, making sure you're facing the person you're talking to, getting the HoH/Deaf person's attention with a wave or touch on the shoulder (if they're turned around), making sure you've succeeded getting their attention with good eye contact, weren't mentioned. Of course since being masked negates lip-reading and a lot of facial expressions, I was also kinda surprised masks with a clear mouth area weren't mentioned either.
It is a very competitive industry and unless the studio has made it a goal to hire a more "diverse" group of workers that include a disabled work force, I think most will only hire those that can meet the demands of the shoot. But then again.. it also depends what their job role is going to be and their impact on the overall production of the shoot.