Edinburgh Napier University

  Signs and Gestures is a digital practice-based output, consisting of a 10-minute short drama film. The short film is the result of research conducted by the film director at the Edinburgh College of Art between 2019 and 2020, supported by a Challenge Investment Fund Award by the College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences by the University of Edinburgh. The project investigates how drama film production can be made more accessible to actors with either a visual or hearing impairment. Through practice-based research this project examines how inclusion of people with different abilities can be improved within film production, particularly for the hearing or visually impaired. At present people with disabilities are often underrepresented or misrepresented in cinema. There are only few films that present a main character with a disability, while films that feature characters with a disability mostly cast able-bodied actors for these roles, such as Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman (Martin Brest 1992) or Alec Baldwin in Blind (Michael Mailer 2017). Additionally, the narrative and film language of these films are generally intended for an able-bodied audience and do not specifically address an audience with an impairment. Through inter-disciplinary research and close collaboration with participants with a visual or hearing impairment, this project will explore different methods and approaches in the process of making a short film, which lead to adequate, positive, and ultimately more layered representation. The project aims at developing a story and film language specifically addressing an audience with a visual or hearing impairment through collaborative methods and approaches. The finished short film will be presented with audio descriptions and captions to diverse audiences.