Budding Deaf Filmmaker Dawn Skwersky
Filmmaking is a field that presents challenges for the deaf. Aspiring filmmaker Dawn Skwersky, Brookline, MA, does not duck the challenges.
Way back Dawn’s parents did not realize she was deaf until she was four years old! And the doctors told the Shuersky parents that she must be kept in the Hearing” world. As a result Dawn grew up not knowing a single word of sign language. Two of her friends, however were deaf and learned sign language. Said Dawn “I didn’t learn with them because I was taught that sign language is a last revert for those who are failures’, or who can’t succeed in school without it.”
Dawn, however, accepted her deafness at the age of sixteen and a year later, learned sign language. “I was motivated by my need to meet other people like myself,” she said.
As sign language was opening up a new world to her, she attended deaf theatre and deaf story telling events. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College she wanted to get involved in a deaf awareness field, and became an intern for a film making agency. After the internship ended, she enrolled at the Boston University’s Master in Film Production Program. Funding for her student films was prodded by a grant from Gallaudet University.
Serious about her filmmaking ambitions Dawn has affiliated with the International Photographers Guild and has been certified as a First Assistant. To date she has directed two short films, employing deaf actors and using ASL as the language in the script. Her long range plans include becoming a film director. For now she works her way around the set in all aspects of film operations, even including music videos.
An obstacle Dawn never dreamed while attending film making classes was sound. It is a critical element in film making. Dawn complained to one of her teachers that she couldn’t work on the sound tracks. The professor said “Ask another student to help you’d The flip remark didn’t help because her classmates were busy with their own projects. Said Dawn PI wanted to master this on my own.”
Dawn struggled with the sound tracks, thing to match sounds to the picture, forcing to be inventive – such as creating a simple sound of a door opening and closing. More complicated sounds created problems however as voice overs were inserted at the wrong slot in the film. Adding to her misery was inability to identify words that were out of sync, including mismatched dialogues and missing syllables. Said Dawn “I rebelled with sound, wanting to recreate the confusion I felt as the only deaf person in school.”
Right now as member of her union, she makes use of her contacts among fellow members to land film making jobs and projects. She has even accepted assignments for no or low pay just to build up on her base of contacts. “I got the jobs because someone in the production crew knew me and asked for me,” Dawn explains.
Her immediate goal is to move up the ranks, which is something very difficult right now. Don’t count against Dawn’s perseverance.
