American Diversity And Design Project ARC Film Festival

ARC 211 – Project 2: D+D Film Festival

Student name:

Description of your film festival that includes a discussion about how your two films are related to one another. This description will go into the news release about the festival. (Minimum 300 – maximum 400 words):
The films A Quiet Place (2018) and There Will Be Blood (2007) significantly prove the essence of using disabled actors and actresses to take scenes that require portrayal of actor disability. Both films give authentic pictures and depictions of deaf actors holding significant roles in their respective roles. In A Quiet Place (2018), fearsome extra-terrestrial creatures invade earth and, without an ability to see, invade and kill people and animals by sensing their sound. The Abbotts, a family of five, struggles to survive, communicating using sign language to avoid making voices that would alert the alien creatures. Beau, one of the two sons in the family, is killed by the creature after a sound from a toy exposes his location while the head home. After successfully surviving for one year, the creatures finally locate the hideout of the family, where have been hiding in an isolated farm. American Sign Language predominantly features in the film, where Millicent Simmonds, a deaf actress, is featured as Regan, the daughter in the family.
There Will Be Blood (2007) is a film that captures life in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The film has diverse crucial themes, including greed, capitalism, religion, and oil drilling business. The film depicts the greedy Daniel Plainview, whose business ventures are depicted as ruthless, unkind, and opportunistic. His activities in the old business leave his worker dead, making him adopt the worker’s orphaned son. The son, later named H.W., is later portrayed in the film by Russell Harvard, a real-life deaf actor. The greed and capitalist nature depicted in the film result in several killings. Both films share a connection between disability and design. The communication design is demonstrated when the filmmakers use the American Sign Language to enable dialogue and communication between the actors. The use of sign language in both cases simplifies communication challenges that face deaf people when they attempt to communicate with people without the condition.

Film #1

Title: A Quiet Place (2018)

Source link for the film trailer (IMDB, link to YouTube trailer, etc.): 
/title/tt6644200/

Year produced: 2018

Director: John Krasinski

Type of film (feature, documentary, short film, animation, etc.):
 post-apocalyptic science fiction horror film

Running length: 1hour 30minutes

Brief synopsis (if copied, cite source) (minimum 150 – maximum 250 words):
A Quiet Place is a film that depicts a post-apocalyptic world where a family, the Abbotts, are forced to remain in silence in order to live safely, avoiding the wrath of alien creatures, with ultra-sensitive hearing abilities. The film starts off with the devastation that has lasted for nearly 90 days killing both animals and humans on earth. The devastation is caused by sightless alien creatures. The alien creatures have hypersensitive, attacking anything and everyone making noise, while their armored skin makes these creatures indestructible (Krasinski, 2018). The Abbott family is comprised of Evelyn and Lee (wife and husband), two sons, namely Marcus and Beau, and congenitally deaf daughter Regan (real name Millicent Simmonds). The family forages for supplies while maintaining silence. They communicate using American Sign Language while outside (Krasinski, 2018). Beau is killed by the creature while the family heads back home when the electronic sound from a toy attracts the nearby creature (Krasinski, 2018). Unfortunately, Lee is unable to save his son.
A year later, the family has set up enough surveillance and monitoring system hoping to contact other survivors. The attempts are futile. Evelyn is heavily pregnant and her due date is nearing. Regan blames herself for the death of her brother. Attacks by the alien creatures are frequent, and Lee is killed to save his family. The family learns that the improvised cochlear implant processor drives creatures away. With this knowledge, the family members arm themselves and ready to fight and defend themselves.

Types of disabilities of the director, the actor(s) or both:
Millicent Simmonds, as Regan, has congenitally deafness.

Disability issues addressed in the film with a description of how they are portrayed (minimum 150 – maximum 250 words):
The film portrays Millicent Simmonds, as Regan Abbort, as the deaf daughter of the Abborts. The portrayal of deafness in the film is when the Abborts use the American Sign Language to communicate without making sounds that could alert the alien creatures. For instance, Regan’s mother uses sign language in the film to assure Regan that Marcus, her sick brother, is okay and recuperating. While outside their home scavenging for supplies, the family uses the sign language to communicate with each other, while maintaining silence. On numerous occasions, Lee and Evelyn, Regan’s parents, use sign language to communicate with Regan. Another portrayal of deafness as a physical disability is when Lee attempts to work on Regan’s cochlear implant processor, that he hopes will help his daughter hear. Nonetheless, using sign language, Regan makes it clear to her father to stop putting the cochlear implant processor on her since they do not work. Lee’s attempts to improve the cochlear implant processor are fruitless, leaving Regan devastated that she cannot hear using the hearing aid. Lee uses the American Sign Language to tell Regan that he loves and always has, as he sacrificed his life to save his family before was killed by the alien creature.

Design professions/issues featured in this film with a description of how they are addressed (minimum 150 – maximum 250 words):
In incorporating communication design in the film, Millicent Simmonds, a deaf actor, perfectly fits the role of a deaf daughter. To incorporate her in a movie that requires ‘silence’ for survival, even when communicating, the American Sign Language is used to address the issue, enabling the ‘family’ to communicate throughout the movie. In another depiction of how attempts are made to address deafness in the movie is through attempting to make an improvise and make a cochlear implant processor to enable Regan to hear.
Notably, the making of this film involved hiring experts to assist in communicating with Millicent Simmonds and make filming seamless. For instance, hiring an interpreter of the sign language, as well as hiring a deaf mentor to help teach the other actors the American Sign Language, and make corrections in case of errors. The interpreter was critical in Simmonds’s role in the movie, allowing her communication with the other actors effective, and flawless (Crow, 2018). Additionally, Simmonds was also instrumental in helping the other actors involved in the film to learn the sign language, and appear as experts in the language, considering that ‘Regan’ has been deaf all her life in the family (Squires, 2018). Further, the film uses subtitles for all dialogue involving sign language to ease understanding for everyone.

Description of how the film shows the impact that design can have on people with disabilities AND/OR Description of how the film shows the impact that people with disabilities can have on design. (minimum 200 – maximum 300 words)
Deaf people have a huge impact on the impact on the design of a film. ...