- Form
- Comedy short in American Sign Language
- Studio
- CymaSpace
- Made with
- Unreal Engine, Aximmetry, Premiere
- Volunteer hours
- ~500
Mouth Language Device is a comedy short in American Sign Language. The premise: Deaf inventors build a device that translates hearing people's speech into sign.
A signing glove is a wired, sensor-covered prototype built to turn American Sign Language into written or spoken English. This film runs that idea in reverse and plays it for comedy.
I made the film at CymaSpace, where I am Founder and Artistic Director. We shot it as a virtual production: the ASL performer streamed live from Washington, D.C., and was directed through the shots from Portland, Oregon. At the time we described this as the first film shoot to combine virtual production with a live sign language performance. A green screen studio patched the performers into 3D backgrounds built in Unreal Engine, composited in Aximmetry and edited in Premiere. About 500 volunteer hours went into scriptwriting, casting, costumes and filming.
Made with support from Open Signal, Aximmetry, the Regional Arts and Culture Council, the Collings Foundation and the Oregon Community Foundation.
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