[This is one video interpreter's viewpoint, not the viewpoint of a video relay service.]
As a VI, I notice that one of the most important consumer choices that determine the effectiveness of a call is a deaf consumer’s use of Do Not Announce. It can be quite effective when the deaf person explains VRS themselves or when the person they’re calling already knows them and takes their calls all the time. And it can be indispensable when an ignorant company or agency refuses to accept relay calls. But it can be very difficult for both the interpreter and the person they’re calling when a deaf consumer chooses Do Not Announce but then makes no accommodation for the inevitable changes in communication. Those changes are basically due to unexplained silence and the mismatch of gender–voice and name. Continue reading →
One more thing I must share about NAOBI— something that moved me and touched my heart. Now, I know it sounds funny to talk about “black people” and point out the differences between their culture and mine— black people’s and white people’s. It seems “politically correct” to be hush-hush about the differences between black people and white people, but I want to tell you some positive things about what’s different about black culture! And this is so neat. It seems — now, I interpreted for a full week last year at the NBDA (National Black Deaf Advocates, a deaf association) conference, and at the end of the week, we danced!— It seems to me that black people cannot get together and not dance. It seems that every conference I’ve been to — and that’s only two, but still — in my experience, when black people gather for a conference, they’ve got to dance together. And it’s so much fun! They had a DJ playing music loud, and everyone danced together— deaf people, interpreters, everyone. And they line up facing each other while people dance down the aisle, you know, like Soul Train. That’s where everyone lines up in two lines facing each other, forming an aisle, and as people move up to the front of the line, they dance down the aisle and do their own thing, show their personality, express what they’re feeling. Everyone on the sidelines cheers them on, goads them on, and roots for them. You strut down that aisle, you dance, you swing, you move your body, and you do your thing, you express yourself. Oh, it’s fun! And people are fiercely supportive.
Hi. I’m Daniel Greene, and this vlog is about my experience at NAOBI, a conference for the National Alliance of Black Interpreters. It was a really great experience. I had gone to the RID Region V conference in Salt Lake City the week before, and now I was teaching workshops at NAOBI here in Phoenix. (Last time I did a video about this I accidentally said, “Here in San Diego.” That’s crazy, but it’s because I lived in San Diego for such a long time — twenty-seven years altogether — and I moved to Phoenix five-and-a-half years ago at the end of 2004. Funny. I still sometimes say, “Here in San Diego.”)
So, anyway, here in Phoenix, I taught two workshops. I was actually scheduled to teach three, but oddly enough, the first morning of the conference, there were so few people and so many concurrent workshops — eight workshops at the same time! And I don’t know how many attendees there were at the conference that first morning. I do know that some of the other workshops only had a handful of attendees as well. One person showed up to my workshop, and I told her I would be happy to teach her all the workshop content even though she was the only one, that we could work it out between the two of us. But if she wanted to join another workshop, she should feel free to do so, and I would take no offense. So she went to another workshop, which was fine with me.
I was criticized by a deaf person for posting a one-minute long closed-captioned spoken video on YouTube the other day. The deaf person said that they were disappointed that I didn’t sign my video and that, being a sign language interpreter, I “represent the deaf community.” This is my response, signed and closed-captioned.
I created this video on October 3, 2006, and at the time, I was one of the first handful of people in the world to publish a video using Google Video’s new closed-captioning implementation. I just found out that YouTube now supports the same method (which makes sense, since they were bought by Google a couple of years ago). Apparently, though, YouTube has been supporting this closed-captioning method since Fall 2008. Who knew? Anyway, since this method of closed-captioning is now supported here, I’m uploading my old Google Video movie with its accompanying closed-caption file so people can view it via the more popular and extensible YouTube.
I sing this Christmas song and simultaneously express it in signs from ASL (American Sign Language). I purposely adapted some of the hand-shapes to create sign-rhymes. While no song that is simultaneously sung and signed is truly ASL, I do hope that I have created something here that can be enjoyed by both hearing and deaf people. I also believe that people of all faiths can appreciate the hope that each newborn child brings: that he or she may help to heal this world.
Here I am singing and signing the song “Pure Imagination” from the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, one of my favorite songs since I was a little kid.
And here are the lyrics:
Come with me / and you’ll be / in a world of pure imagination / Take a look / and you’ll see / into your imagination
We’ll begin / with a spin / traveling in a world of my creation / What we’ll see / will defy / explanation
If you want to view paradise / simply look around and view it / anything you want to, do it / want to change the world? / there’s nothing to it
There is no / life I know / to compare with pure imagination / living there / you’ll be free / if you truly wish to be
Hi, Ashley. Thanks for leaving a comment on my video, “ASL Intro”! Your signing is good and you fingerspell well. If you don’t know a sign, it’s perfectly fine to fingerspell. You fingerspell clearly, and good for you! — I mean, it’s a good thing that you fingerspell instead of trying to invent signs.
This is my first Google video, and my first video with closed captioning. Click on the little “CC” icon to watch the captions.
I must say I’m a bit frustrated by the fact that there’s no sound in the video even though I uploaded the video with sound. I uploaded it as a QuickTime movie (.MOV). I don’t know if that made the difference or not. If anyone can help me make sure the videos I upload retain their audio track, please leave a comment. It was also a bit frustrating that the captioning did not appear as soon as Google said it was finished “processing” my video. I waited about 15-20 minutes for the captions to appear when I played the video (I kept refreshing), but it was after midnight and I really had to go to bed. In the morning, at about 6:30 AM, I watched my video again, and the captions were there.
Anyway, this was a successful experiment from the standpoint of captioning. The one mistake I made was typing one of my time codes with a period, rather than a colon, between the minutes and seconds. This made the time code show up in the captions. I corrected the captioning text and re-uploaded it.
Speaking and signing at the same time, in Pidgin Signed English, I show you how to set your contact information in your addressbook as your vCard. Then I show you how to turn on Bluetooth and send your vCard to other SK3s.
