To Whom it May Concern,
As a founder of Deaf Women in Film, an international group supporting equality and recognition of the deaf community, this is a letter of support and encouragement of deaf and hard of hearing people involved professionally in the media & entertainment industry.
Right now, YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook and Twitter are heavily intertwined and highly transparent. It is also currently the chief source of the "grapevine" of communication amongst the deaf and hard of hearing community. I am in love with "Zoom," which holds the purpose of fostering professional growth in the deaf and hard of hearing community in the United Kingdom. I do hope to pursue the possibility of opening up an organization with the same purpose in the United States, having been inspired by "Zoom." I see that "Zoom" does not have its own YouTube channel, which is a missed opportunity for "Zoom" to garner recognition internationally.
Deaf Women in Film currently has a YouTube channel, Twitter, Facebook, and a blogsite. It now has a very large following in a short time. In about a year, it garnered at least 1,500 followers on Facebook, and 1,100 followers on Twitter, just simply because of content. We have also helped many films get a lot of hits on YouTube. Deaf Women in Film also has a policy that if there are professional content created with deaf or hard of hearing women involved in the making of the film (either in front or behind the camera) and subtitled for access towards both the hearing and the deaf, it would be shown on Deaf Women in Film's Facebook & Twitter.
One more point-- YouTube also currently allows high-quality content, meaning you can go as far as 1080p (High Definition) format, as well as being caption-friendly should you decide to create captions (one way to do it is use http://captiontube.appspot.com). I can see for myself that the content on the Zoom website isn't high quality enough, and it doesn't do the work by the deaf and hard of hearing filmmakers any justice. Myself being a filmmaker, quality control is incredibly important; it gives us a better name and would create more job opportunities out there.
With that in mind, if you consider expanding to a YouTube channel, you will have the full support of Deaf Women in Film by sharing content through those channels, and I'm sure everyone in the U.K. would be more than thrilled to share it as well. Please consider this heavily, since we all love "Zoom" and want to see more from it.
Best,
Jules Dameron
Deaf Women in Film Founder
http://dwif.blogspot.com
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To learn more about "Zoom" go to this link: http://www.bslbt.co.uk/zoom/
If any of you folks want to know the truth about the deaf society y'all hearing about in the news this be the page that says it all : http://tinyurl.com/true-deaf The truth is all there and you can not call my bluff.
ReplyDeleteSign language students, my apologies, for bringing out this kind of truth of the people you'll want to be working with in the future but its a lot better you find out now as in early than later on when it could get very painful.
As for deaf advocates, I too am one, I was one of your cheerful guards till the deaf centered society stole a lot from me. I mean a lot. But, I'm still the deaf advocate and deaf activist only in a totally different direction to raise up the deaf society to a better state of life than they are in and I'm using very odd and explicit tools to accomplish this so pardon me for doing it the way I am doing it.