Have you ever tried to hear what a person was saying based on the way they move their lips?
It’s a well-know that many of those who are Deaf converse through lip-reading. But have you ever stopped and thought about just how hard that can be?
In a video produced by Little Moving Pictures, one woman, Rachel Kolb, perfectly articulates what it feels like to experience a world that you can’t physically hear.
The video shows a range of people speaking about every day experiences. Each story is subtitled. But as their stories continue, the subtitles begin to blur until they completely vanish and the audio fuses out until the video is completely silent – with only lips moving on the screen.
The Short Film Showcase spotlights exceptional short videos created by filmmakers from around the web and selected by National Geographic editors. We look for work that affirms National Geographic's mission of inspiring people to care about the planet. The filmmakers created the content presented, and the opinions expressed are their own, not those of the National Geographic Society.
But as people talk faster, the lips become pretty much impossible to read – seriously giving us an in-depth look into what those without the ability to hear have to focus on every day.
Rachel also highlights the fact that speech is not just movements of the lips and sound. It is accents, it is people’s mumbles, the way some may cover their mouths when they talk – the list is endless. All things that many of us unknowingly take for granted.
Rachel describes lip-reading as ‘putting together a puzzle without all the pieces’.
She said: ‘There have been times when I’ve questioned why I even try to lip read.
‘To wade through this swamp, when I could just use sign language.’
She compares the use of sign language to being in a different world – a world filled with ‘rich expression and culture.’
But for Rachel, when lip-reading works, she feels something that she thinks sign-language cannot offer her all of the time. ‘When I focus on one legible face, and launch into a conversation, something clicks.
‘Right then, I feel something extraordinary. Human connection.’
SOURCE - METRO
See more from National Geographic's Short Film Showcase: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/short-film-showcase
Related: National Geographic - Deaf Culture in Cambodia
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