Beyond Silence - ID# 549

Shepard High School
Documentary
Entry Description

This short documentary, produced by Malaak Hamad and Paulina Karkoszka, showcases the unique and immersive Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) program at Shepard High School. In this film, we explore how this specialized program provides a supportive and inclusive environment for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. Through firsthand accounts and behind-the-scenes footage, we highlight the incredible resources, innovative teaching methods, and strong sense of community that make the DHH program at Shepard a standout experience for its students. Join us in learning how Shepard High School is creating a space where all students, regardless of hearing ability, can thrive academically, socially, and emotionally.

Copyright Info

Recent Teacher Comments

  • 4/7 8:30 pm - KEEPERS: This was a great story to watch and it's so compelling that this particular school has such a rich dhh program. I love learning through stories like these so thank you for sharing. The broll you captured was really done well and you had a good amount of diverse shots and at times it felt very cinematic. Your dual-camera interview shots were ambitious and well done. Great audio mix overall. I especially liked what you did with the sound design during certain moments to showcase, for a moment, what it can be like for a student who is DHH. The captions were a another important element that you added that helped to further normalize that in broader media contexts. IMPROVEMENTS: The story was a bit uneven. I felt like there needed to be more balance between Malaak and the other students. It was also difficult to figure out if this was more about Malaak and the students or the DHH program as a whole. The opening 30 seconds was beautifully shot but the voice over writing needed to tie closer into the overall subject of the documentary. Because of the broadness of the writing and the messaging, it felt almost stand alone and it didn't really tie into the documentary's primary story. You had some color grading issues between your multicam interview set ups. One camera was a bit brighter/overexposed than the other. Overall, this is a great effort and bringing to light a super-cool program at your school. Just work on making it a bit more direct in terms of the story. Keep working, improving and creating media!
  • 2/24 2:33 pm - STORY: The narrative is a little unclear; is this a personal story about Malaak or is it a broader narrative about the DHH program? If it’s about the program, why aren’t there any other DHH students who share their stories until Adrian at 3:40? It is very informative and it is effective for showing off the program, but it lacks balance in the narrative. It would have been better to jump around between the different DHH students, rather than just focusing so much on Malaak in the beginning. PRODUCTION: the interview footage is great, the audio is good, the subtitles are very relevant. The b-roll of Malaak is especially awesome. But as I explained in the above narrative critique, the other students’ interviews seem to just have been thrown in towards the end with very little integration and/or b-roll to help tell or show their stories. This video might have been better if you made it ONLY about Malaak, with some explanation of how the DHH program helped her.
Judge 1

Positives: Great balance of interviews, b-roll, and archival footage. I loved the introduction sequence - the distorted audio was used well to give the audience an idea of how a deaf person might hear in a classroom setting. Excellent documentary work here!

Improvements: I have to really nit-pick to find things that can be improved upon, so excellent job. In some of the interview clips, the audio fade-ins makes it difficult to hear the introductions. This felt more like a story about Malaak and her experience in the DHH program. I feel like Adrian and Layla's sections weren't as strong as Malaak's. I almost wish they were all mixed in throughout the whole video instead of being added at the end.

Judge 2

Positives: It's a great blend of the audio. Interviews, B-Roll, and music were edited well. Very informative yet entertaining. The edit was good in that the pace was good and kept your interest.

Improvements: The speaker's position during the interviews flipping from side to side was distracting. There could have had a bit less slow motion at the beginning. It seemed a bit long to me.

Judge 3

Positives: Good use of slow motion montage at the beginning. Worked well with the music and story set up to draw me in. Really good use of archival footage of the subject as a young girl. Overall, strong use of broll, website visualization to. I thought the edit was fantastic and the pacing was really good as well. I liked how you left "breather" moments throughout the film to break it up and show what the story is about. I think the strongest aspect of this film is the story and given the sensitive nature of the content, I think you approached it with care and really gave a powerful voice to the people. Well done.

Improvements: During some of the interviews there are two cameras used, while I think this is a great idea and gives you more flexibility in the edit, the angles focal lengths were very similar and felt jarring at times to go between the two. I would suggest going closer on one of the angles and maybe not so far away from the subject. For the very last person, instead of having two cameras that face different directions, you could have them face the same direction and just have one a lot closer. I'm wondering if its possible to hide the big lapel mic on the subjects better? Sometimes it was a bit distracting but I understand how tricky this can be.

Judge 4

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Judge 5

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