T: Good afternoon, my name is Timothy Abbott and today I will share with you something that I have been lucky enough to play a small part in. This Micro Clear Spot is a short meeting with an unusual sensory experience, a music video which is equally accessible to people with hearing impairments. The “Waiting” project is a self-financed exam submission by the film-maker Max Heidenfelder from Frankfurt, in co-operation with Anna-Lilja Haefele - who is a freelance producer and sign language production assistant in Hamburg - with music and English lyrics from the band Breitenbach and embedded German Sign Language performance from Okan, Anna, Erik and Fabien. The performers cannot join us today but a bit later we will speak to the band’s lead singer Toby Breitenbach. And right now, it is my great pleasure to welcome the producers on the line from Germany. Max and Lilja, welcome to Resonance One oh four point four f m.

L: Thanks for having us
M: Thanks for inviting us

T: You don’t even live in the same state, so how did you end up working together?
L: Oh, that was by accident.
M: Actually, I was looking for someone to help me out with the sign language. There was no-one who really wanted to join this project and no-one really believed in making this possible and just before I was giving up I was given Lilja’s contact and I called her and chatted and she was a little held-back, a little worried maybe. Then, after a few talks she was like “Hey, cool project, let’s do it”
L: Yep.
T: I wouldn’t have chosen such a complicated concept to pass my exam with...
M: Me neither, I knew I was going to do a music video and I knew I was going to do it with the band Breitenbach since they are friends of mine and I like their music. I wanted to really make a music video which visualises the music and also have something that shows the lyrics, or that interpreted the lyrics. So that’s when sign language came into play.
L: Yeah, for me, I have worked with sign language for 2 years now and I’ve always been interested in music and signing. There are a lot of great sign performers everywhere and when Max came to me and asked me if I could imagine joining this project, I was like “Yaaaay. OK. Let’s do it”.
T: This is a complicated production, it’s a multi-layered production. So, English lyrics, German band members performing music and sign interpretation. Why interpret and not literally translate?
L: If you translate it one hundred percent and literally, you might not get the real deep sense of the lyrics. Like: There is a part where Toby sings “Without you,my misery, I’ll be waiting on the top of the world”. If you translate it literally, you might get the impression that the singer is sitting on a mountain waiting (laughs) until his love is really gone away. And that’s not what he meant. And so, just to get the right feeling, and also the right emotion, the right meaning of the song, you need to interpret and search for equal pictures, metaphors and all that stuff. We use metaphors in our spoken language and the same is with the sign language and sometimes a spoken metaphor is, if you sign it, (laughs) not a metaphor any more. It’s just a picture.
T: How did you get from Toby’s musical concept and lyrics, and then mix in the interpretation and the extra visual elements in the video that weren’t sign language.
L: First of all, Max came to me and I listened to the music and he asked me how we could translate or interpret the lyrics to how to get them visualised. I had a look at the lyrics and tried to interpret them, tried to get the signs into a flow and then we gave the translation (which was a video itself) to the performer and they had a look at it and edited it so it became a fluent, vibrant signing. And with this signing, you get some images in your mind like: how can you shoot the video, what angles can you use, what props can you use for example.
T: So, the extra visual elements were triggered by the signing?
L: Yes, for one part but there’s also been a part, Max really wanted to just try things out, I guess.
M: Well, since this is the first project for me to work with sign language, and it’s the first full accessible video, there were lots of ideas we had that we had, that we had to try out and now test out and wait for feedback, to see if that works and to see if this is able to be put into further coming projects. We had the signing first (so, we had the lyrics interpreted by Lilja and by the performers) and in addition we had the sound bars (which we call now) that kind of work like subtitles for the music - they show the guitar, the drums and the bass - and also we have the beat-points (which we named as well) which give the ...
L+M: the beat.
M: Yeah (laugh)
T: Just to explain the visual context in case people haven’t seen the video yet: the top of the frame is akin to an equaliser screen where you can literally see the bars moving up and down, for every instrument. The bottom of screen is literally points of light that represent the beat.
M: And there’s subtitles in the bottom as well.
T: In a more generalised sense, and because the performers aren’t hear to speak for themselves, unfortunately... They described music as therapy, they described it as relaxation, inspiration and Anna described it as being vital to the process of dancing.
L: Yep
T: What does music mean for you for this project. What part does it play in the video and what does it mean to you in general?
L:. Music is a huge part of my life as well as sign language. For me, music is everywhere. Either in stuff I do like walking (you’ve got a rhythm there) or just in my MP3 player, and I agree with all of them... sometimes it’s relaxation, sometimes it just supports my mood, like: if I’m down I can listen to music that picks me up. Or it’s just distraction.  I’ve thought about the topic music for a while, like: what if I couldn’t hear it? I think I would still enjoy music, because music is not only what we hear but also what we feel and especially through Waiting and the process of production and filming it. I stood (laughs) directly next to the amp . I’ve really learned to feel music and that’s something that I’ve really took with me from the filming. I’m very sensitive for music, and especially its vibrations so I enjoyed it in every minute.
T: I think, I kind of did the same thing. I grew up listening to techno and I used to go to techno clubs and sit on the speakers. Part of it was that experience. You’re actually engaged with the music a lot deeper than you are if you’re listening to it because it vibrates through your whole body if you’re right by an amp.
L: Yep
T: Whereas, if you are hearing something, you don’t feel the vibration. You know it’s there because you can hear something.
L: Yep.
M: I grew up with music. I was lucky that I was able to hear my whole life and it’s not just music, but sound that we get every day that are in our environment:  the wind blowing through the trees, it’s everything. I’ve never kind of got into one genre itself - I like rock music, I like techno music, it just depends on my mood. On where I am and what I’m doing. While driving the car... especially for long trips like to Hamburg from Frankfurt now we’ve like driven for five hours and listened to (I don’t know) six different radio stations, switching along with whatever we want to listen to. Music is not only listening to it but it is also having pictures in your head and the beat driving you along. That’s what we tried in this video too: to just imagine what the music is giving us or what the beat is like, how fast it is, what the music is doing, what the instruments are giving us.
T: So, it’s the framework to everything... Even for people that can’t hear the composition as it was constructed to be heard. They still feel the vibration and it still acts as a framework for what they do.  A bit like Anna and her dancing: it still acts as the framework for her dancing, acts as the trigger for her movement.
L: You can see in the way that they sign it: What part is played now and what is the sense of it. We tried to show what music consists of.
M: We tried to break down the music into each part, like: each element, each instrument, and figure out what each this instrument in particular does. How strong, how loud, how big of a variety there is, like the drums: you have different drums. Like: break this down and just show how much there is. For example, in other videos that try to visualise the sound they always go for the drums since they are the easiest to hear, to figure out, and get out of music the driving beat. And I tried to drive the main attention to the guitars who are not that easy to differentiate.
L: We wanted to show that music is more than just a beat because that’s the main thing, that Deaf people often think that music is just a beat and some kind of emotion and we tried to show them that it’s not just a beat. There’s the guitar, and it does something. Sometimes its very rough and sometimes its very soft and slow. So we tried to take it as a whole.
T: I mean, that takes us to the accessibility point of this (for the hearing impaired audience - because the  music video is automatically accessible for people that can hear because they can hear the music)...
L: Well, we didn’t want to try to to just make it accessible for hearing-impaired people. This project started with this thought: We tried to be full accessible for hearing-impaired people but there’s also another side to it. We just want to show that Deaf people, hard-of-hearing people, people with hearing impairment can do everything, even enjoy music. And we want to show that sign language is not an assistant thing. It is a real language, that is equal and has the same emotion, the same possibilities : in showing rhythm for example, or (laughs) also aggression, like our spoken language.
T: I think that was illustrated. In the video: one image that sticks in my mind it’s somebody pushing towards someone else and the other person (kind of) goes back as if they’ve been pushed away. And it’s, I think it’s “throw away” or something is the action, but it’s thrown at the other person.
L: It is, yeah.
T: You’re right about the aggression of it because it’s not a description, it’s actually a metaphor. It is an illustration of a point.
L: Yes it is, that’s what I meant with, “we’re trying to create metaphors in sign language”. It’s exactly that, it’s throwing the heart at the one who is standing next to you. It’s like  “I’m giving you back my heart. I don’t need this stuff in my heart from you any more.”
M: That was actually a pretty interesting part in the video because Laura, she’s not hearing impaired, she’s hearing and Erik, he’s hearing impaired and he was throwing his heart at her. And after this, she was “Wow! Incredible. It sounds like someone was screaming at me without screaming. I could feel him scream at me.” She couldn’t even find the words to describe what she felt.
T: That actually says a lot about the coherence of the project that you had both sides of the equation there, you had somebody that could hear and somebody that was hearing impaired both acting - not a conversation - with that same language and both being at equal ease with it.
L: And honestly, this scene came up spontaneously. It wasn’t planned. It was like: Erik signed this part and Laura - who doesn’t speak any sign language at all - came up to us and said “Oh, that’s a great idea, why I can’t I just move like he’s throwing his heart at me.” so this is not only a sign language or Deaf culture related interpretation. It’s something that developed from hearing people who are very innocent, and naive in a way, with the language,  and a sign language user. We wanted to show that hearing impaired people are equal to hearing people and that there’s not a huge difference or barriers.
M: That was our basic idea to not show who’s hearing, who’s deaf, they all look alike. And we tried to include and not differentiate between the band and the performers, who is the performer and who is the band  or who’s deaf and who’s hearing because we’re not trying to really break a difference and say “OK, this is band, and after the band there is the sign language” We really tried to have everyone sign - I asked the band band beforehand and said “Hey, you guys want to learn some of the sign language? It would be really nice to see you guys perform the signing as well.” - and have the Deaf people hold on to music instruments and just enjoy the music. I mean, they weren’t playing but they were holding onto the guitar and kind of feeling what the musician would feel on they’re stage.
L: The whole process of this video was that hearing people who have never ever experienced the sign language or Deaf culture joined this project as well as sign language user/hearing impaired people. And we tried to create something very new. Toby for example, he wanted to sign himself, so we taught him.
T: I’m interested in hearing what you took away from it, your zeal to include more people into the media and to the extent that you think it’s true already.
L: Right now in Germany, there aren’t so many Deaf people in the media. Most of the time, when you see a movie with a sign language user, they will train the hearing people to sign and not use Deaf actors and my goal is to really include them and there are so many possibilities. You don’t need to hear sound to be integrated into the media: you can be a colourist, you can do editing, you can act, you can be a photographer. There are so many jobs that Deaf can do, but mostly the Hearing are afraid of giving them. I think that’s the main point, we want to show that it’s possible. If you want to, it’s possible to have a project done by hearing, hearing impaired and Deaf people without barriers and without any problems. It’s a different communication but you can achieve, it if you want.
T: Thank you both.
L: Thanks a lot, thanks for having us and thanks for supporting this project.
T: Toby Breitenbach, welcome to Resonance one oh four point four f m
B: Thank you for having me, Tim.
T: You don’t sign, but you did do some signing in the video.
B: Yeah
T: How did it feel to engage with that language and how far have you got with that now?
B: Well, in the beginning it was very weird because I was never sure if I was doing it right, you know. I always thought:  “OK. Maybe I’m doing this movement wrong and somebody is mistaking me or something” but it wasn’t like that. It was actually very easy. I was very quick with doing some basic signing and I haven’t got that far but the basic stuff, where I can basically communicate with deaf people, I think I got down by now.
T: How did the two elements feel for you? To see metaphorical representations of your words in someone else’s hands, and out of someone else’s hands quite literally.
B: The whole thing’s totally amazing, I have to tell you. I was sitting down with Lilja (who was interpreting a lot for me and for the Deaf people) and we were all sitting down and discussing the lyrics of the song because you can’t translate the lyrics of the song word by word, you have to give them - like - a total different meaning - you have to basically sign the meaning of the words and not the words themselves. It was so amazing that the people actually understood what I was writing because it’s like writing a poem for me in the first place and then somebody is trying to put it in other words, basically in sign language, and so it was totally amazing that first of all they understood what I was trying to say, and then they put it into beautiful different words and signs.
T: The concept was Max’s, the sign layer was managed by Lilja. So, did it feel like you were bolted on to someone else’s project?
B: For me, no no no. Not at all because like I said, we were trying to make a music video in the first place. We basically combined the two things together we wanted to achieve. We wanted to have a music video and then again make this accessible for Deaf people as well and we were actually working together over the phone a couple of weeks and then we were sitting down face to face.
T: The concept of the fully accessible music video. That’s a fully formed concept that will come to its fruition with this video so what’s next, for you guys, as the musical element of that multi-layered cake.
B: Well, that’s an interesting question because I don’t really have an answer for it. There’s so many ideas that have popped up in our head. So many new projects that we want to start doing...  For example: how can we use sign language and signing people in our next videos. It’s so great to have all these kinds of elements explaining your music and the lyrics and making it so beautiful. And also on the other hand, how can we not try to make our website better for all kinds of people and how can we not try to produce a CD that’s more accessible for Deaf people, for blind people, there’s all kinds of people who need more accessibility.
T: The album that you’re releasing imminently.
B: Yeah.
T: Is going to be more accessible because you’re aiming to have braille and extra visual elements to things so that people can engage with it more fully.
B: Yes, that’s at least what we’re trying to do, we’re still in the middle of production.

T: This programme was a Resonance f m original production. It will be available as a download from light chronicles dot info from tomorrow along with a full transcript and links to more information. We will leave you with the UK radio debut of the song that underpins this whole project. “Waiting” by Breitenbach.  Thank you for listening.