“The Silent Hour” starring Sandra Mae Frank

Alex (Daily Moth): There is a new movie, “The Silent Hour,” that has a Deaf actress in a key role. Her name is Sandra Mae Frank. The movie will be released this Friday, October 11. I watched it through a screener sent by Paramount for reporters. It is 99 minutes long. The film is about a Boston detective, portrayed by Joel Kinnaman. The character’s name is Frank Shaw. He was hearing but went through an incident, an accident/injury, that caused him to lose his hearing. He became a late-deafened person. It altered the course of his life and he had to learn sign language. He had to meet with an audiologist, use technology to hear, and was struggling.

Now, Sandra’s character’s name is Ava Fremont. She just happened to see a terrible gang-related crime. After this, as Boston police were investigating the crime, they found out that the witness is Deaf. Boston police then asked Frank Shaw to meet with her, do an interview, and get information because he could sign. Frank went to meet her alongside another officer. Frank acted as an interpreter. Sandra’s character, Ava Fremont, did raise objections and said that it was not a professional interpreter and inappropriate. There was some tension but the two started talking and had a bond based on their common experiences with hearing loss. The gang knew that Ava Fremont saw the crime and gang members tried to go in the apartment building to catch and silence them from revealing the crime. The detective (Frank) and Sandra/Ava tried to escape and were pursued. That’s the gist of the film. There was a lot of action, jumping, and gunfire. It is rated “R” for action, drug use, and profanity. I enjoyed the film. It was neat to see a Deaf character in it.

I’ve interviewed Sandra. But before I show the interview, I want to show you a clip of the film that was sent by Paramount.

[Video clip] 6.3 Credit: Republic Pictures / Paramount Pictures. The clip has Ava asking Frank what he misses the most. Frank signs that he misses hearing his daughter playing the guitar. Ava said she still enjoys concerts. She signs, “One missing piece doesn’t make you any less whole.”

Cool. Now, check out this interview with Sandra.

[Begin interview]

Sandra Mae Frank: One cool thing we did in this film with stunts was using a buzzer. They were on our arms, underneath our clothes. Whenever we had to do specific actions, we couldn’t turn our heads back to look. We had to look ahead and do our moves. The director would shout, “Action” and we’d proceed. If there was a specific action, the interpreter was equipped with a remote and whenever it buzzed, I would do a specific action.

Alex: The buzzer device, is it like a pager?

Sandra: No, it’s a strap on the arm. It is.. should I say it? It’s used for dogs.

Alex: Dogs? Oh, I understand. It buzzes. I get it.

Sandra: There’s no shocks. But it buzzes. This really gave me inspiration and I’d love to work with a team to figure out on developing a device for deaf/hard-of-hearing actors.

Alex: You found a way to make it work. Really cool! Wow.

In the film, there was one common trope in that Deaf people are experts at lipreading. It’s so common to see this. It seems necessary to make the film go smoothly? If you can’t lipread, it means you have to type on the phone? How do you feel about that? The lipreading part?

Sandra: I think as a Deaf actress, I’m always looking for authenticity. This is really important. I don’t want to compromise and give up too much. So there were some moments where — myself, Sandra, in real life, I can lipread pretty good. But in films, I don’t want people to think that anyone can just do it. So there were some moments where I could understand but there were some where I struggled. I always try to find a way to include that I’m not always perfect. If it’s spoken clearly and slowly and in order, it’s fine. There were some moments where I was lipreading from far away. I told them, “no,” but if body language and facial expressions is a part of it, I can catch some clues. Does it mean I understand what two people across the room are saying? No. But I can get some clues. We actually had a lot of discussions about that. There were some parts where I was originally supposed to speak a little and lipread a little and I didn’t agree. Some moments, I told Frank Shaw (Joel’s character) to please sign more. During some moments in filming, I told him he needed to sign more, that I was lipreading a little too much. So they added things during the filming process. I did my part to navigate the lipreading parts and tell them to sign more because by that time, he should have picked up more signs already. If you’re in a crisis, you can learn signs faster. So I had to work with them to make sure there was balance. In the Hollywood industry, there is still a long way to go with Deaf roles. It’s important that Deaf actors find a way to navigate and still do the jobs as presented.

[End interview]

Alex: Thank you for the interview. I want to mention two other important people behind the film. The ASL Master is Anselmo DeSousa. He worked for several months with the actor Joel Kinnaman to train him in ASL and expose him to Deaf culture. So that’s one important person. The second is — the writer of the film is Dan Hall — he is hearing and said his inspiration on having the idea to write this story is after he read about a NYPD officer named Dan Carione. He was hearing but had hearing loss after an incident on the job. After this, the NYPD barred him from working because he had hearing loss and wore hearing aids. Carione sued the NYPD and won. Now, NYPD officers are allowed to use hearing aids. So these are two important parts behind the film.

The film will be released on October 11 in select theaters and on streaming. You can rent or buy this Friday, October 11.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyREPrVRkoI

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