Who the Hell is Nigel?

A 25 minute documentary on Nigel Howard, an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter made locally famous in Vancouver for his expressive interpretations during the Covid-19 briefings during the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. I’m hard of hearing myself, so this project unexpectedly caused a tremendous amount of introspection in my own life.

This was also a curious challenge for all us hearing individuals to work with the deaf community on making a film together. We wanted the film to be completely accessible which creates unique parameters on filmmaking - something we had to adjust to. A classic film that’s accessible to deaf people generally will have a small window for an interpreter. Since this film is about the deaf community for the deaf community, we wanted to make sure the aspect of the film was inclusive to an ASL interpreter on screen, meaning we generally would frame up for square format shots.

Director: Nigel Edwards
Produced by: Sky Morfopoulos, Devan Francis
Associate Producers: Ladan Sahraei, Geoff Coates
Cinematography: Brian Ceci
Camera: RED Gemini 5K
Lenses: Atlas Anamorphic
Edited by: Nigel Edwards, Gregory Czaplak
Hair / Makeup: Lindsay McLean
Location Sound: Kellen Jackson, Andrew Crandell
Original Score: Malibu Taetz
Sound Design / Re-Recording Mixer: Matt Drake
Colour: David Tomiak
Animation: Ira Hardy