Deaf Ninja, Austin Andrews

Austin tells us a repeated habit throughout is to daydream all over the place and imagine things and allow them to expand, eh, it happens, what are you gonna do? He'll show. His younger brother also hard of hearing wore the old fashioned hearing aids the shape of a box strapped to his chest with earplugs jabbed in the side and going up separately to his ears. He, Austin, teased his brother about how stupid his brother looks with his ridiculous box hearing aid and his brother got so mad at Austin that the brother ripped out his ear plugs and used them as weapons to wail on Austin whirling windmill style. We see Austin's mind open up to the idea of Deaf ninja. Austin leans in ... N.I.N.J.A. eh? Why, he can see the storyboard, the whole film, and describe it.

Austin is a very good story teller. You can see an actor at heart. His facial expression gauged carefully, avoiding the unpleased miffed frustrated visage so common. Austin brings cinematographic elements into his speech quite graphically. You see the raindrop stop in midair, the action taking place outside the raindrop as if reflected the parallaxes of the ninja as subject with the camera swinging into position, the blur of warriors, the weapons attached to the body, the ninja's fighting stances in series, you see the camera go sideways as the hero runs across a circle of attackers attaching their faces as if running the inside walls of a barrel. We see ninja land like a cat and return to ninja posture of stoic equanimity. The arrested raindrop is returned to again, that is, we return from the reflection of the raindrop, the camera swings around, the single drop continues its fall in front of us. It is the Matrix.

Little brother, "What are you on about? This thing isn't useful. I can't hear anything." See. How very odd. Hmmm?

I had a devil of a time finding this video, going through pages of results and trying dozens of searches. Finally [deaf austin] brought it right smack to the top. Austin reminds me of Jeff and his gang. They are all this expressive and friendly and approachable. Their styles are alike. The very sparse fingerspelling is clear as a ringing bell.

Deaf Ninja

Synopsis:

Austin daydreams a lot. That's just him. 

Austin's older brother wore an old fashioned box-style hearing aid strapped to his chest. Austin thought it made his brother look ridiculous. It made him laugh. That pissed off his brother so much he'd whip out his earplugs spin them around and smack Austin with them. 

Then one day during such an ear-plug pummeling episode it suddenly occurred to Austin: "Deaf Ninja" the movie. It'll be like the Matrix. Here, let me show you what happens...

This video was recalled by remembering the deaf guy from Texas who told a remarkably vivid story and it turns out I was remembering Austin Andrews. Then according to Austin's bio, he actually does live in Texas. Austin Texas, so there ya go. 

His manner of veering from textbook ASL into pantomime and embody the depiction so fully places Austin's story in the realm of gen-ewe-wine theater. Austin reminds me of Jeff because this is exactly how Jeff speaks, using ASL as armature to structure their own vivid pantomime with spelled letters delivered on spot and held in space rigidly and always rapidly and remarkably clearly as typed English. Their family backgrounds are similar too. And Jeff is very fond of Texas besides, due to the horses and rodeos. Jeff's word for "Houston" is "House."  

Austin's "Deaf Ninja" story is seven years old and now become a bit famous. Below, Daniel Moses says what he sees while watching Austin's video. I must say, Daniel does quite well indeed. No messing around either, Daniel gets right to it. Immediately Daniel's "Hello" is Austin's "Hello" in the video Daniel is watching. Daniel is saying what he is seeing on his monitor. Too bad Daniel's cam is not showing his monitor so we can read along, maybe the cam is in the monitor's frame like mine is. Daniel reads Austin wonderfully. I cannot do better myself and I marvel at Daniel's facility. 

Although, I would emphasize as Austin does, the old style hearing aid is a clunky box worn at the center of the chest. And it is funny-looking, not to me, to a younger deaf sibling, there is some very touching tragi-comic revelation here as Austin plays all the parts in his own day-dreamt story. Austin is his older brother wearing the box hearing aid on his chest while Austin is also himself looking and pointing and laughing. Austin is his older brother angry and in attack mode pummeling Austin with the earplugs while Austin is also young Austin being pummeled with whipping earplugs for being such a mean-spirited  non empathetic little prick. Austin is ninja  with eye slots through black head wrapping. Austin is writer and director. He uses stop action framing, he turns the camera sideways so the whole scene tilts over in Matrix-fashion the ninja hero turns sideways in midair and runs the walls as if they were flooring. Austin shows fog become rain and brings focus to one single drop that stops, revealing dream-time where projectiles are dodged and a fight is choreographed in slow motion, earplugs are deadly weapons and  swords are pulled from back-scabbords and slice up the whole screen. The fight ends. The raindrop suddenly falls we telescope back from Matrix space to real space, that is, Austin Andrew's fantasy space. There are a lot of theatrical and cinematographic techniques packed into Austin's idiosyncratic style. 

Daniel sees a lot and says it all. Daniel does excellently at saying what he sees. Now that you know, and now that you know Austin is coming at us in his personal way  and theatrically and less as a textbook and with ASL as convenient artistic armature and buttress, what do you see in Austin's telling? And isn't Daniel the student a wonderful teacher?

Oh! I see it now. Interpreting the video is Daniel's final exam. Well done. 

ASL to English Deaf Ninja interpreting final exam from Daniel Moses on Vimeo.

Daniel Moses http://vimeo.com/81431151