The original Deaf vloggers?

Posted on December 5, 2006

With video blogging gaining popularity among today’s Deaf people due to technology that is more accessible to everyday people, I was starting to wonder about motion pictures that may have been created by Deaf people long time ago.  Back then, it wasn’t easy nor cheap to create and edit short films with all the expenses of heavy equipment, many rolls of film, and the long development time.

Because of all these barriers, there weren’t many films that were developed by or for the Deaf.  How would one be able to view them even if they existed?  Thankfully, Gallaudet University had the foresight to store all these precious films until the time came when technology would be available to make them easily viewed by many.

Gallaudet University’s Video Library was developed with the help of North Plains Systems and the Andrew W Mellon Foundation.  The film archives at Gallaudet University are now being converted to online video clips that can be watched by any registered users. 

In essence, all the Deaf people who created all these films long time ago have been reborn as our early Deaf vloggers!

I originally found out about this website at the 2006 NAD conference but today, I finally go around to register my account.

When you login, you see this list of categories of archived video clips by Deaf people:

  • Community-Contributed Videos (0)    
  • Deaf Culture (9)    
  • Deaf History (17)    
  • Deaf Mosaic (53)    
  • Deaf President Now (1)    
  • Gallaudet Community (11)    
  • Visual Histories Project (2)

Some of the clips are very old- dating back to the year 1937 or earlier!  I’m very happy that Gallaudet is taking the necessary steps to make them more accessible to all of us!

I have a three suggestions for improvements:

  • Is a registered account really necessary?  I find it a bit annoying to have to sign up for an account to see these clips when I don’t really see any real benefits for an account.  Because of these extra steps, the potential exposure/viewership is reduced.
  • Flash video should be used instead of WMV (Windows Media) so that the clips can be easily viewed across as many platforms as possible.
  • The GUI leaves a lot to be desired and is frustrating to use.  Work with an experienced website designer!
_____

Other Similar Posts
This entry was posted in Video. Bookmark the permalink.
  • http://profile.typekey.com/daveynin/ daveynin

    Take a look of your sentence above:
    “In essence, all the Deaf people who created all these films long time ago have been reborn as our early Deaf vloggers!”

    Definitions from webopedia.com:
    Blog – Short for Web log, a blog is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.

    Vlog – Short for video blog, it is the term used to describe a blog that includes or consists of video clips. Typically updated daily (or with regular frequency) vlogs often reflect the personality or cause of the author. Also called vog.

    Hmm…

  • http://profile.typekey.com/jarednevans/ Jared Evans

    Obviously there were no blogs or vlogs back then :-)

    The similarity between how we do our vlogs today and how they filmed themselves back then are striking when these are converted into online video clips.

    One only wonders what they would have done if vlogs had existed in their days!

  • http://www.blueapplefilms.com Gary Brooks

    Remember George Veditz once said in “The Preservation of Sign Langauge? he said we must preserve our sign language with films. Today more and more deaf people express their own sign language through vlogs. This is another way to preserve our sign language no matter what kind of technology we have today. I would imagine myself if George Veditz live today…he would be very happy! We must continue explore the world of technology like go beyond where no one have gone before…

  • Rene Visco

    Dave, I agree with you.

    What do you call putting a video clip on a webpage? Many Deaf people have done it since the dawn of Internet. It’s really sad that no one is keeping track of who did the first website of a Deaf organization. Our firsts in digital age.

    Clerc Classic VI hosted at CSD, Riverside is the first Deaf-oriented sports blog (http://csdr-cde.ca.gov/clerc). Do people really care? What about the first Quicktime streaming webcasts of Maryland graduation back in 2001 and 2002 that I worked to set up? It was the first ever done in a Deaf school.

    Vlogs must only be reserved to people who post videos daily, weekly, or monthly. They deserve the true title, “vlogger”.

    So far, the first Deaf person who mentioned “vlog” in a video clip is Jason Lamberton. He only posted two clips discussing about his cats and Gallaudet’s former ice hockey team.

    He influenced Joey Baer to set up his own vlog, etc. The rest is history.

    We must work hard to preserve our “digital” Deaf history which is rapidly fading into a black hole.

    I lost my first version of LightKitchen’s website which I still think is a rad design. But, I lost it. A little bit of Deaf history lost forever.

    I’m afraid that the history of “DPN” is more preserved than the recent “Unity for Gallaudet” protest because of the dangers of being in “digital” format.

  • http://www.blueapplefilms.com Gary Brooks

    The best way to preserve our stories by making at least four hard copies (Mini-DV, DVD), compress to WinMedia, Quicktime and Flash then save to DVD,or USB (Four each). Print your website/blogs (make four copies)of each “page”. Make sure that paper are acid-free, put all those in Acid-Free containers. Then storage in temperature control room (non-humid, extreme cold or heat) most common question said “what happens if my place got fire? or hit by tornado, hurricane?” then my suggestion storage them in two places. one at your home and one at the backup place. what is “backup place” it can be at your family’s house, your close friend or someone you trust. so if one of your place got hit then you can always go to backup place and make new copies. That’s why I said make “four copies” if you want more copies then go for it! no limited!

    and one more… what about artifacts, costumes, props? that’s good questions! I have so many costumes, mask from my previous films and they are at my house. What I did? I built huge metal container and put them in it. But I will have problem…I need someone to help me move it.. oh drag it! there’s always something after all!

    I hope my explanation help you? we come together to share knowledge. I learn something from you and I share with you. You can always have the choice to take it or not.

  • Gallaudet Fan

    Your comments should be forwarded to the director of Academic Technology which operates the video server: cynthia.king@gallaudet.edu

  • http://profile.typekey.com/jarednevans/ Jared Evans

    The director should keep her eye out on any blogs talking about the Gallaudet Video library. This can be done via Google’s Blog Search page:

    http://blogsearch.google.com/

    and doing a search on Gallaudet “Video Library”