5 years in the Works, Controversial Documentary to Finish Post Production

(Newswire.net — December 25, 2014) Chicago, IL — In 2007, soon after Saj Adibs started his full-service video company, New Slate Films, he also began production on a feature length documentary that opens a curtain on the controversial choice deaf parents face: giving their deaf children the gift of hearing through cochlear implants – or keeping them in silence.

Now “Louder Than Words” is being edited by director/cinematographer Adibs and editor David Flores, for an Oct. 1 finish. Brittany Pawlowski produced.

The film follows the journey of deaf parents Jill and Michael Stark who make the controversial decision to provide their two deaf children with cochlear implants, which are considered taboo in the deaf community.

“The film is about showing two different cultures. One is the deaf culture and deaf parents who really don’t see cochlear implants as an option for their kids — deafness is not something that needs to be ‘fixed’ – and very rare for deaf parents to get the cochlear implants for their deaf child,” Adibs says.

“On the other side are the hearing parents who almost always get the implants for their deaf child once they understand it’s an option. I wanted to create a bridge between those two cultures.”

One of New Slate Films’ first clients was the University of Chicago’s Project Aspire, for which it created an interactive multimedia DVD program intended to increase parental understanding of the knowledge and skills necessary for a child’s post-implant success.

 

Adibs met the Starks while filming several deaf families for Project Aspire and found an emotional inspiration in their story.

 

“Their story was so different and so unique I thought it would be a good opportunity to pursue it further than the 30-second segments used in the (Project Aspire) videos,” says Adibs.

Adibs is waiting to add one crucial scene for the doc. During filming, Jill Stark decided to have the cochlear implants herself in order to hear her children, a procedure that grows more risky with age.

“We want to use the scene Jill where hears her son for the first time as closure for the film,” Adibs says.

Company has a variety of clients

Located in River North, in a 5,000 sq. ft. office, with space for shooting and shared with Andrew Ryann’s Moto Media, New Slate Films’ trio of Adibs, Pawlowski and Flores, produce all genres of video for a broad spectrum of clients.

Recently completed was a huge job for Caveo Learning. Abids and Flores edited 110 hours of videos from two months of shooting into 17 six-hour videos on technical learning meant for the University of India.

Two other recent assignments were a marketing video for law firm Winston and Strawn originally presented at a conference that will appear on the firm’s website, and nutritional cooking and eating videos for eatright.com.

 

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