I am starting back on Rocketboy now, and today I had a really productive meeting with Ramon Woolfe, from Remark!
Ramon is a Deaf film maker and we met to discuss, among other things, his possible involvement in Rocketboy. The central core of the story in Rocketboy is first love, between 16 year old rocket building Conner (from the title) and 15 year old goth Becky, who the kids all call ‘the vampire’ as she is a bit weird. Connor discovers that Becky is in fact Deaf and not the weirdo he thought, and their romance is sparked as they discover new ways of communication.
Ramon liked the script very much, and meeting him reminded me of when I wrote the first draft of Rocketboy and I immersed myself in the Deaf community. Like most of the Deaf people I know, he is in no way ‘disabled’. He is as able as the rest of us, he just happens to speak another language, British Sign Language. We got on so well, we are now considering a bold initiative which we in tend taking to the Film Council for some funding – and we will let you know how this develops.
After we got chatting, it turned out we had a lot of friends in common, even some film makers in Australia!
Onwards and upwards!
Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
[email protected]