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The teen drama “Switched at Birth” has never shied away from a quiet scene between two of its deaf characters. But producing an entire episode in which the characters only use American Sign Language (ASL)— slated to air next Monday (ABC Family, 8 p.m.)_— did make the show’s creator and executive producer, Lizzy Weiss, wonder if an audience would stay around after they realized no one would speak.
“In the rough cuts, we worried that attention would wander,” Weiss said. “But the story was compelling enough . . . the stakes were so high for our characters.”
But even with a gripping story depicting the deaf students’ protest of their school closing — inspired by the real-life protests at Gallaudet University in 1988 — the episode presented big problems, according to Weiss.
“We had to block scenes based on how the students talk to each other,” Weiss said. “They have to see each other. Deaf kids do that naturally. But we had to think about that in every scene . . . and no props in your hands.”
Although there have been instances of shows going silent — notably a “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” episode in which everyone lost their voices to demons, and a “CSI: NY” episode in October that didn’t have any dialogue (but did have a Green Day soundtrack) for half the episode — the ABC Family series has always been on the quiet side.
Now in its second season, the series tells the story of two teen girls who find out they were accidentally given to the wrong families in the hospital where they were born, and one of the girls, Daphne, is deaf (her portrayer, Katie Leclerc has a disorder of the inner ear that causes degenerative hearing loss).
Daphne’s “new” family must learn to communicate with Daphne and her friends from her school for the deaf, and when the deaf classmates communicate with each other using sign language, the scenes are subtitled.
This special episode was filmed, as usual, with the hearing actors speaking their lines. But all voices were muted out in editing.
Only the opening scene has dialogue, during which the actors used “simultaneous communication” (talking and signing).
The entire episode is, strictly speaking, not silent. The musical sound track is retained.
“We wanted this to be from the perspective of the deaf students,” Weiss said. “But it’s not literally what the character hears. Music represents the internal life of our characters.”
And the idea of preserving the deaf students’ point of view leads to one funny moment.
“When a security guard speaks without signing, the caption is a little vague. We use ellipses,” says Weiss.
“But we caption fluently in ASL, because the deaf kids would understand each other fine.”