“In film school, they always tell you, show don’t tell,” said filmmaker Serena Dykman. But with her last few projects, Dykman has been rethinking that entire concept.
Her new short film “At See” follows a group of blind travelers aboard a cruise accompanied by their guide dogs. The film will play at this year’s Atlanta Film Festival on April 27.
Dykman describes her filmography as eclectic, with films ranging from a comedy about a bed bugs inspector to a documentary about her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. One thing that she feels remains constant throughout her work, however, is her interest in culture clash.
“I’ve grown up in different countries, and different languages, between different religions and social spheres,” Dykman said. “I love putting people from very different worlds – people that ‘shouldn’t meet’ – together in unusual circumstances, and show that we actually have more things in common than things that should separate us.”
Recently, she has been able to combine the idea of culture clash with the topic of guide dogs. Dykman has a medical alert dog herself, so she already knew a bit about that experience, particularly the awkwardness service dog owners experience when people want to pet their working companions (a piece of advice: don’t do it). But one day, walking through an Hasidic Jewish community in New York, she noticed that she wasn’t getting as many pet requests as she normally does. In fact, people looked a little wary.
There is no Jewish law banning pet ownership, but it can be more uncommon in the Orthodox tradition, which might have accounted for the reactions Dykman received that day. This experience led her to the idea for her short film “Babka,” which stars Saul Rubinek as a newly blind Orthodox Jewish baker who has to learn to navigate the world anew with a guide dog.
“It got me very curious,” she said of the experience. “What if a dog had to live in this community?”
In doing research for “Babka,” she met Frank Senior, a blind man who, according to Dykman, got his first guide dog on the day of the moon landing (throughout his lifetime, he’s had seven of the furry companions). As the two became closer, Senior mentioned to Dykman that he would soon be embarking on a cruise for visually impaired people and their guide dogs.
“I’m like, ‘Frank,’” Dykman said. “‘That sounds like a movie!’”
And so, production for “At See” began. For Dykman, one of the goals of the film was to teach a sighted audience what it’s like to not only travel with vision loss, but also what it’s like to watch a movie as a visually impaired person.
“Thus came the idea of having audio description that is not an option, but that is what we call open AD, or something that’s fully integrated to the narrative of the film,” she said.
Audio description is a form of narration that describes the visual elements of a film or television, making the project accessible to the visually impaired. Writing AD is a real art form, Dykman said, and what’s included in the specific narration heavily depends on the type of project. For example, the AD for “Emily in Paris” on Netflix includes the specific brands that characters are wearing. That might not be the standard in general, but for a show about fashion, it might be important.
In order to have the best audio description possible, Dykman brought in professional AD narrator Nefertiti Matos Olivares, who had consulted on “Babka” and is blind herself.
“She’s a trailblazer,” Dykman said. “She’s the most phenomenal woman.”
Not only did Olivares help write the audio description narration, but she also plays a part in the film. Footage of Olivares in the booth recording the narration is included throughout “At See.”
In addition to the AD, sound design was a very important factor. While AD has become more common than it used to be, Dykman said, people with visual impairments are used to relying on sound effects to understand what’s going on in a film or show. Dykman made sure to really emphasize sounds that might be more muted otherwise. During a shot where a dog walks across a floor, you’ll hear a heightened “click-clack” sound of the dog’s nails. Since the cruise made stops at tropical locations, you’ll hear louder bird and nature sounds in those sections of the film.
“The film is really designed to be watched twice,” Dykman said. “Once with your eyes open and once with your eyes closed.”
While Dykman lives with her own service animal, she said working with guide dogs over the past couple of years has taught her so much about what they are capable of and how they can change people’s lives.
“They give people their independence,” she said. “I’ve met people who have said they wouldn’t leave their house. And they got a dog, and they’re social, they can go out. That will also encourage interaction with other people. It’s often a really beautiful ice breaker.”
This article has been updated to include the fact that Nefertiti Matos Olivaresis blind.
