LOWKEY FILMS & SIGNKID - MUSIC TRANSCENDING SOUND

In the latest edition of our Lemonade Spotlight series we caught up with Connor O’Hara and Jamie Gamache over at Lowkey Films and to discuss their latest Champion campaign ‘What Moves You’ with deaf musician Kevin Walker (AKA) Signkid. The latest campaign highlights music accessibility through the power of visual performance and BSL (British Sign Language).

This latest campaign also saw Lowkey reunite with filmmaker Charlie Dennis for their third creative output, we discuss in detail how these relationships were formed and what drives them forward together as a creative force.

How did you both get involved with the Champion campaign?

[Lowkey] The brief was sent to us by our friends at Energy BBDO in Chicago who we have worked with a number of times now, with the wonderful Kristin Grandberry producing and fellow Brit Eve Anthony as the creative director. The brief was to create a mini-doc for Champion’s new brand platform called “Champion What Moves You” which highlights a specific group of people they call “creators with purpose”. These creators with purpose are talented individuals who are inspiring action, pushing boundaries, moving culture forward and building communities. We were tasked with finding a UK based creator that matched the profile Champion were looking for and to come up with a concept & script that would get their story across in 60 seconds. As soon as we saw the brief, we felt like Signkid was the embodiment of this Champion campaign and had to be the creator we featured. Charlie Dennis had worked with Signkid & Energy BBDO before so it felt like the stars aligned and before we knew it we were in pre-production!

You’ve now worked on several projects with Signkid over the years but how did this creative partnership start?

[Lowkey] Signkid is a deaf rapper & music producer that we’ve been working with in various capacities for over 5 years now. The first project we worked on together was on a music video we produced for him for his track ‘Dumbass’ back in 2018. The song was all about the outdated word dumb and how it’s derogatory use has led to discrimination against the deaf community. As a company felt so inspired by Kevin’s (Signkid) ambition and refusal to let his deafness hold him back. He saw it as a gift, and something he wanted to celebrate and we knew that this was the start of a friendship & partnership between us that would span a number of future projects.

You’ve also worked with the director Charlie Dennis on previous projects, how did he get involved with Lowkey and Signkid?

[Lowkey] We’ve been working with Charlie in commercials for a number of years now but his background is in film & TV, second unit directing for Michael Winterbottom on a number of shows. Signkid had come to us with a commission from the BBC & Arts Council England called Culture in Quarantine. The programme saw 12 D/deaf, neurodivergent and disabled professional artists commissioned to create film and audio works about their experiences during the pandemic. We brought Signkid & Charlie together on a chemistry call and they both hit it off instantly and have formed a very close bond ever since. Together, they wrote Silent World which premiered at Slamdance in 2022 and went on to play at top festivals across the world including the historic Clin D’Oeil Film Festival in France, known as the biggest deaf film festival in the world. The film then screened on BBC television and was available on iPlayer.

Charlie, could you tell us a bit more about the dynamic of working with Signkid as a director?

[CD] When Connor & Jamie first connected me with Signkid my concern was “am I the right person to be directing this?”. I loved the creative conversations, our ideas and goals matched - but my experience with the Deaf community back then was limited. Signkid told me that the majority of Deaf films end up getting circulated within the Deaf community and this becomes a circular issue. He looked at me and said “My community is not the problem. It’s your community.” And with that, I then made it my job to really understand how to connect the hearing community and Deaf community through film.

There are some immediate hurdles to face when working with any Deaf talent as a hearing director - expression and performance being one of them. I had to relearn (through the help of BSL creative consultants) how to direct performances. It’s easy for us to hear nuances in the way a line is delivered, purely through the way something is said. When you sign there’s a whole new world of ways to convey meaning. The energy of the sign, the body language, the facial expressions were all things I had to consider. Even shot choices. BSL is such a visual language, some angles and movements would simply not work with the performance.

There’s an incredible amount of work to be done by filmmakers to figure out how to make film more accessible, but the creative processes and results involved with this are so exciting.

50% of our crew on set were either deaf or could communicate with BSL, could you tell us more about how this came together?

[Lowkey] Being deaf and non-verbal, Signkid regularly works with BSL interpreters and there is always an interpreter present for our communications with Signkid on Zoom and in meetings. However, for the shoot it was important we took this even further. We worked with two interpreters on set for general communication with the crew, not only because it’s important for the interpreters to be able to take regular breaks, but we needed one interpreter to stay with Charlie at all times and then another to be with Signkid at all times if and/when the two were apart. Charlie also worked with Sam Arnold as BSL Creative Consultant on this. Sam is known for his work producing Name Me Lawand, a documentary following a deaf refugee struggling to piece together his new surroundings in Derbyshire, England. We then worked with a wonderful deaf PA called Levi Choutan and a deaf photographer who was also in the film and is a friend of Signkid’s called Zahid. Charlie also wanted to make sure the set was as accessible to everyone as possible, and so little things became useful on set - like a laser pen we used for cue-ing the action when Signkid wasn’t facing Charlie. Visual aids where calling ‘cut’ or ‘action’ were impossible.

The film inspired Champion to launch a limited run of hoodies called the Champion x Signkid BSL & C Logo Reverse Weave Hoodie, could you tell us a bit more about the launch events?

[Lowkey] So when concepting the film and developing the script with Signkid, one of the major hurdles was that the world ‘Champion’ was being used as a verb, rather than a noun. It worked well creatively for the concept but the only translation into BSL is a ‘Winner’ sign which didn’t match with the ‘Champion what moves you’ tagline. So we created a whole new sign just for this campaign and used the classic Champion “C” logo as its root. The BSL Champion sign that the team devised, ended up becoming intrinsic with the subsequent marketing campaign, and inspired a whole new campaign that snowballed. We used BSL vectors in our graphics for the film which Champion took inspiration from to print their own custom sign onto a limited Champion clothing line, which was launched at their flagship store in New York alongside a big campaign with High Snobiety. They even created a mural celebrating Signkid’s work and also incorporated AR technology into the clothing so that people could watch our film by scanning the clothing. It’s been great to see that snowball effect and see Signkid’s story inspire so many amazing conversations. Seeing him standing next to his mural in New York City was the icing on the cake for us and exactly what this whole film was about! Champion-ing and celebrating incredible talent. Creating a new word in BSL was also very cool.

Charlie, In creating this film what do you want the biggest takeaway to be for this campaign and do you think it has the potential to inform and educate people about music accessibility?

[CD] SMASH THE BOUNDARIES. Smash those damn boundaries. Honestly. Signkid himself is a walking example of saying “nope” to the barriers placed before him. The relationship between music and hearing feels intrinsic but Signkid has found a route around this and championed a whole new way to experience, create and celebrate an art form. This is something that needs to be implemented within the arts in general. How we approach music/scores in film, how we look at dialogue on screen, how we experience music. It takes trial and error, and there are no real rules yet - but that’s what makes it so exciting. People need to experiment, find ways to bring our communities together through art, through music. Signkid sometimes wears a vibration vest to physically feel the beat of a track. That’s a whole new experience - imagine that in a cinema? Adding a whole new dimension to storytelling and to experiencing sound.

This Champion campaign highlights Signkid’s incredible work as a creative but I really hope people can see the bigger picture here - the creative freedom of developing music, film and art for all to enjoy. The push for accessibility not as a requirement, but as an opportunity.

Working with Signkid over the years has this changed the way you view music/art?

[CD] Signkid strives to make visual arts, film and tv more accessible for all - and this is something I have proudly adopted. Now, when I’m pitching on a brief, I ensure that accessibility questions are being asked. Is there a visual way to convey this message, rather than sound? Is there a way the audience can experience this without them just watching it?

Signkid challenges me as a creative which allows me to interrogate my own techniques and understanding of film and music. It’s easier said than done but it feels like it’s opened up more doors for conveying a story and allows me to work with people like Signkid who experience art differently to me. It’s really refreshing to have everything you think you know to be pulled out from underneath you and start from scratch.

There’s a big old road ahead when it comes to making visual arts and music completely accessible, but the journey is going to be so rewarding.

And finally Lowkey, have you got any future projects with Signkid and Charlie Dennis coming up in the near future?

[Lowkey] So it’s yet to be fully announced but for the past few years we’ve been developing a TV series with them both - so watch this space. Aside from that, we continue to look for opportunities to amplify Signkid’s story wherever we can - and we believe there will be more to come from the Champion & Signkid collaboration.