On May 2, 2015, I started following deaf gay couple Alan and Brian after learning ASL for only a few months (at Sign Language Center - a local school they owned and ran). The first personal event I filmed was their hearing twin children Seth and Sela’s 4th birthday party. It was hectic, loud, very very loud, and full of love. I was inspired - “This is the story I want to tell - two struggling dads try to have it all but something is always out of control.”
Over the next three years of production, I followed their business and social life as a fly on the wall. I witnessed the growth of the kids as they adapted to the unique life experience of being hearing CODAs and also watched Alan and Brian blossom as parents. I echoed their joys and frustrations, their love and its hurdles. The next six years was grueling. Rounds and rounds of editing, fundraising and networking; career and life milestones; births and deaths. At times I wondered if I would ever release the film. Upon becoming a father of two kids myself, Alan and Brian’s seemingly unusual family tale turned immensely relatable. It’s not just their language I understand; it’s the fatherhood.
I hope my film “Loud Love” can demystify how deaf people live their lives. The popular metaphor of using “silence” to describe the deaf only has explanatory power for the hearing. Their lives are far from silent but very loudly click, buzz, pop and roar, and the fundamental basis of communication is not sound, but connection. I also wish to challenge the very limiting norms of parenting—how other parents of different races, sexualities or cultural backgrounds, or with disabilities, SHOULD teach, discipline and love their children. It’s the myth of the “normal family,” so linear and absolute, that should be questioned and re-invented so that the society as a whole can recognize many types of personhood and parenthood. As a first-generation-immigrant gay dad of two young toddlers, I feel more and more drawn to this project, as I want to know: how does a child facing the burdens and shame imposed by societal norms, embrace a culture that is too often presented as “inferior”? And, from the viewpoint of the parent, pained by guilt and often inflexible unforgiving mainstream standards, how do you persistently love? I think we all share that, in one way or another.
P.S. Alan passed away suddenly in 2023. I wish he could watch the completed film at one of the screenings with his family he loved so dearly - wearing a shiny outfit and criticizing every on-camera “performance.” He would laugh and cry, so heartfelt, so lively, with his loud family, his devoted friends, and the Deaf community he and Brian helped build and foster.
Over the next three years of production, I followed their business and social life as a fly on the wall. I witnessed the growth of the kids as they adapted to the unique life experience of being hearing CODAs and also watched Alan and Brian blossom as parents. I echoed their joys and frustrations, their love and its hurdles. The next six years was grueling. Rounds and rounds of editing, fundraising and networking; career and life milestones; births and deaths. At times I wondered if I would ever release the film. Upon becoming a father of two kids myself, Alan and Brian’s seemingly unusual family tale turned immensely relatable. It’s not just their language I understand; it’s the fatherhood.
I hope my film “Loud Love” can demystify how deaf people live their lives. The popular metaphor of using “silence” to describe the deaf only has explanatory power for the hearing. Their lives are far from silent but very loudly click, buzz, pop and roar, and the fundamental basis of communication is not sound, but connection. I also wish to challenge the very limiting norms of parenting—how other parents of different races, sexualities or cultural backgrounds, or with disabilities, SHOULD teach, discipline and love their children. It’s the myth of the “normal family,” so linear and absolute, that should be questioned and re-invented so that the society as a whole can recognize many types of personhood and parenthood. As a first-generation-immigrant gay dad of two young toddlers, I feel more and more drawn to this project, as I want to know: how does a child facing the burdens and shame imposed by societal norms, embrace a culture that is too often presented as “inferior”? And, from the viewpoint of the parent, pained by guilt and often inflexible unforgiving mainstream standards, how do you persistently love? I think we all share that, in one way or another.
P.S. Alan passed away suddenly in 2023. I wish he could watch the completed film at one of the screenings with his family he loved so dearly - wearing a shiny outfit and criticizing every on-camera “performance.” He would laugh and cry, so heartfelt, so lively, with his loud family, his devoted friends, and the Deaf community he and Brian helped build and foster.
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