Welcome to our Auslan Video Competition
The results are in!
Introduction
Deaf Australia is excited to establish the first ever Auslan Day Video Competition on 13th April 2022 in recognition of our community language and to celebrate the anniversary publication of the Auslan dictionary.
Objective
Deaf Australia will sponsor the vouchers for this competition. The purpose of the Auslan Day competition is to further promote creativity and originality in the use of Auslan, and to foster a sense of pride in Auslan among the Deaf community.
Eligibility
For the Auslan Day competition, contestants must be Deaf, Deafblind or hard of hearing and use Auslan as their main mode of communication. They will be judged according to their age categories*:
Divisions:
The competition is broken down into four divisions:
- Children (5-12 years old)
- Teens (13-19 years old)
- Adults (20-59 years old)
- Seniors (60-99 years old)
*Please note: Deaf Australia reserves the right to request verification from any contestant to determine their eligibility.
Themes
There are three categories in the competition:
- Handshapes Story
- Auslan Storytelling
- Deaf joke with a twist
All entries will be reviewed by a panel of judges, and we will give the Deaf community an opportunity to vote on the ‘handshapes story’ category!
Winners’ names and their videos will be published on Deaf Australia’s website and the social media pages and the winners will be given vouchers as prizes.
The deadline is 30th March 2022 at 8:00pm.
NEW EXTENDED DATE: 4th APRIL 2022 at 8.00PM
Categories
1. Handshapes Story
Theme for 2022: pointing’ (one finger), ‘spread’ (five) & ‘soon’ (celebrate) handshapes
Create an Auslan story using all three handshapes. You can use other handshapes in the story but the 3 listed handshapes should be the most used in the story.
2. Auslan Storytelling
Theme for 2022: “How has coronavirus changed the world”
Tell a story using how coronavirus has changed the world as a central theme. We encourage contestants to take inspiration from the world around them and how Deaf people faced the challenges. This can be fiction or non-fiction.
3. Deaf Joke with a twist
Theme for 2022: “Timber!”
The entrant will retell the Timber joke with a twist to the start, middle or ending of the story. The original joke can be found here - https://youtu.be/aiQrW1FkRPg
Meet our judges
Shirley Liu
Transcript
Hello All, I’m Shirley Liu
I am one of the three judges, ready for viewing your Auslan Day Video Competition videos.
With all the videos that will be sent in, I will watch them all, and judge which are the best.
Will I be a tough judge or soft-hearted judge - who knows?
Your videos can be included in three different categories:
1. Auslan Handshapes
2. Storytelling theme on covid “how has coronavirus changed the world?”
3. Deaf jokes with a twist
I’m going to give you an example to inspire you, excite and motivate you. You’ve got your competitive streak on now, and you have the prize money dollar signs in your eyes! You won’t be able to stop yourself sending in your entries.
My example is from Category 2: Auslan storytelling “How has coronavirus changed the world?”
The pandemic took over the world as Covid spread far and wide, invisible it floated on the air.
We walked through that air and the Covid snuck inside and went into our lungs and put bodies. We started to cough and get sick. It affected so many people around the globe and the world stopped!
Then along came this person with a new invention to prevent the sickness and stop the covid in its tracks. This person was a scientist called Ms Girtley Luanne.
She took human blood samples and vaccines and created a new vapour gas vaccine.
Huge tanks were filled with this vaccine gas, and fitted to aeroplanes. The airplanes soared above every country in the world and spread the vaccine through the atmosphere down on all of the people. Everyone breathed in the air and were fully vaccinated against Covid.
Ms Luanne had a very smart colleague in IT. They came up with another great invention. This was a new kind of glasses that could help you see the Covid through the air.
When you put the glasses on, the lenses dropped down as it configured itself. Walking around with the glasses on, you could see who was safe and who had Covid.
If one person had covid, you would give them the new vaccine and the Covid would disappear.
Very soon Covid was being wiped out everywhere.
It was phenomenal, and it all happened in 2033.
Whoa, could all this happen in the future - well who knows?
Now that you are all excited to join in the competition I need to let you know the deadline is coming up very soon on April 4th. Have a look on our website, get creating fast and send your entry in soon.
We are all looking forward to seeing your videos come in.
See ya.
Edan Chapman
Andrew Welshe
Transcript
Hello, I’m Edan
I will be one of the judges for the Auslan Day Video Competition. I am so excited to see your video stories. I want to see many videos showing your creativity in sign language.
There are three different categories.
I will give you an example of category 1. A handshape story.
Three hand-shapes can be used: ‘pointing’ (one finger), ‘spread’ (five) & ‘soon’ (celebrate) handshapes.
OK so my story…
A crowd of people were walking down the street. They were chatting away in Auslan, laughing and having a great time.
Suddenly a strange force appeared in front of their path. It was Covid.
Terrified, each one of them ran in a different direction.
Covid had taken control. The people went into hiding. They stayed in hiding and rarely came up except occasionally to check the situation on the streets.
Quickly they ducked back into hiding and accessed the world online.
After so much time in a virtual world in hiding, their memories took them back to happier times of socialising and using Auslan.
Finally when Covid faded, one by one they came back outside until it grew into many again.
So I hope that now you have all seen this example that you will start thinking and creating your own videos. I really want to see your Deaf skills and I’m really looking forward to your stories.
Transcript
Hi All, I’m Andrew. I’m excited to be one of the judges presiding over your Auslan videos.
Everyone has the opportunity to express their video stories and I will watch them all to judge who does the best job.
There are three different categories.
- A handshape story. Three hand-shapes can be used: ‘pointing’ (one finger) e.g. caterpillar, me, think, first etc.
- Covid: You can be creative and think of any story related to Covid.
- Deaf joke with a twist.
I will give you an example of a Deaf joke with a twist. Ready.
“As you all know, I am involved with the Emergency Services, supporting Fire, Ambulance, and Police. But I have been heavily involved with the SES in road safety, finding missing people.”
A pager vibrates.
“Eh hold on, hold on, sorry.”
He takes out his pager.
“Sorry this thing won’t stop.”
He reads the messages on his pager. He looks up in horror
“King Kong has escaped. Guys, Guys, HEY GUYS, COME ON, We need all hands on deck.”
The crew jump into the truck and speed through the streets. The crew search down every street, looking for Kong.
“Where is Kong?”
Way up ahead in the distance they see a big black thing, is that him?
Looking around the streets they see cars flattened, houses toppled and wrecked, trees uprooted.
As they draw closer to that black thing up ahead, it looms larger and larger until it towers above them. Giant and black and angry, the ground shakes as it stomps by.
Kong lets out a roar as he beats his chest. Mean and angry he tramples through the city until he spots a beautiful woman down below. He stomps over, and picks her up. Tiny, she dangles in his massive hand.
As she stands in his palm, he strokes her, smiles and tells her she’s so cute.
The woman wriggles and screams “Stop already, I’m scared, let me down.”
He laughs “You’re just so cute, too too cute.”
The woman wriggles and screams “I don’t like this, I don’t like this. Stop, stop, I can’t look, I just can’t. I’m afraid of heights.”
Kong has no idea what she’s saying. He just continues to stroke and love her.
Suddenly he reels around. He’s been hit in the back from below. Multiple guns are firing at him. He looks around, there’s guns, lights & sirens. He bats the bullets away and stomps through the streets.
Up ahead he spots the tallest building, and makes for that. He starts to climb it and within a few steps the cars, the ambulance, the police, the SES, all look like ants beneath him.
He climbs higher and higher.
Finally he stops and brings the woman out onto his palm and tells her,
“You really are cute you know”
She cries and shakes “I’m scared, pleeaasse let me go.”
Kong smiles, though still not a clue what she’s saying. Suddenly a helicopter buzzes around his head. He swipes it away. The helicopter plummets to the ground.
The SES below watch as it falls from the sky, crashes and burns.
They look at each other, “What do we do guys? What do we do?”
All they can do is look up.
High above Kong looks at his new love as she stands in his palm and signs WILL YOU MARRY …
Shocked he looks at his upturned hand, and then down below.
From the ground, the SES crew watch in disbelief. Their gaze fixes on her fall from the sky to her thump on the ground.
The captain turns to his crew and explains, “Hey guys, do you know what, Kong is Deaf.”
The crew are shocked, “No way, really?”
The captain says “Yeah, you know why, he signed WILL YOU MARRY… And with that, he threw her to her death. Anyway we need to get back to work.”
The end. I hope you got it. See ya.
Rules & Guidelines
See guidelines in text
- There is a strict 3-minute limit for each category.
- One entry can be made per contestant per category. For example, a contestant may submit up to three videos: one Auslan Handshapes story, one Auslan storytelling, one Deaf joke.
- DO NOT introduce yourself or your poem/story/presentation title because this will count against the time limit. Going over the time limit will negatively impact the entrant's score.
- Visual Vernacular (VV) or poetry can be used.
- Entrant will be judged on authenticity, clarity, preparedness, thoroughness, sign production, creativity and delivery.
- If filming using a phone, videos must be in landscape mode, not in portrait mode. Refer to image on the last page of the manual.
- Judges must be able to see the signer from the hip up to a few centimetres above the head. The video needs to have good visibility and lighting.
- Use a solid colour background. Note: white wall is acceptable without any cluttered backgrounds.
- Wear solid colour clothing (i.e., if you are a white person, a black top that contrasts with your skin and background). Wearing bright patterned clothes (i.e., Hawaiian shirts) will negatively impact the entrant’s score.
- NO props can be used in the videos.
- NO special effects can be used in the videos for the background editing.
- NO intentionally offensive, disrespectful or abusive signs in the video will be accepted.
- Submissions MUST be original (created by the contestant). If it is discovered that a contestant has copied from someone else’s work, that contestant will be automatically disqualified from the Auslan Competition for that year.
- If a contestant doesn’t abide by the rules above, the submission will be disqualified automatically.
- Entrants must complete the registration form including consent form for us to use the videos onto our website and social media.
- The community vote will be open to anyone on Deaf Australia’s website from 1st April to 11th April. NEW VOTING DATE: 7th April to 13th April. Deaf Australia team will check all videos to ensure it meets eligibility and guidelines before uploading onto Deaf Australia website.
- All entries must be submitted through video format via wetransfer website and email to [email protected] title ‘Auslan Day Video Competition’.
Filming manual:
(sourced: https://media.uwex.edu/faculty/using-a-smartphone-to-record-video/)
Age group rules & guidelines
Children & teens:
Contestants may ask their families and/or teachers to help them develop their ideas for their submission. The performance shown on film must be done by the contestant alone.
Children:
Contestants may enlist the help of someone else to do the filming and the editing of their submissions.
Teens & Seniors:
Contestants may enlist the help of someone else to do the filming and to show them how to edit their submissions. All actual editing must be done by the contestant alone.
Deadlines & registration
Registrations and submissions will be closed on 30th March 2022 at 8:00pm AEDT – NEW EXTENDED DATE: 4th April 2022 at 8.00pm AEDT. Any submissions submitted before or after the designated opening and closing dates and times will not be accepted.
All submissions must be submitted via wetransfer.com to [email protected]
Prizes
Each age division and category will have a first place and runner up winner as determined by a panel of judges.
This means that there will be 3 winners and runner ups for each age group; making a total of 12 winners and 12 runner ups!
There will be a community vote for the ‘handshapes story’ category for all age divsions.
A grand total of 28 prizes will be awarded!
Children (5-12 years old)
Teens (13-19 years old)
Adults (20-59 years old)
Seniors (60-99 years old)
1st Prize: $50
2nd Prize: $25
Community Vote Prize: $50
1st Prize: $75
2nd Prize: $50
Community Vote Prize: $50
1st Prize: $100
2nd Prize: $75
Community Vote Prize: $50
1st Prize: $100
2nd Prize: $75
Community Vote Prize: $50
(Deaf Australia will sponsor $1850 worth of vouchers)
Submission Guidelines
Wetransfer upload:
Steps to upload your Auslan submission(s) via wetransfer:
- Go to www.wetransfer.com and click on ‘I just want to send files’ on bottom of webpage.
- Click on “Upload” button to upload your video.
- Type in [email protected] in the ‘Email to’ section and type in your email address below.
- Type your name and the name of the story in ‘title’ section
- Type which category you are applying for (handshapes story, Auslan storytelling or Deaf joke with a twist) in the ‘message’ section
- Click on the ‘transfer’ icon to upload your video, then check your email inbox for code.
- Add the code into the text box. Wait till 100% is reached and then check your email inbox that it has gone through.
