Rene – Sandringham
“I’m a film production student, graduated in Hawkes Bay, and I’m living in Sandringham, producing a lot. Pretty much pursuing my career in the filming industry.
The last time I felt proud was when I was walking up on stage getting one of the biggest awards in High School, which was called the Sarah Berch Memorial Trophy and that was in 2014. In 2013, I also got the Terry Hooper Memorial Trophy, which was the Hard Working Student at Tawa High School so I was very proud to walk up on stage and get that award.
So, just recently, I graduated at EIT Hawkes Bay. I’ve moved from sunny Hawkes Bay, so that’s my home town where all my friends and family are, [and] I’ve come up here to stand on my own two feet and begin life. I’m only 20 years of age and just taking everyday as it is, pretty much.
Yes, from my perspective, I’m very proud to be deaf. I have a lot of potential, I have a lot of abilities that I would like to utilise for the future, and I would also like to become a role model for the hearing people to say “you have a lot of skills in yourself that you could probably utilise in any situation”.
Being hearing impaired I would have to say is a barrier in some cases, but for me I would like to take that barrier and break it rather than just stay in one position and not over think it too much. It’s not an excuse really; I just believe it’s more of a challenge to get to where you want to be I guess.
I reckon for humanity, we need to go back to the old school way of not having too much technology in our lives, because we rely on it too much that we become distant with other people and I believe the most powerful thing that human nature has is the word of mouth. The reason why I say that is when you talk to someone in person you can pretty much feel and see how people interact with each other personally rather than through technology. So I reckon word of mouth is a lot more powerful than technology; so that would be one small thing I would change in humanity.
It’s just pretty much putting your ability, or your hearing impairment aside, and putting what you have in front of you. Like for me, I know for a fact I have a lot of potential and a lot of talent so I like to put that first in some aspects.
So if people ask me to do something I like to think about it first and then I will just do it rather than hesitate. I’m more of a doer rather than just a sit back person being scared of life or something. Since I’ve even moved up to Auckland by myself I’ve started to develop myself and who I am. I mean I’ve been living with my parents of course and since they’ve kicked me, well not kicked me, out, but since I’ve left home I think it was about time for me to sort of learn the key things of life as such so since I’ve moved up here I’ve learnt quite a lot.
My personal traits and my potential’s ok, the only thing I really want is a job. Yeah I got asked a question like a month ago. This guy came up to me and said “where do you see yourself in 5 years?” and I said to him I see myself as a role model because you know people have told me that I’ve got a lot of potential and I have a mind that’s exemplary to others. I would like to show to other people there’s ways of doing things and that’s cool, but in my way there’s a way of executing certain tasks from different perspectives. I don’t like thinking mainstream I like thinking differently, and, you know, I like that kind of stuff, it’s just who I am.
One of the barriers that I had was [that] I’m a really big music fan, and I love playing music, I’m a drummer, guitarist, bassist, got into keyboard, and making music. Before I decided what I wanted to do, I wanted to be a audio engineer but apparently you have to have specific decibels in both your ears to get that job, but sadly for me I was unable to get that job so I took a different approach and I went through the filming industry and also the acting industry, which was a lot more complex in a way but I found it a lot more fun and found it more hands on work rather than just sitting on a big desk with a massive sound board and stuff like that.
It was a challenge in itself to find an alternative way to accomplish something similar or better, in other words, and that’s why filming was a lot better for me because it’s more visual rather than just audio.”
