Filmmakers follow along as deaf teen chases dream

Amanda Salem isn’t a veteran filmmaker, but as a TV journalist she knows a good story when she hears it.

The former Hawaii resident now working in Los Angeles knew she had found a moving tale when she met Jazmin Hernandez and listened to the deaf teenager explain the greatest dream of her life: to swim for the United States at the Deaflympics games in Bulgaria this summer.

Hernandez, the child of a poor, single mother in South Los Angeles, would tell Salem that she wanted to make history. It was a quest that became as important to Salem — and her filmmaking partner (and fiance), Stephen Fell — as it was to the young athlete.

The result is a documentary-in-progress called "Swimmer’s Ear."

Salem and Fell were struck by the resolve the teenager exuded.

"She wants to be a role model, not just for deaf kids, but for kids everywhere," Salem said.

Hernandez was 15 when the filmmakers met her in October 2011. She arrived by herself, having taken the bus from her home to the swim stadium on the University of Southern California campus.

"What really drew us to her was that she was very, very independent," Salem said. "She looked us in the eye and said, ‘If I can do it, anyone can do it. If I can dream that I can be a world-class swimmer, then there is no reason why someone else shouldn’t be able to dream big.’"

Hernandez was born deaf but hears now with the aid of a cochlear implant. As a baby, though, Hernandez frustrated her mother, who did not know initially what was going on.

"Her mother was told that she would probably never speak," Salem said. "She was upset. She thought, ‘I would never hear her say mom.’"

That’s hardly the case today. Hernandez can talk up a storm whenever the camera is rolling.

"Swimmer’s Ear" is the first documentary the 33-year-old Salem has worked on, but Fell, 30, made one about the anti-abortion movement called "Unborn in the U.S.A." and is finishing another about the dwindling number of black caddies on the PGA tour called "Carrying the Game."

Salem, a 1998 Punahou graduate who came to Hawaii when she was 10, brought a TV journalist’s sensibilities to the project. She has been a reporter, producer and anchor in Baltimore and Texas and now works as a Web producer and editor for the celebrity news website TMZ in L.A.

"Swimmer’s Ear" has occupied all their free time.

"Often right after work we hop in the car and head to the pool and go shoot," Salem said. "It’s pretty much every waking hour that we are not working."

At the pool they’ve used underwater cameras, but their success has been hit and miss. When they started they taped a camera to a broomstick, but it floated. Luckily, other swimmers offered to hold their camera, a GoPro, underwater while Hernandez swam by, and they replaced the broomstick with a painter’s pole from Home Depot.

"You kind of have to love it," Salem said. "It is exhausting."

But here’s the harshest reality associated with the project. Unless Salem and Fell can raise $8,000, possibly through a Kickstarter campaign now underway, they won’t be able to afford a trip to Bulgaria.

With a week to go before the campaign’s deadline, they still need $1,000.

The filmmakers are committed to the project, though. It was a promise they made at the start, Salem said.

"We have looked into the eyes of a 15-year-old, and this is her dream," Salem said. "This isn’t something we are going to shelve. This is going to be finished and out there regardless if it takes every dollar I make or we get funding."

Find out more about their project at www.swimmers­earmovie.com; to make a donation, visit www.kickstarter.com.

AND that’s a wrap …

Mike Gordon is the Star-Advertiser’s film and television writer. Read his Outtakes Online blog at honolulupulse.com. Reach him at 529-4803 or email mgordon@staradvertiser.com.