References

"Working with children is not for the faint hearted as licensing laws have to be strictly adhered to and licences obtained for the safety of the children. Whilst Aisha hadn’t dealt with this before, she did so in a very professional manner, keeping all us parents fully informed throughout. On set, I have never seen anyone be such a stickler for the rules – children not going to the toilet without chaperones or being left without their chaperones at all. She catered for all the cast, including chaperones. We all felt comfortable enough to “help ourselves” and the children had scheduled breaks very regularly.

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As parents, we were clear what costume requirements were but Aisha was also very open to other suggestions within reason. This also went for filming – Aisha listened to ideas with an open mind and was extremely easy to work with.

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During the first day of filming, the actress playing the mother pulled out whilst on set. This was absolutely nothing to do with Aisha, more due to the actress’ own prejudices in the fact that that the majority of the cast was not deaf and nobody communicated solely via sign language. I have never seen this happen before and it is extremely frowned upon in the industry. This obviously left Aisha totally up a creek. She approached me very calmly and did not pressurise me at all to take on the role. I am not an actress, just taxi to my two stars, but she helped give me confidence to try. At no stage did I feel I had to take on the role as she also had an alternative plan. Whilst I was learning the sign language after the first day’s filming, I had regular communication from Aisha to check I was OK and things were progressing well. 

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Aisha’s approach as a director was laid back but with very clear objectives and a good sense of humour. All of the children had an absolute ball and I wish her every success for her bright future. My children would not hesitate to work with her again for these reasons plus the fact the script itself was amazing."