Bio – ENM consulting

RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Gail Williamson

Gail Williamson is a talent agent and heads the Diversity Department at Kazarian/Measures/Ruskin & Assoc. working with talent with disabilities. Gail is also the mother of an adult son with Down syndrome and was the Executive Director of the Down Syndrome Association of Los Angeles for 8 years. Gail has consulted on many Down syndrome stories over the years, including several episodes on TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, the Michael Patrick King pilot for Amazon, LOVE YOU MORE, some VO and animation for characters with DS for Disney, Nick and Amazon. She also gave notes on several films for the Disney Channel back in the day.
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RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Andrew Pilkington

Andrew Pilkington is a producer/writer living in Manhattan. He has worked for award winning directors such as: Alex Gibney and Morgan Spurlock. He is a graduate of the Harrington School of Communication and Media at the University of Rhode Island where he won the Film Excellence Award in 2014. He produced and co wrote the movie Best Summer Ever which is a feature musical staring actors with disabilities It was selected into the SXSW Film Festival 2020. It was awarded the Final Draft Screenwriter Award prize. He was one of five writers selected by SXSW Series Fest Pitch a thon. [continue reading…]

RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Emily Kranking

Emily Kranking is an upcoming actress and writer with cerebral palsy. Her first feature film Best Summer Ever, in which she stars as the bubbly cheerleader Nancy, was released in April 2021. She also wrote, directed and starred in the children’s short Saylor & Selena for Easterseals Disability Film Festival 2019. Last year, she was a participant in RespectAbility’s Hollywood Lab program as an emerging professional. She previously worked at RespectAbility for a year as a fellow for Employment & Policy and Hollywood Communications. Kranking holds her BA in Media and Communications Studies from University of Maryland, Baltimore County. During her time, she held internships in script coverage, comedy television writing, and television development. [continue reading…]

RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Rachel Handler

Rachel Handler is a writer, producer and actor focused on single-cam comedy and dramedy, and disability inclusive ALWAYS. She has written/produced 8 award-winning short films screening at Slamdance, Hollyshorts, and Heartland. She won the AT&T Underrepresented Filmmaker Award. She’s a self-professed Broadway nerd, with co-stars and guest stars on NCIS: NOLA, Law & Order: SVU, Interview With the Vampire, and New Amsterdam. Rachel is currently pitching her feature script “Hope for the Holidays” and comedy pilot “LAME.”
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RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Leah Romond

Leah Romond is an attorney, producer and advocate for full disability inclusion in film and television production. Romond’s recent project, Best Summer Ever, is a feature-length original musical created entirely by an integrated cast and crew of talent with and without disabilities. It was an Official Selection for SXSW 2020, won the SXSW 2020 Final Draft Screen Writers Award, and premiered at SXSW 2021. In addition to her lived experience as someone who experienced a brain injury as an adult, Ms. Romond is also a RespectAbility Senior Production Advisor. Ms. Romond has provided training to studios on full disability inclusion throughout the production process and is available to conduct trainings and consult on scripts. [continue reading…]

RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Alex Howard

Alex Howard is an Entertainment professional, born and raised in Los Angeles. Howard was diagnosed as one of only 19 people in the world with a rare mitochondrial disorder called MePan. One of the most significant symptoms of MePan is limited vision. Howard is proactive in finding ways to use technology to overcome his disabilities and is a passionate advocate of audio description for all media, everywhere. He recently spoke on a panel with Sundance titled “Bridging the Gap” – Ensuring Media Accessibility Through Audio Description. In June 2020, Howard was invited to participate in RespectAbility’s Summer Lab Program for Entertainment Professionals with Disabilities where he honed his skills in writing and development. As an Entertainment & News Media fellow with RespectAbility, Alex has consulted professionally on a number of different projects for film and TV, focusing on storylines involving characters who are Blind/Low Vision. [continue reading…]

RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Nasreen Alkhateeb

Nasreen Alkhateeb is an award winning filmmaker whose work amplifies under-represented. Most recently, Nasreen served a writer for Kamala Harris’ VP campaign, and wrote scripts for NASA, the United Nations, and the Women’s March. Her films have screened at Tribeca Film Festival, Slamdance, Netflix, Amazon and IFC. The lens Nasreen motivates audiences through is being BiPOC multi-heritage (Black + Iraqi), 1st generation, LGBTQ, survivor of war, trainer for survivors of gender violence, and an acquired disability after a hit and run.

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RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Ava Xiao-Lin Rigelhaupt

Ava Xiao-Lin Rigelhaupt (she/her/hers) is a writer, consultant, actress, public speaker, and advocate for disability and autism representation in the entertainment industry. She brings her lived experiences to her work as a Chinese, transracial, Jewish, autistic adoptee – creating a professional niche for herself at the intersections of entertainment, storytelling, inclusion and accessibility! [continue reading…]

RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Ashley Eakin

Born in California and raised in Nebraska, Ashley Eakin is a writer-director based out of Los Angeles with a physical disability. She was most recently selected for the Powderkeg Fuse Incubator, curated by Paul Feig, in addition to the 2021 Commercial Directors Diversity Program. Last year she was 1 of 8 women selected for the AFI Directing Workshop for Women and her project SINGLE was selected for the 2020 SXSW Film Festival and received the Special Jury Recognition Award. The film has played in over 30 festivals winning 7 awards and 2 nominations. Eakin was also the recipient of the New York Women in Film Loreen Arbus Disability Awareness Grant. In 2020 Eakin was hired as a Staff Writer on an Animated Netflix series, featuring a character with a disability. Prior to working on her own projects, in 2019 Eakin worked for and shadowed Mark Pellington on the Quibi series SURVIVE filmed in the Italian Alps starring Sophie Turner and Corey Hawkins. Prior to this, Eakin was the assistant to film director Jon M. Chu. In 2017 she spent 5 months in Malaysia and Singapore working on his critically-acclaimed box-office hit CRAZY RICH ASIANS. Ashley has consulted on two projects for Disney. [continue reading…]