Hollywood Inclusion

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Los Angeles, CA, May 6 – A new report from Think Tank for Inclusion & Equity (TTIE), Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and Women in Film shows that more writers rooms are including BIPOC and women writers, but other communities, including the disability community, still are being left out. The report, titled “Behind The Scenes: The State of Inclusion and Equity in TV Writing,” covers the results of an online survey with 1,226 participants, plus results from two focus groups.

According to the report, “93.0% of writers said their most recent writers room had no Disabled or Deaf writers.” Upper-level Disabled or Deaf writers are even more scarce, with only 2.6% of writers reporting that their most recent writers room had at least one upper level Disabled or Deaf writer.

In rooms with Disabled and Deaf representation, 91.7% of Disabled writers said they were the only staffed writers from their underrepresented communities in their most recent writers room. [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, April 29 – Four people. One ice cream truck. One historic drought. One oncoming storm. Set in 1993 North Carolina, Drought is a feature film that examines sibling dynamics, dealing with differences, learning to understand the people you love, and accepting yourself.

In the film, a younger sister, Sam takes on the parenting role of watching over her autistic brother, Carl. When their mom gets sent to jail, the siblings’ estranged older sister, Lillian, shows up at the house to help out. Spurred by Carl’s love of weather and storm chasing, Lillian and Sam take their dad’s ice cream truck to help Carl chase the impending tempest. The siblings are accompanied on the journey by Sam’s friend, Lewis. [continue reading…]

Audio Description Ensures Equal Access for Blind Viewers, While Closed Captioning Assists Viewers who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

Hollywood, CA, April 25 – This year’s Oscars ceremony will be the most accessible for viewers yet. In a broadcast first, live audio description will be available for the live telecast nationwide. Google is sponsoring both this year’s closed-captioning and audio description. The addition of audio description, which is audio-narrated descriptions of a program’s key visual elements, ensures that viewers who are blind and low-vision will be able to take in all the action occurring on the screen and provide a much richer experience as they listen to the more traditional aspects of the show from the presenters, winners and performances. Per a press release from ABC, the closed captioning will be provided by VITAC, and the audio description will be provided by VITAC and Audio Eyes. [continue reading…]

Site showcases RespectAbility’s expanding network of consultants, as their work in the space of disability representation in film and TV also continues to grow

Los Angeles, April 22 – RespectAbility, a nonprofit focused on fighting stigmas of people with disabilities in media and advocating for more authentic representation, is proud to announce the launch of their Entertainment Media Consulting Team website. The site currently features 27 consultants, although the number continues to expand as the consultation requests to RespectAbility from studios, production companies and independent filmmakers continue to roll in. [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, April 22 – Being original is never easy. Whether it’s trying to find new life in the seven original stories or creating another hero with 1000 faces, finding something new and interesting in storytelling is the challenge every writer faces on a daily basis. As writers, we hope to subvert expectations and give our audiences new experiences with familiar undertones.

It’s even harder to find something new in genre work that defines itself by its tropes. And if there’s one genre everyone knows well, it is zombie horror films. They vary from piece to piece, but overall, when you sit down to watch a zombie movie, there are things you expect to see. It is hard to break free from those expectations and create something original.

What makes the short film Dead End Drive – directed by Alexander Yellen and written by Tobias Forrest – so impressive is its originality. As a person with a spinal cord injury, Forestt thought to himself, “How can I take the zombie apocalypse, disability, Hansel and Gretel, and a really bad joke and put them all together?” Thus born, Dead End Drive, a film that walks the line of familiar while providing a new perspective on the zombie genre. [continue reading…]

Leah Romond. Photo by Liz Bretz

Los Angeles, CA, April 15 – Since its premiere at SXSW 2021, the feature film Best Summer Ever has been making waves in the entertainment industry for its authentic representation and inclusion of people with disabilities both in front of and behind the camera, all wrapped up in an energetic and joy-filled musical. RespectAbility recently had the chance to interview one of the film’s producers, Leah Romond, who is also a current Senior Production Advisor at RespectAbility. Romond speaks openly about her experiences with traumatic brain injury, pivoting from law to producing in entertainment, and working at RespectAbility.

In 2012 Romond had mononucleosis, which turned into viral encephalitis that resulted in a brain injury due to brain inflammation. She explained her experience as living with one brain for part of her life and after the injury, being given a completely different brain. Before the injury, “my brain was like a super computer, very detail oriented. As an attorney, I had to keep a lot of facts in my brain and be able to recall them at a moment’s notice,” Romond said. [continue reading…]

Shannon DeVido

Los Angeles, CA, April 14 – Shannon DeVido, a multi-hyphenated talent, is an actress, comedian and writer. Her body of work spans several mediums, but the connective tissue coalescing her diverse pursuits is her wicked, introspective sense of humor. Most recently, DeVido showcases her wide range of talents with a starring role in the new feature film, Best Summer Ever—a musical with a majority of talent with disabilities both in front of and behind the camera.

Hailing from Philadelphia, DeVido was born with spinal muscular atrophy. Disappointed by her prospects of becoming a famous athlete, DeVido found theatre at an early age, introducing her to the world of performance and entertainment. [continue reading…]

RespectAbility’s testimony suggests that the NEA can dramatically strengthen their work by including more people with disabilities and ensuring that all grantees’ work is fully accessible to people with disabilities

Read the full testimony (PDF)

Los Angeles, CA, April 14 – As the conversations around diversity and inclusion continue to circulate throughout the entertainment industry, RespectAbility is urging the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to make a bigger effort toward including more people with disabilities in their programs, as well as ensuring that all grantees’ work will be full accessible to people with disabilities.

“With a relatively small amount of additional work, the NEA could make a much larger difference in our nation on behalf of the 61 million people with disabilities,” said Lauren Appelbaum, Vice President of Communications at RespectAbility. “What we see and hear in the arts and entertainment media impacts our thoughts and feelings. Positive, accurate representation could remove stigmas that have long held people with disabilities back.” [continue reading…]

Max’s character will offer an authentic representation of Autism for children and adult audiences alike

Washington, D.C., April 1 – 13-year-old Israel Thomas-Bruce has not had the opportunity to see himself represented on TV in the way that many other children may have. That is changing with the addition of a new neighbor in Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood – Max, Teacher Harriet’s autistic nephew.

The show authentically cast Thomas-Bruce, who was diagnosed with autism when he was four years old, as Max. Thomas-Bruce said this experience gave him “an extra boost of confidence.” [continue reading…]