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Los Angeles, August 18 – Chris Triebes is an entrepreneur based in the Chicago area specializing in booking and event planning for music acts. Chris was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy and is one of the subjects of Peacock and CRAVE’s upcoming unscripted show Born For Business. The show will highlight individuals with disabilities who own and operate their own businesses, showcasing their success accompanied by some of the challenges involved with entrepreneurship.

Chris says his main motivation for becoming an entrepreneur was his ambition along with the need to provide for his daughter as a single father. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” proclaimed Chris as he describes his hustle in an interview with the disability nonprofit RespectAbility. His hustle is apparent when he describes how he initially got into the business of booking musical acts. [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, August 18 – On July 29, participants of RespectAbility’s 2021 Summer Lab for Entertainment Professionals with Disabilities were welcomed to a full day of sessions hosted by Bunim-Murray Productions. A special supporter of the Lab program and whose founder, Jonathan Murray, sits on the board at RespectAbility, Bunim-Murray Productions was able to offer a unique look into the world of unscripted TV and a peek inside the post-production process.

Jacob Lane, Vice President of Post Creative at Bunim-Murray Productions, spoke to participants about post-production story construction, editing for unscripted and documentary content, and the numerous pivotal jobs that bring that process of storytelling to life. Lane, who started his career in television news and documentaries before moving into unscripted television, has been editing for more than 20 years. His credits include long-running and industry changing shows like The Amazing Race, The Real World, Born This Way, Deaf Out Loud, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and The Challenge. [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, August 18 – The development process of any show, especially unscripted, is vitally important. Myiea Coy, VP of Development at Bunim/Murray Productions, gave the behind-the-scenes tour of the development process to the 30 participants of the RespectAbility Lab for Entertainment Professionals with Disabilities. She emphasized the importance of finding the story in your unscripted content, and the overall development process.

Coy cited the hugely popular unscripted dating show Love is Blind as an example to demonstrate how in the developmental stages of a show, even something as simple as the title of the show is important in sparking an audience’s interest. As Coy explained, the goal is to get the viewer to visualize what a specific show could be about just by having a great title and concept.

Throughout the presentation, Coy shared additional examples of real pitch decks from shows in various stages of production and pre-production that Bunim/Murray has worked on. [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, August 17 – Qiana Allen is a Chicago entrepreneur who owns Cultures Closet, a fashion and life-style brand for plus-size women and is featured on Peacock and CRAVE’s new unscripted show Born For Business. For Qiana, who lives with Lupus, having her own business gives her the flexibility she needs to manage her illness. Born For Business will highlight individuals with disabilities who own and operate their own businesses, showcasing their success, accompanied by some of the challenges involved with entrepreneurship.

Despite the challenges that come with entrepreneurship, being an entrepreneur always has been worth it in Qiana’s eyes. From a young age, she saw her uncle’s freedom as an entrepreneur and knew that is what she wanted to do with her life. “All I know is he would call himself an entrepreneur,” she said in an interview with the disability nonprofit RespectAbility. “I didn’t know exactly what it was, but I saw him being self-sufficient, flexible in his hours, and enjoying what he did. And I wanted to do that as a child and I’ve never wanted to do anything else.” [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, August 16 – Hailing from Boston, Collette Divitto owns a successful business called Collettey’s Cookies. She was born with Down syndrome, and, like for all business owners, it took a lot of hard work and determination to make her business what it is today. Collette and her company are featured on Peacock and CRAVE’s upcoming unscripted show Born For Business.

Collette has loved baking since the age of four but became incredibly passionate about it during freshman year of high school while taking a baking class. After attending Clemson University, she moved to Boston and said one of the hardest parts was finding a job.

“I spent hours trying to find jobs,” said Collette. “I got emails saying I wasn’t a good fit.” [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, CA, August 13 – Physical Production, often overlooked as a less glamourous part of filmmaking, is a cornerstone of creating in film and TV. Based on feedback by alumni of prior cohorts, a new one-of-a-kind session was held as a part of RespectAbility’s third annual Lab for Entertainment Professionals with Disabilities this summer. Barriers abound for disabled creatives craving a career in production, so opportunities to speak about how to form and break into production crews is a special treat.

Lisa Peters

Participants first welcomed Lisa Peters, a Physical Production Executive for Documentary Features, Shorts, and Limited Series at Netflix. Peters previously has managed projects for BET, TLC, Discovery, BBC, and Oxygen and is on the advisory board of Hue You Know, a community for BIPOC people in media. Starting her journey to television through news at World News Tonight with Peter Jennings as a desk assistant, Peters spoke about her evolution in the world of production after realizing, “news isn’t really it for me in terms of no one looked like me that was telling the stories. No one cared to hear about the stories that I wanted to tell.” [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, August 13 – When looking at who is working on a Hollywood set, there continues to be a lack of diversity, including the inclusion of disabled crew members. A group of seasoned industry professionals are aiming to change that. Jens Bishop from Remedy Health Media, Nicole Go from Staff Me Up, and Jonna McLaughlin and Stacey Kleiger of The Documentary Group recently spoke about the importance of hiring historically-excluded minorities like those with disabilities. [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, August 12 – Manon de Reeper is a screenwriter, filmmaker and the CEO and founder of independent film magazine, Film Inquiry. The online magazine is a manifestation of de Reeper’s love for film and design. De Reeper also is heavily involved in Women of Color Unite, where she aims to give a platform for women of color to tell their stories. De Reeper recently joined the RespectAbility Summer Lab participants from a sailboat in the Caribbean. The participants were given a hefty rundown of pitch decks and how they are an essential tool for selling your story.

“Pitch decks are basically the first visualization of your script or your idea if you’re still at the idea stage,” began de Reeper. “You can do them for feature films, you can do them for movies, for tv, for graphic novels, even books if that’s what you’re working on.” Pitch decks are made to carry the heart of the story so that agents, producers, directors, etc., have a feel of the script without actually having to sit down and read hundreds of pages. [continue reading…]