The Crip Trip Disability Podcast

Filmmaking Dynamic Duo Michelle Asgarali and Meagan McAteer

Episode Summary

Daniel and Fred are joined by Michelle Asgarali and Meagan McAteer, two highly skilled filmmakers and producers based in Toronto. Leading the charge in disabled culture building, this dynamic duo explores the intersection of disability and film, shares their origins, and discusses their ongoing efforts to advocate for change within the industry and the community.

Episode Notes

Daniel and Fred are joined by Michelle Asgarali and Meagan McAteer, two highly skilled filmmakers and producers based in Toronto. Leading the charge in disabled culture building, this dynamic duo explores the intersection of disability and film, shares their origins, and discusses their ongoing efforts to advocate for change within the industry and the community.

Video Podcast Version

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Guest Bio's

Michelle Asgarali - Toronto

Michelle Asgarali is a Canadian writer/producer with a documentary and TV development background. A Toronto Star article featured her for becoming the first openly-disabled show-runner of a Canadian docu-series. This AMI original docu-series, Breaking Character (Winterhouse Films, 2022-), follows six performers with disabilities as they hustle to make their mark on the stage, screen and runway of Hollywood North. She also was the Lead Story Producer of Season 1 of CBC's Push (Fenix Films and TV/Small Army, 2023-), Canada's first major-network prime time series featuring a leading cast with disabilities, as well as writing for children's programs by Lopii Productions. 

Facebook: www.facebook.com/masgarali1

Meagan McAteer - Toronto

With over fifteen years of professional industry experience directing and producing documentary and lifestyle television under her belt, Meagan is excited to explore new opportunities and platforms in the pursuit of creative growth, great projects and beautiful stories. 

During the Pandemic Meagan completed a master’s degree in Media Production (The Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University, 2021) focusing on disability representation in film and television. Her narrative short film, “One Day/Day One” will be participating the festival circuit in 2022/23 season and she is workshopping a number of projects. 

She is working closely with AMI, Telefilm and The Canadian Media fund in the development of the Disability Screen Office and Best Practices Guide with respect to disability in the the Canadian Media Industry.

Webpage: www.meaganmcateer.com

 

Episode Transcription

Hold on and 3, 2, 1.

 

It's Danny and Fred, they have a Crip Trip podcast.

 

Danny and I are in Edmonton chatting over Zoom

 

with our guests, Meagan McAteer and Michelle Asgarali,

 

in Toronto.

 

Hello everyone and welcome to another

 

Crip Trip podcast episode.

 

Today I am joined by

 

Michelle, Meagan McAteer (laughs)

 

And? Michelle Asgarali.

 

There we go.

 

Producer and director extraordinaire.

 

Thank you so much for joining us here today.

 

We are excited to have a, a,

 

a conversation about, you know, disability and film.

 

We know you are both prolific producers

 

on the Canadian side of the border

 

and we've worked together in the past on

 

CBC's 'Push'.

 

And Michelle,

 

recently you've been working on 'Breaking Character'

 

and are now taking a bit of a

 

sabbatical but still working.

 

Yeah. Is that accurate?

 

I, I like to call it the, the 'mat leave' without babies.

 

(Fred and Danny laugh)

 

(Michelle laughs)

 

And Meagan, what have you been up to as of late?

 

I finished up on 'Breaking Character'

 

and I'm through a few different Discovery

 

documentary series.

 

So I'm on a new Discovery project at the moment.

 

Awesome. So do you, I I kind of want

 

to give people a a a kind of brief encapsulation of,

 

of your two careers.

 

Can you guys go into a little bit about

 

how you got your start and kind of where you're at nowadays?

 

Mic Michelle, you take it away.

 

I went to Sheridan College

 

for Media Arts way back in the day.

 

So I trained in film and television

 

and focused mainly at, in doc at the time.

 

Graduated

 

and was already like, oh, now I need a break.

 

After the intensive, you know, three years.

 

Ended up doing a lot of teaching assistance through,

 

through Sheridan afterwards, which got me back in

 

and then doing a lot of research.

 

But what ended getting me

 

into actually working again in, in actual consistent work

 

was I got a chance to, got a chance

 

to intern, I guess would you would say,

 

or mentorship program with 'Employable Me',

 

the production company, THA Media

 

and working under Katie Lafferty,

 

and working with Ryan Marley

 

and in that crew and seeing how they worked.

 

And I did a lot of that remotely,

 

but got a good sense of

 

how a production could work

 

and still care at the same time, which kind

 

of gave me more energy again to kinda hit,

 

hit the World again and, and try

 

and start creating my own pieces.

 

After working at Sheridan for a couple of the teachers, one

 

of which was Anne Thompson, who is one

 

of the executive producers of Winter House Films, got

 

to work with them to pitch a whole bunch of a

 

AMI content ideas to them as you both now know

 

how and what that's like.

 

(all laugh)

 

And within that 'Breaking Character'

 

was one of like the first real concepts that I was like

 

really excited about and,

 

and kind of a bit of a,

 

a personal project

 

and a bit of a just interesting space to start.

 

And luckily that was the one that they, they said,

 

Hey, this is interesting.

 

What's this gonna be about?

 

And it follows the lives of performers with disabilities

 

and what it's like to hustle in it.

 

You, I mean, we know behind the scenes,

 

but that added pressure of being, you know, different people

 

and different content in front of the camera, you know,

 

needed to be able to have that pitch

 

and then also support themselves with whatever needs

 

that they need on that side of things.

 

Just wanted to know what it was gonna be like.

 

And it was really important that we,

 

when we originally did the casting, that we got a range of

 

people and different disabilities, different, you know,

 

media and different talents and interests

 

and it wasn't just, you know,

 

all actors, you know, all singers,

 

or wheelchair user, you know, something within that space.

 

'cause it's so different for everyone.

 

Just want to know what that's like.

 

And luckily in doing so, one of our participants,

 

Ty, in season one was starting

 

to work as an advisor on a short film

 

and we're like, oh my gosh, can we see what that's like?

 

Can we follow that? And the director of that was Meagan.

 

So we met her, talked to her

 

behind the scenes and on camera and Ian

 

and Karen on that shoot.

 

They were like, oh wait, you do a lot of lifestyle

 

and a lot of documentary and reality

 

and would you be interested to kind of do a couple of days,

 

you know, a few days directed within our team.

 

And then we never looked back.

 

It felt like Meagan was by this side,

 

Hey Meagan, do you wanna do something?

 

Hey Meagan, you got this. Hey Megan.

 

And from then on. So I think

 

it really opened my eyes personally.

 

I think they're growing in the last four years, five years

 

of what it means within the community,

 

disability community,

 

but also in the industry that everything's changed so much

 

that my own perspective of what it's like

 

and what it could be like is completely changed from,

 

you know, even just in school.

 

Like what it, what it should be like

 

Meg?

 

Your turn! (all laugh)

 

Thanks.

 

So I, like Michelle, also went to film school.

 

I went to York University's film production, film

 

and video production program

 

for BFA way back in the beginning of the two thousands.

 

And started working relatively quickly

 

while still in school.

 

'cause I, you know, downtown Toronto

 

and I wanted to get as much, you know,

 

real life experience as possible.

 

So I started working in commercials

 

as a production assistant

 

and kind of never looked back as far as the work.

 

I just kind of kept working from that day.

 

So I've been working in the industry relatively nonstop,

 

aside from a global pandemic for over

 

nearly 20 years it seems like at this point,

 

like close to 20 years now.

 

And so I was in commercials for about four or five years

 

and then transitioned into television into the documentary,

 

reality, lifestyle space, which is a lot of the content

 

that's made here in Toronto and kind of never looked back.

 

And so I, when I started in television,

 

I think within like four years I was directing series

 

directing and, and starting to produce.

 

And so it's just kind of been project to project to project

 

through that time where you suddenly blink

 

and you realize a decade has gone by

 

or another five years have gone by.

 

And through that process, in that transition from leaving

 

school and entering the industry is when

 

I was diagnosed with MS. And so that was sort

 

of something in the background this whole time

 

as my career was developing.

 

And it wasn't something that I necessarily,

 

in the beginning talked about very often.

 

There was a few close people who knew,

 

but over time it became a bigger part

 

of the conversation with colleagues,

 

especially colleagues I had worked with for years at

 

that point, for some of them decades.

 

And then when the global pandemic hit,

 

that was the first sort of break

 

that I gave myself in a long time.

 

And through that break decided

 

to do a master's degree in media

 

production. And through that

 

[Danny] 'I took a break and get a Masters' (laughs)

 

(Meagan laughs)

 

But it was, it was sort of the first time I wasn't

 

doing something for money.

 

It was the like, which can happen as, you know, we all have

 

to, we live in a capitalist world, we have to make money

 

and pay bills and it's, it is a thing.

 

And so I had this moment where I was like,

 

do I even like what I'm doing?

 

Do I, am I contributing? Especially when you work

 

in some of this content, especially if you veer

 

towards reality content,

 

there are shows that like I would never do

 

and like you, you kind of like are what am I contributing

 

to the world through the content that I'm making

 

and participating in

 

and I wanna do as little harm as possible in that sense.

 

So I took the opportunity to take that time away officially

 

and do the master's degree.

 

And through that work

 

confronting a global pandemic at the

 

same time was sort

 

of much more thrust into a disability-centered space

 

where I was thinking about the world

 

through a disability lens much more acutely.

 

And so that, that transition into the work

 

that I started doing through the program

 

and through my thesis work led me into really like head on

 

into disability-centered spaces where

 

for the first time in my professional life I was coming out

 

talking officially about my diagnosis

 

and my participation in the community

 

and sort of what I could see

 

for the community going forward.

 

And so, like Michelle referenced,

 

through that thesis work, I did a paper called

 

'Accessibility in the Apocalypse', looking at

 

sort of disability representation and apocalyptic media

 

and sort of disaster science muddled through there.

 

And then ended up doing a short film as sort

 

of a best practices example through that process

 

where I met Ty Young who was a cast member

 

of 'Breaking Character' season one

 

and had Ty come onto my project as an acting mentor

 

for my first time ever actor that I was working with.

 

And through that process met up with Michelle

 

and the team at Winter House

 

and again, in that sort of like confluence of events,

 

just kind of had our great first shoot day

 

and like had a little like aside chat with Ian and Karen

 

and they were like, oh, do you wanna direct this show?

 

Like we could join our team And, which was wonderful.

 

And so worked with Winter House

 

for 'Breaking Character' season one

 

and season two, which was amazing

 

that they got another second,

 

a second season, which is fantastic.

 

And through that work have been trying

 

to like push forward doing more

 

disability-centered projects.

 

So that's where CBC's 'Push' came up, which again, Michelle,

 

yourself and I all were a part of

 

Drink your glass some water we said 'Push' three times.

 

(group laughs)

 

Oh my gosh, I just got a flashback, Michelle,

 

This is very reminiscent of our 'Push' days. This

 

Yeah the ZOOM chats. Living in the ZOOM world,

 

[Fred] and if you say 'Push' three times,

 

Brian McPherson shows up.

 

(Danny laughs) [Michelle] Yeah, exactly.

 

But yeah, so since doing, since completing the degree

 

and working with amazing producers like Michelle,

 

I've really tried to push forward in a more conscientious

 

space of like disability-centered programming

 

whenever possible.

 

So when there are shows, like and opportunities.

 

to work in a disability-centered way, I am absolutely there.

 

And through that process I also was put in touch

 

with the sort of Disability Screen Office

 

that eventually became, or what eventually became the

 

Disability Screen Office

 

And I'm working with the Disability Screen Office, the CMF

 

and Telefilm to create the 'best practices guide'

 

that I'll be writing in the next couple of months. So,

 

So I guess I'm, yeah, this is kind of an open question,

 

but what differences have you two noticed over time,

 

especially, you know, kind of going through Covid, how

 

that's affected the film industry specifically as it relates

 

to disability?

 

Have you noticed much of a change,

 

Megan?

 

I was gonna say, when Meagan took her pause,

 

it became the busiest time for me

 

and I found it was busier for many different people

 

because remote opened up the world. Yeah.

 

That you could not only work, but join festivals

 

and discussions and network that were very closed

 

and very, you know,

 

very, not elite,

 

but like just inaccessible both physically

 

but also monetarily. Like just to try and go somewhere,

 

to be able toDouble all your costs.

 

Yeah. To you know, get a care worker out there

 

and then be able to network and all the rest of it. Yeah,

 

Exactly.

 

And being able to do that from home changed a lot

 

of the practices.

 

I think it also, although it's sad to see that

 

a lot of those spaces

 

and work that has been made during Covid

 

and everyone's like, okay, we can figure this out.

 

Yeah. Kind of climb back

 

and trying to go quote, unquote back to normal.

 

Yeah. But within that time period,

 

everyone figured out that they could access things,

 

they could change

 

and add an entirely different being onset

 

to work on Covid practices to be clean,

 

to make sure safety is involved,

 

which is pretty much similar to any kind of

 

disability space is having just support, having other people

 

added to the traditional tiny film team

 

that's going out

 

because they know that it's possible.

 

[Meagan] Yeah, I think that was

 

But there also, yeah, go ahead for it.

 

Well, I was just think going to say, I think, you know,

 

the, the experience

 

of Covid was extraordinarily educational.

 

I don't know that the lesson has been learned by everyone.

 

Yeah. But I, but I think suddenly being aware

 

that within months we could figure out as an,

 

an entire entity as an industry, how to find 20%

 

of our budgets and allocate that to health

 

and safety practices.

 

There's, if we can do that, if we can all pull together

 

and figure out systems and structures and timelines,

 

and again, within like four to six months

 

of a global pandemic,

 

there's no reason we can't figure out similar processes

 

for disability budgets and accommodation allocation

 

and all sorts of other things that would make our industry

 

that much more accessible.

 

So I think the, the process

 

or the, the realization

 

of like Covid measures was really informative

 

and I think has created an example

 

that we can apply in future to other aspects of

 

what we're hoping to sort of achieve

 

as an industry wide practice.

 

But I think to Michelle's point,

 

there has been a clawing back.

 

Like I, for example, right now I'm on my first project

 

where I am working in office again

 

for the first time since Covid.

 

And so I'm fully masked in an office where some people mask,

 

but most people don't mask.

 

And thankfully it's an office where there's a huge amount

 

of respect for Covid protocols

 

and it's still part of our contracts

 

and it's still part of our, our like signatory agreements.

 

And everyone is aware of my health status

 

and like, I'm comfortable

 

sharing that and talking to people.

 

So people check in with me and make sure things are okay

 

and, and like offer me solutions if there are

 

things happening in the office.

 

For example, if there's an event

 

where there's additional people coming into the office,

 

or if someone is sick, I'm immediately notified.

 

And so I feel as much as possible it's being taken care of,

 

but it's also, it's a mandatory be in the office situation.

 

It wasn't offered to me to be able to work at home.

 

So I think it's creating like,

 

I think all the things we learned

 

and the, the ways we adapted people

 

like, oh, okay, but it's over.

 

But it's not over for everybody in that sense. So.

 

Well, and I Do think

 

The other big thing is not about industry,

 

it's about the community.

 

I think our, the disability community has

 

found ways to connect more in this, in that space,

 

especially within the creator space.

 

Yeah. That didn't exist before.

 

'cause we were all kind of working in isolation,

 

but there are more opportunities to connect

 

and figure out that they, we do exist.

 

And I think it's also that lead into that space that,

 

that the higher up industry realizes,

 

oh wait, there's more of you.

 

'cause always the question was like, oh,

 

well we can't make it.

 

'cause I don't know anyone that I can

 

find that could actually do it.

 

Like They don't exist.

 

Oh, an actor like this doesn't exist.

 

So if I write this part, what am I gonna do with it?

 

You know? Yeah. Or if I, you know, need a director,

 

how can I get a director to actually tell this story

 

or a writer or whichever within that space.

 

But because we can be seen

 

or included in more spaces, they have know how

 

to reach out a little bit more.

 

Like, I'm not saying it's perfect, not even close,

 

but at least there's an awareness that exists.

 

Well, and you know,

 

one thing we always talk about in the disability space is,

 

you know, when we work on these kind of accommodations

 

that kind of benefits everybody, right?

 

So now if you're sick, you're not, you know, having

 

to come into work and contaminate the whole place.

 

I mean, a lot of able-bodied people realized that, you know,

 

going to the office was pretty, there was,

 

there wasn't much logic to it anymore.

 

Right. We, for Crip, Trip created a editing system

 

Remote. Yeah.

 

That is completely remote so editors can, you know,

 

screen share in and edit on a single PCc.

 

So like, it did fundamentally shift the,

 

the workforce and kind of what we're keeping.

 

However, I mean like the technology allows us,

 

we can hire people anywhere,

 

but the tax credit still Yeah, yeah.

 

Of course. Keep us from hiring people

 

outside of our community.

 

So it's Yeah, for

 

Sure.

 

It's true.

 

But yeah, Editors are very good at,

 

at holding onto their things.

 

I would say, like within the industry,

 

if something is changing, the editors have changed.

 

At first, they're, they're very good.

 

Think they band together well,

 

they speak from one voice very often.

 

Yeah. And so of all the discussion we were just having about

 

Covid measures being clawed back editors have not shifted.

 

Editors can work wherever they want, whenever they want.

 

Yep. And good for them.

 

Yeah. Well, it's better from a business point of view too.

 

I mean, again, if we're not just talking about provincial

 

tax credits and the limits those plays,

 

but even for like us places, you know,

 

you could hire the top 10 best editors in the world,

 

and so long as you have a semi-functional internet

 

connection, you can do that.

 

Whereas before the flights, the hotels, the dangers

 

of in-person, all these things, now they're,

 

they're gone. It's pretty cool.

 

Mm. Not

 

to mention the cost of a workspace, you

 

Yeah, exactly. Right.

 

Yeah, yeah, Yeah.

 

And, and like, we, me, me, Michelle

 

and Meagan, you know, season, season one

 

of 'Push' did you know all of our story meetings on Zoom

 

and we, we formed the Crip caval

 

and we were, you know, we had our morning chats

 

and that's, that's how I got a, a lot of my, you know,

 

directorial mentorship

 

and, you know, story producing mentorship

 

that I've taken into, you know, Crip Trip

 

and season two of 'Push' and all the rest of it.

 

I got to, I story produced that show completely remotely.

 

I never got to meet

 

Half the people in person.

 

Yeah. Michelle and I only met like last year,

 

Was it this year? Oh, wow.

 

Is it still in 2024?

 

Last year? Yeah, yeah, last year maybe. Yeah.

 

Yeah, yeah. In person.

 

But we know so many intimate details about each other.

 

Well, I mean, it didn't prevent you from building rapport

 

with people, you know, like,

 

Oh gosh, no, They were,

 

they were still calling you up mid set, right?

 

Like, yeah. And so, like, you know.

 

Yeah. And like, We've

 

Been able to create some amazing connection, like the way

 

that Michelle and I have adapted

 

to our work environments together, like 'Push' aside,

 

like there was obviously like a distance issue.

 

Michelle was in Ontario

 

and we were shooting the show in Edmonton.

 

I was present in Edmonton,

 

so Michelle was not able to be there.

 

Thankfully we had yourself and Karli on the team.

 

And so, but when it came to 'Breaking Character', for example,

 

season two, like earbuds that I'm wearing right now,

 

Michelle would be in my ear on interview day

 

because catching up to typing

 

through like notes when we were like live interviewing

 

somebody, it was just easier for me

 

to have Michelle in my ear so I could check in with her.

 

She could sort of like, check in with me

 

and make sure that she

 

and I were both getting what we wanted from the interviews.

 

And so yeah, we've created some amazing systems

 

that have worked really smoothly.

 

Yeah.

 

And enhance the timing of things actually,

 

I, I, I love the, I I think it's part of my

 

psyche of watching too much tv,

 

but being able

 

to watch on a screen of what's happening.

 

Yeah. Not necessarily being in, in the room.

 

Sometimes, sometimes it's a pain.

 

Yeah. 'cause I'm like, oh my God, I just wanna jump in

 

because something's going off.

 

But, but for a lot of the times for story,

 

I find it very useful being looking through the,

 

the computer screen to seeing what works

 

and being able to mute myself from everybody else

 

so I can type or dictate

 

or do whatever I need to do to be able to talk

 

to Meagan directly

 

or to whoever the director is within that space.

 

So we, we've talked about a couple, you know,

 

fundamental shifts in the, the,

 

the creator's sphere in disability.

 

Both of you are involved in the DSO in different

 

capacities, right?

 

Yeah. So I just started

 

today was a welcome session, very exciting

 

of the Disability Producers lab, which the NSI

 

or National Screen Institute is

 

help is creating for us or helping us manage.

 

Ophira Calof and I are co-leading a group

 

of five emerging producers,

 

disabled producers, and examining accessible practices.

 

Like the whole point is the deconstructed

 

how we do these things

 

and learn some of those fundamentals

 

and also figure out where access fits in

 

and how to, you know, change that process.

 

So all of our burnout problems can be

 

dealt with ideally.

 

And the, along with women in view,

 

the DSO is also one of the, the

 

co developers of the, of the program.

 

So it's, it's been great being able to, to work with them.

 

And, you know, I, I, I heard a good quote once

 

and it was, you know,

 

care work is done in the budget lines, right?

 

Yeah. So having these things

 

where you have concrete data about, you know,

 

this is an acceptable margin of budget

 

for things like care work or transportation

 

or, you know, helps you, helps you

 

as potentially an organization come up with programming

 

to help create stipends for, you know, creators to

 

It. It can be a full-time job just to figure out how

 

to get a power wheelchair on a plane.

 

Yep. Like

 

The, the amount of hours people have spent on, on,

 

on the phone with Air Canada only being fed completely wrong

 

information is frankly astounding.

 

Well, we were, we were flying back like the,

 

and fine getting from New York to Calgary,

 

but Calgary to Edmonton, the plane is like,

 

not the plane we were told,

 

and we have like certain height restrictions on

 

where the wheelchair chair can go.

 

And it's like, what?

 

But even from the time when we, we, we

 

spent making 'Pain and Offering'

 

where we were shooting in Victoria,

 

I had watched the improvement in the airlines over the

 

course of like a couple years.

 

And I'm like, okay, they're starting to pay attention

 

to, you know, when

 

[Michelle] Maayan Ziv? When,

 

It's paying attention to the, people who are,

 

Yeah.

 

taking to social media Yeah.

 

In their complete, And shaming them.

 

distracted moments.

 

and going, look what they did to me.

 

I am now abroad and trapped. Yeah. Yeah.

 

And so, like, I, the,

 

the surprise look on my face when I saw an airline

 

that had a completely separate cargo container

 

for my wheelchair.

 

Wow. I was like, I was like,

 

I've never seen that before.

 

Along with two specialists who came and talked to us

 

Yeah.

 

And pre-prepped the, the chair for travel.

 

Never seen that before. Yeah,

 

That's amazing.

 

Yeah. But then,

 

but then it's like, then the next leg of the flight,

 

the small one, you're like, where did all this go?

 

Why is, do we have help? Yeah.

 

Why is the plane smaller? So it's like;

 

they're making strides,

 

Yeah. but they need to cover the whole trip.

 

Yeah. Well, and like, [Meagan] Inconsistencies.

 

Yeah. Yeah,

 

Yeah. And like bigger airports, more resources,

 

smaller airports, not as much, right?

 

So it's, you know, it's a conconstant balancing act.

 

But kind of circling back to film, what are,

 

what are some solutions

 

or programming that you would like to see to help, you know,

 

disabled creators in the film industry?

 

I think, you know, I'm really excited about the

 

dis disability project

 

that Michelle is working on right now.

 

The, the Producer's Lab

 

and the Writer's Lab was something that happened.

 

I gone through two sessions, I think.

 

Is that correct, Michelle?

 

I'm not sure.

 

I know they took their first, AWL was a year

 

and a half ago, two years ago.

 

I'm not sure if, Yeah. I feel like,

 

there was a, I think they did a secondary one,

 

but Ophira perhaps wasn't available at that time,

 

but they did a second one as well.

 

And so I think these amazing labs

 

where we're actually getting to like, work

 

with much more direct contact with disabled creators and,

 

and sort of understand sort of their needs

 

and their wants based on projects and,

 

and just to understand sort of range of projects

 

that people are working on.

 

It's extremely informative.

 

And I think

 

my brain turned off, sorry, just wait a second.

 

Actually, Michelle, you can take it for a second.

 

I was gonna say, I think we really need to connect

 

with the outside world a bit more than Canada.

 

That's what we're hoping we get to do a little bit more

 

in this program too, is not just look inside,

 

but the UK, I mean, the amount of work

 

that they've have been able to, to, to do

 

like in five years, I'm sure it was much, much longer,

 

but the progress that they've made in five years is,

 

seems when you look at it now and you're like, oh,

 

that seems reasonable. Like that sounds right.

 

But, if you look at compared to us, it's like,

 

Yeah. you can do that. Really?

 

Broadcasters can mandate

 

that your production spaces are accessible

 

or they won't fund you. What?

 

That, you know, like, that push is amazing

 

of what they were able to do in the States.

 

All of the different,

 

there's at least three main

 

organizations and researchers in spaces

 

that not only give funding,

 

but are educating

 

to connect people, I think is one of the,

 

the largest things to do.

 

The DSO is, is is brand new, right?

 

Like they're, they're very young and, and trying,

 

but there's so much work to be done

 

and everybody's just wants answers basically right now.

 

Like they, they're like, yes, we wanna make this content.

 

Tell me how and, and give me all of the resource to do it,

 

but you need the research, you need this fundamentals,

 

you need the understanding behind it to be able

 

to get it done. And you know,

 

That's what we're in the process of building, right? Yeah.

 

Exactly. Yeah.

 

Yeah. I think not only is the DSO young,

 

but the Canadian industry with respect

 

to disability inclusion is quite young.

 

We're at least five if not eight years behind the UK model,

 

the Australian model.

 

We're probably about five years behind the US model.

 

And we are a small player in those spaces in

 

that we are less, much less funded.

 

The UK model was able to make much larger strides

 

because they have more networks that are government funded,

 

that are connected and, and have public buy-in for more

 

networks there. We have CBC,

 

and a few networks, like AMI is amazing,

 

but like access is really small in terms of its reach.

 

Yeah. And so in our market,

 

we are very much the kid sister of the US market.

 

We are making American content in our country primarily it

 

like end results will end up on American networks

 

and American streaming platforms.

 

So we, we just have less pull in a lot of ways.

 

But I think like my point I was trying to make earlier

 

before my brain shut off for a second there.

 

I think what's amazing about these projects

 

that are looking at sort of inception spaces,

 

so Producer's lab

 

and the Writer's lab, you're looking at idea creation

 

and ideation in general.

 

And I think for the industry to really start making strides,

 

we have to be thinking about disability on

 

before you're writing the project,

 

while you're getting the funding,

 

while you're building the budget.

 

Like these are not things that need

 

to be shoehorned in later.

 

These are things that need to be organically woven into the

 

fabric of the creative project from day one.

 

And I think, you know, in the development of

 

what we're working for in the industry

 

and with the DSO, we're sort of like on the coattails

 

of other major movements

 

that have happened over the same period of time,

 

including like the BIPOC film and television movement

 

and sort of their push to get sort of network signatory

 

to hiring BIPOC creators and BIPOC people in roles.

 

And I think and ensuring

 

That they're owned by, by, you know, communities.

 

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. IP is important.

 

Absolutely and so I think, you know, we are coming on the,

 

the coattails of a lot of the other great movements

 

that have made some strides,

 

but in that we're still sort

 

of on the back burner a little bit

 

and we need to keep pushing to make ourselves

 

and our voices louder and the conversation.

 

And so I think we've got some really great support from big

 

players in our industry like CMF and the Telefilm

 

and some other major bodies.

 

But we just need to keep pushing that forward

 

and remind people that we are here, we are part

 

of the viewership, we are part of the creator class.

 

We just need to keep getting access.

 

Awesome. And I think on that note, we should wrap up

 

that, that was a very good extra That was, that was perfect.

 

No notes, but thank you two so much

 

for joining me.

 

Before I head out is, are there any projects

 

that you wanna plug and

 

Ooh, Anything, anything you got on, on the, on the go?

 

One of our mutual colleagues, Violet is part

 

of the Producer's Lab

 

and she's got one of my short films as part of her project.

 

So I'm hopeful that she gets some really great insights

 

and development through the Producer's Lab

 

and that we actually maybe can come through the end of that

 

and, and push forward with producing the short film.

 

So that's exciting.

 

Awesome. Speaking of Violet, we just

 

Sent, she was out in Cannes for MIPCOM

 

representing a show that,

 

that it produced called 'The Squeaky Wheel',

 

which is comedy based satire

 

and disability news format, which we were nominated

 

for diversifying TV award

 

and disability work and scripting.

 

So it was great just to have her in that space

 

and realizing

 

and starting the fight already within her point,

 

wait a minute, is not accessible as it

 

Should be.

 

Yep. I know.

 

I soon as she, she sent the text message to say,

 

unfortunately we didn't win,

 

but also there wasn't even a ramp onto the stage,

 

how would've I even got up there?

 

Yep.

 

It was one of those moments, you know, like super excited

 

and then going 'Oh, we have work to do.'

 

Yeah Yes we do.

 

Yeah. We do have work to do.

 

Well, we'll get out there

 

and, you know, start building those blocks. Thank you.

 

Yeah. I look forward to seeing

 

what the DSO will have coming up.

 

Yeah. It's very cool that we have this organization.

 

Awesome, that you guys are working with them

 

and making stuff happen. Yeah.

 

And we'll be seeing much more of each other in the future.

 

I think we, we all know that. I hope so. Yeah.

 

Thank you so much for joining me.

 

Thank you for having us. Thanks for having us.

 

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