December 12, 2023 • 31 mins
Current student Elena Chiu talks with award-winning, multiply Disabled, queer, horror and documentary filmmaker Ariel Baska about their short films, “Our First Priority,” and “Shining in the Dark,” the challenges they face as a disabled filmmaker, their podcast, “Ride the Omnibus,” and how to create a more accessible industry.
Website: https://arielbaska.com/
Ride the Omnibus: https://www.omnibusride.com/episodes
FWD-Doc: https://www.fwd-doc.org/
Accessibility Scorecard: https://www.fwd-doc.org/film-event-accessibility-scorecard-2023
FEAW (Film Event Accessibility Working Group): https://feaw.org/
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm12439350/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justaskabaska/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arielbaska/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ruinmysky
To learn about ways you can support GVSU film and video students:
Website: https://arielbaska.com/
Ride the Omnibus: https://www.omnibusride.com/episodes
FWD-Doc: https://www.fwd-doc.org/
Accessibility Scorecard: https://www.fwd-doc.org/film-event-accessibility-scorecard-2023
FEAW (Film Event Accessibility Working Group): https://feaw.org/
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm12439350/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justaskabaska/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arielbaska/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ruinmysky
To learn about ways you can support GVSU film and video students:
- The Dirk Koning Memorial Film and Video Scholarship
- The Chuck Peterson Memorial Fellowship
- Morse-Cuppy Film, Video, Animation Study Abroad Endowed Scholarship
- GVSU F/V Alumni: https://www.facebook.com/groups/gvsufilmvideoalumni
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Welcome to Alumni Live (00:03):
The Podcast.
These are conversations with GrandValley State University film and video
graduates about the industry, thefilm, video, major and alumni profiles.
Welcome back to Alumni Live (00:15):
the Podcast.
My name is Elena Chiu, and I am athird year film and video student
interested in producing and editing.
I wanted to explore disability andaccessibility in filmmaking, and through
my research, I found FWD-Doc, a worldwidecommunity of disabled filmmakers.
They connected me with Ariel Baska, amulti award winning, multiply disabled,
(00:36):
queer, horror, and documentary filmmakerwho hosts "Ride the Omnibus," a
podcast parked at the intersection ofpop culture and social justice, and
who has also written multiple books.
Her work has played in film festivalsall over the world and I'm honored
to be able to speak with her today.
Welcome, Ariel!
Thank you so much, Elena.
It's good to be here.
Could you tell us a little bitabout how you got into filmmaking?
(00:58):
Sure.
I mean, my path was very unusual in termsof where I started and where I landed.
I actually was a Latinteacher for 15 years.
I taught Latin and theater andI was born with disabilities,
but then I also acquired a fewmore rare diseases along the way.
And when I got to the point where Icould no longer teach, I was kind of
(01:23):
stuck at home in isolation for a while,not really sure what I was going to do.
And really, I was unclear whereI was meant to go at this point.
And then after a year and ahalf of that, the pandemic hit.
And by that point, I was like, no, Iabsolutely know what I'm meant to do.
I'm meant to create a communitybecause I didn't feel like I
(01:46):
had community at that time.
And so in the pandemic I startedmy podcast, "Ride the Omnibus,"
started talking to a lot of differentfilmmakers, and musicians, and writers.
And I realized veryquickly, this is so easy.
Anyone can make a movie, obviously.
(02:07):
So I'll just do that, right?
I had kind of a charmed year in that,in 2021, I went on to Kickstarter.
I raised 20,000 dollars on Kickstarter,made a movie, "Our First Priority,"
about medical gaslighting, where Isent a doctor to Hell for telling
a patient it was all in her head.
(02:28):
And the film went onto win a lot of awards.
And it's now playing onAlaska Airlines, actually.
And, it's had kind of a charmedlife as the first thing I ever did.
But it's really incredible to me thatmy pathway into filmmaking was so
very unusual, but it's the only wayI could have done it because really,
(02:53):
to be a person with disabilities ona film set, you also have to be the
person who has the power to makechange happen on a film set and to tell
people, "this is how it has to be."
One of the things that I'm doinga lot right now is also educating
people on how they can increaseaccessibility in film sets as well.
(03:14):
So that was how I got into it.
But, it's a little different now.
Yeah, one thing that we learn in filmis nobody takes the same path and
we all just end up where we end up.
In line with "Our First Priority,"were there challenges and strategies
that you considered while directingduring COVID and as a person with
disabilities on making your set inclusive?
(03:37):
Absolutely.
So there were a lot of challengesthat we faced in general.
I would say one of the biggestones was the fact that I was
having migraines every four hours.
And so we had to learn towork completely differently.
We created a completely differentworkflow, one that said we couldn't work
(03:58):
more than an eight hour day any given day.
Part of that was also having a childactor on set because with a child
actor on set, we couldn't work morethan four hours anyway at a time.
And so that meant that we structuredeverything very carefully.
We made sure that the timing ofeverything on set was structured so
(04:20):
that people got the shots they needed,but then could quickly move on to the
next thing and that we could maximizeour time in whatever way we needed to.
One of the things that was absolutelycrucial for me, was also that I was
directly talking to my actors because Iam deaf in one ear and blind in one eye.
(04:44):
And so for me, it's really hardto communicate if you're always
communicating from video villagewith the people who are on set.
What was really effective was tohave the actors actually come to me
between takes, and we could have apowwow about what was going on in
a given scene and what would be themost effective thing moving forward.
(05:09):
One of the other things thatwas absolutely crucial was that
everybody I worked with wascompletely aligned with me.
Everyone who was a part of this film hadan experience with medical gaslighting.
That was really important to me thateveryone from the PAs to the Gaffers
had this same experience and felt unitedin this story and it was so important
(05:36):
because I think, for a lot of people,it was their first experience working
with someone with disabilities on set,but it was also their first experience
working on a project where everybodyhad the same feeling about the project.
And that it was animportant story to tell.
I imagine that it was helpfulbecause everybody understood where
(05:58):
you were coming from, so yourideas wouldn't be compromised.
I mean, also, it didn't hurtthat everybody knew that I was
going to have brain surgeryright after production finished.
I was like, "No, thisis do or die, people.
We got to get this done because Icould die on the operating table.
You never know.
(06:18):
"I wasn't too maudlin about it, but it was a thing.
Wow.
How did you balance taking elements ofyour own experience and also creating
a character that was separate from you?
To a certain extent, it was easybecause I have so many stories from so
many people I know over the years whohave experienced medical gaslighting
(06:42):
in some form or fashion and havebeen told repeatedly by doctors
that, there's nothing really wrong.
The test shows up as normal.
So what you're experiencingcan't really be real.
Because I have known so many people who'vehad similar experiences, it was very easy
to delineate a world where it's basedsomewhat on my experience, but it goes
(07:05):
beyond that to try to create somethinga little more universal and a little
more well rounded, I would say, in termsof both a critique of the health care
system that creates these circumstances,where doctors don't have the time
and the energy to actually explorewhat's really going on with someone.
(07:26):
And so they take the easiest way out,which is to say, "Oh, it's your anxiety.
Oh, it's your depression."
And just stop there.
Yeah.
So, I saw that you're working on a filmcalled "Shining in the Dark," about a
blind projectionist who starts to seeimages of her dead daughter, and your
(07:47):
slides were really interesting whenI was looking at the cinematography.
Would you be willing to talk aboutthat and how you were cinematically
representing your character's disability?
Absolutely.
So, "Shining in the Dark is a projectI've been trying to get made for a while.
It's been hard to raise thefunds to make it happen.
But one of the things that wasmost intriguing to me about this
(08:12):
particular project was looking athow blindness is represented on film.
For me, because I'm blind in oneeye, people are constantly asking
me, like, "Okay, so what do youactually see out of your blind eye?"
Because the thing that we seerepresented in media, almost always,
is that people who are blind have novision, and that there is absolute
(08:34):
darkness, which is not at all the case.
There is an absolute spectrum of visionthat people experience and there are
so many different places along thatcontinuum where you could experience
anything from light and color to shadow.
It's really interesting to me to envisiona different kind of world of sight.
(08:57):
It's much more interesting to thinkabout not just necessarily blurring
out everything, or creating darkness,but creating color and light in
unusual ways and having an interestinginterplay between the world of reality
and unreality and hallucination,combined with disability in this
(09:19):
sort of nebulous way that feelsmore creative and more powerful.
I would love to see that.
I think it's so interesting.
Is it a horror?
Yes, it's a horror film.
So how do you navigate the complexrelationship of horror and disability,
since horror in particular, disabilityhas been used as like, "oh, it's
(09:41):
scary and it's bad and it's evil?"
Well, one of the things that, for me,when you think about the horror tropes
that have been so awful for disabilityover the years, you think of characters
like Michael Myers, who are alwaysportrayed as, he escaped from an asylum
and he is the villain that we all haveto fear, and then, there's been a very
(10:05):
palpable effect that's come from thesesolo villains like Michael Myers,
making people afraid of anyone withmental health problems, for example.
The thing about that is thatwe're afraid of the solo villain.
It's really important for us to, inworlds of horror, not necessarily have
(10:27):
one person with a disability on screenand have only that person be the villain.
My feeling is that we can change thistrope in really meaningful ways by
creating worlds in which there aremultiple characters with disabilities,
not all of whom are the villain.
It seems It's like a very easysolution when over 26 percent of
(10:53):
American adults have a disability.
You would expect to see more thanone in four characters on screen
to have a disability, but inreality, it's less than 2 percent.
And It's absolutely astonishing when yougo into it even further and you notice
that 95 percent of that 2 percent areplayed by actors without a disability.
(11:17):
When you're looking at authenticrepresentation, I really feel like the
way forward for horror, as well as forpretty much any genre, is to make sure
that you have accurate representationof people with disabilities, but then
also make sure that your writing, yourdirecting, your below-the-line crew,
(11:37):
all have people with disabilitiesincorporated as well, because you're not
going to have a well fleshed out world ofdisability and of people with disabilities
unless you're actually exploring itfrom a variety of different angles.
One of the other things that for me,in horror specifically, the thing I'm
(12:00):
always fighting against is so much of thetime, the disability, the disfigurement,
the thing that is different about youis the thing that makes you a monster.
Whereas I like to play with thatand make ableism the monster.
The feeling of, "You must be thisway because you look this way," and
(12:21):
playing instead with a different wayof looking at things that inverts
the usual is what I like to do.
I like to subvert thetrope as much as possible.
That leads me right into my next question.
You write on your website that you"make work to question the status quo
that asks people to re-evaluate theirown perspective and look at the world
(12:43):
through a different set of eyes."
Can you talk about why that's important?
For me, I first started "Ride the Omnibus"specifically to look at underrepresented
perspectives in any way I possiblycould, whether that was talking to
friends who were from different kinds ofcommunities, whether they were Indigenous
(13:03):
or Black communities, or if they wereimmigrants, or other people with other
underrepresented perspectives thatyou don't see anywhere near as often.
Part of this is my background as a theaterand a Latin teacher, but I feel like
it's always been that our strongest assetis really our ability to empathize with
(13:27):
other people, and our ability to see fromother people's perspectives, to walk a
mile in other people's shoes is alwaysgoing to be where we are actually our
most human, and where we can activatewhat we really can do as a society.
In a time of so much division and so muchhatred over so many issues, the world
(13:52):
over, I really feel that this is the mostimportant thing we can focus on right now.
Yeah.
And a podcast and film,they're great ways to do that.
I know that a lot of my friends are sopassionate about just connecting with
other people and film is how they do that.
What is your favorite partof making Ride the Omnibus?"
(14:14):
The fact that I have been ableto talk to so many incredibly
passionate people the world over.
I mean, it's, powerful getting to talkto Oscar winners and Nobel Peace Prize
nominees and all of these things, butultimately it's all just about connection.
And really making a connection withsomeone else who's very passionate
(14:38):
about a piece of work they've created.
I think there's something reallypowerful in that connection to just
share a love of this one piece of work.
Because I only ever air the episodes thatare about the pieces of work that I love.
So it's very sincere when I share thatsomething really resonated with me.
(15:01):
I'm only sharing the pieces ofwork that I feel passionately
need to be out there in the world.
That's a great way to do that,just sharing what you love.
We're taking a short break totell you about the Dirk Koning
Memorial Film and Video scholarship.
Here's Gretchen Vinnedgeremembering Dirk Koning.
The Koning Scholarship enables studentsto get that kind of an education, to be
(15:25):
a good filmmaker, to be able to expresstheir voice and to continue Dirk's dream.
For more information, and todonate to the scholarship, visit
the link in the description.
Now, back to the show.
Could you talk about yourexperience with FWD-Doc and
documentary filmmaking in general?
FWD-Doc is a really powerful group.
(15:46):
And FWD-Doc stands for FilmmakersWith Disabilities dash Documentary.
But honestly, the filmmakers who area part of FWD-Doc really do a lot of
different things beyond documentary.
There are a lot of narrativefilmmakers in there as well.
FWD-Doc does a really great job ofadvocating for people with disabilities in
(16:10):
front of the camera and behind the camera.
And really has been at the forefront ofa lot of different kinds of initiatives
to help people see themselves on screen.
And make sure that we are actually workingtoward a more inclusive future in film.
(16:31):
FWD-Doc has a really great toolkitonline for inclusion in film sets.
They also have worked with FEAW to createthe Access Scorecard for film event
accessibility, which is an initiative I'vebeen working with a little bit and I, just
(16:51):
deeply appreciate as a filmmaker becauseone of the biggest impediments in the
film industry is trying to get your workshown in film festivals, and if the film
festival itself is not accessible to you,that means there are so many connections
that you can never actually make, ifyou can't physically be there to show
(17:12):
your work and to talk about your work.
FWD-Doc for me personally, has givenme a community that I can really be a
part of, and that means a lot to me andto many others in the world of film.
We have so many resources now that canbe relied upon for not only getting more
(17:36):
information about what's out there, aswell as how we can improve our lives
through what we're doing and sharingthose resources with other people.
It's so powerful to haveall of those opportunities.
I was looking at the Access Scorecard.
I thought it was really interestingbecause as someone who doesn't have
(17:58):
a physical disability, I had neverconsidered something like that.
So that was really interesting justto get me thinking about it even.
Absolutely.
And you don't even have tohave a physical disability.
There are so many people who canbenefit from things like sensory spaces,
to just have a place to go that'squiet and away from everything else.
(18:20):
There are so many things that aretalked about in that scorecard that go
beyond the things that you think of,like captioning and audio description.
Those are great, but they're not the beall end all because there are so many
other things to take into consideration.
Hopefully people are able to seethat and actually make a difference.
(18:41):
What are your hopes for that?
What's the best case scenario foraccessibility in film in the future?
Whew.
The best case scenario for me, isthat we actually have more than
equal representation on-screen goingforward, and that film festivals
become increasingly accessible.
(19:02):
I'm not going to say 100 percentaccessible, because there is no such
thing, really, because you'll alwayshave some degree of access friction,
but if you just work toward improvementevery year with what you're doing,
whether it's on set, whether it'sin the film festival space, whatever
space you're in, you should just worktoward improvement every year, however
(19:26):
you can, with whatever you're doing.
Has there been any recent increasesin accessibility that you've
noticed, or even decreases?
Well, there have been a lot of decreasesin accessibility, unfortunately
particularly now that people are movingaway from online access because they
(19:47):
feel like the pandemic is no longeran issue, which I'm here to tell
you it's still very much an issue.
But one of the things that we'venoticed a lot is that film festivals
that really invest in captioning.
Captioning has become a littlemore de rigueur in the last year
(20:07):
or so than it ever has been before.
We've noticed that people who includecaptions on social media posts are
more likely to have more engagement.
And as a result, a lot of festivalshave taken to incorporating captions
more often, and those are things thatI think everyone can agree on actually
(20:30):
do improve your experience of content.
Not everyone loves captions.
A lot of people want the ability to turnthem off sometimes, but honestly, the
people who need them really need them.
And it seems like Gen Z And youngerall really want captions all the time
from what we can tell in the data.
(20:51):
Why not provide that?
It seems like a no brainer to me.
I totally agree, and you'redefinitely right on the Gen Z thing.
So many people my age, we put captions on.
Do we necessarily need them?
No, we can get by without them, but alot of us just like it so much better.
It makes complete sense becauseit's giving your brain another
(21:11):
way to process the information.
Exactly, and that way if charactershave an accent, or even if we just
miss a word, we can still make senseof what's happening in the scene.
And I know for Instagram videos, sometimesI'll watch them on silent in public,
so having captions is a way to stillunderstand what's going on without having
to turn my volume up or find my earbuds.
(21:31):
Exactly.
Could you expand a little bit onhow the pandemic is still an issue
for people with disabilities?
Absolutely.
So for me, for example, I don't havea suppressed immune system, but I have a
lot of friends who are immunosuppressed.
And so, as a result, I can't interactwith them unless I've been masking
(21:55):
very diligently and very carefullyevery time I've been out in the world.
One of the things that I think a lotof people take for granted is the fact
that we've had this sort of returnto normalcy, but meanwhile, COVID
numbers are still through the roof.
At this stage, in the winter monthswhere we know COVID tends to spike
(22:20):
quite a bit after Thanksgiving.
And we also know that most hospitalsare at capacity and so for those of
us with immune systems that are notas strong, it's always going to be
a problem to actually receive thecare that we need when we need it.
And so, one of the things that I thinkpeople generally heard over and over
(22:43):
again in the pandemic was that the livesof the disabled were not really worthy.
They heard this by saying, "Oh, theonly people who will be affected are
the elderly or the immunosuppressedor people in nursing homes."
And through repeated communication ofthat only those people would be affected.
(23:04):
We also heard coded in thatthat our lives were not worthy
compared to everyone else's.
And so when you're telling morethan a quarter of the population
that their lives are not worthwhile,that ultimately is a huge problem.
Additionally, in this day and age, we'restill dealing with a lot of the fallout
(23:26):
from that because so many people died,so many people have long COVID now and
are still really trying to deal withthe fallout from everything that has
been going on for the last three years.
Right, yeah.
What advice do you have for currentfilmmakers who are disabled and
(23:47):
current filmmakers who aren't?
Well, my biggest piece of advicefor current filmmakers that are
disabled is to just make movies.
Just get your work outthere however you can.
Push.
It's hard, but you can createnew ways of doing old things.
And one of the things that's mostimportant is to connect with other
(24:11):
people who are doing the same things.
So join groups like FWD-Doc.
There are also groups out there likeRespectAbility that are helping where
they can to push the representationof disability in the media.
And I think it's so important forpeople without disabilities to
(24:32):
really be supporting people withdisabilities, however, they can in
their work as well, either by makingsure that they're actually hiring
people with disabilities so that theyhave a representative cast and crew.
Making sure that they have accessibilitywritten into what they're doing as
well, because one of the things thatwe know is that not everybody with a
(24:57):
disability has a visible disability.
And so it's really important tobake accessibility into what you're
doing on set as well, so thateveryone can be comfortable and that
your processes can include everyone.
Absolutely.
I would say, as producer, I have foodallergies, so I always make sure to
(25:19):
ask my crew and my cast if they haveany dietary restrictions when planning
out all of our meals, because I knowthat people need to eat on set, and
I don't want anybody to be left out.
That's so important, and that'scertainly one example of how
you can improve that on set.
How do you go about making sure that youraccessibility needs are met on a set?
(25:40):
So far, the biggest thing is making surethat there is one point person who I
can approach about accommodations, whois not the director and is not someone
who has the ability to fire me on setif they don't like what they hear.
One of the things that I thinkis so important is to have an
(26:03):
access coordinator, just oneperson who is responsible for
saying, "We have these needs onset that need to be taken care of.
And this is how we're going to do it."
And as long as there is one pointperson that I can talk to you about
accommodations I can always kind ofnegotiate for what I need with that
(26:23):
person without too much difficulty at all.
And so it's really important, I think,to always have the ability to talk
to someone who is a third party andis not biased in one way or another
to say, "Oh, we can't do that."
but they're actually focused onspecifically helping however they can.
(26:46):
Yeah, that's a great point.
Are there any specific things that youmight want small filmmakers to know?
Because right now, in school,we're usually in crews of six.
So, we're pretty small,we're pretty low budget.
But what are things that we coulddo, like captioning, that we could
do relatively easy that can make ourfilms and our sets more accessible?
(27:07):
Absolutely.
So I would say with everyone, whoeveryou are is to start where you are.
Start by trying to make thingsaccessible in small ways.
But also make sure that you're making itaccessible for the team that you have.
One of the things that I thinka lot of people get hung up on
is, "well, if I can't make my setcompletely accessible, why even try?"
(27:34):
But what you can always do is tryto make it accessible for the crew
that you have and the crew thatyou want to have on a project.
One of the easiest ways to do thatis to appoint one person in charge of
collecting any access requests, et cetera.
So if someone is sensitive to fluorescentlights, for example, because it might
(27:55):
cause them migraines or headaches, youcan just look at a way of restructuring
so that you have the lights offand you have alternative lighting
sources instead for some of the time.
Or alternatively, when it comes tofood allergies and so forth, you
could have alternative foods availablefrom crafty when you need that.
(28:18):
There are all kinds of different thingsyou can do, but one of the things
that I really love to do is, alwaysincorporating an access check before
any event on set of any kind where youactually go through and ask people,
just point blank, "do you have any needsthat we have not covered here so far?"
(28:39):
"This is where you go for a sensoryfree space if you need some kind of
time away from what's going on on set.
This is where you go ifsomething happens emergency-wise.
Access checks are so incredibly importantto safety as well as accessibility.
And I think that's such a reallyimportant thing to incorporate.
(29:03):
I'm definitely going to be putting thaton my list to make sure that I'm checking
with everybody on things like that.
Is there anything else youwould want our listeners to know
about accessibility in film?
The most important thing is that thewillingness comes before anything else.
So the willingness to change, really,is where everything comes from.
(29:25):
It doesn't come from money.
A lot of people have this inaccurateperception that you have to have
money to provide accessibility,and that's not really true.
You just have to have willingness to tryand to do things a little differently.
I would argue, pretty much always,that the most important thing is
(29:47):
just having the drive to changethings, to make things better.
Awesome.
So at the end of our episodes,we like to do a shout out.
Is there anything you want to talk about?
Anything you're proud of,anything that's upcoming?
Oh, absolutely.
So I'm currently working on a documentarycalled "Monstrous Me," that is about my
(30:10):
relationship with cinematic monsters.
The work sample that's specificallyabout my relationship with
Freddy Krueger is out there now.
I love creating this andit's so important to me.
But I also want to say, one of myfavorite cinematic monsters of all
time is also out on screens rightnow and I just want to give a shout
(30:35):
out to Emerald Fennell's "Saltburn,"which I have now watched twice on the
big screen and I think it's fabulous.
It looks interesting.
I saw the trailer and Iput it on my list to see.
It's a brilliant film.
Well, thank you, Ariel, somuch for talking with us.
It was great to have you.
(30:56):
Oh, well, thank you somuch for having me, Elena.
It was lovely to meet you.
I wish you good luck inyour filmmaking career.
Thank you, and you as well.
Thank you for joining us for thisepisode of Alumni Live: The Podcast.
Subscribe to our podcast, to hear morefrom our alumni across the industry.
Check out Alumni Live onFacebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
(31:17):
For more conversations and networking.
Let us know what topics you wantto hear our alumni talk about the
Grand Valley State University FilmVideo Alumni Network is here for
you, and we're glad that you're here.
Thank you for listening.
The Podcast.
These are conversations with GrandValley State University film and video
graduates about the industry, thefilm, video, major and alumni profiles.
Welcome back to Alumni Live (00:15):
the Podcast.
My name is Elena Chiu, and I am athird year film and video student
interested in producing and editing.
I wanted to explore disability andaccessibility in filmmaking, and through
my research, I found FWD-Doc, a worldwidecommunity of disabled filmmakers.
They connected me with Ariel Baska, amulti award winning, multiply disabled,
(00:36):
queer, horror, and documentary filmmakerwho hosts "Ride the Omnibus," a
podcast parked at the intersection ofpop culture and social justice, and
who has also written multiple books.
Her work has played in film festivalsall over the world and I'm honored
to be able to speak with her today.
Welcome, Ariel!
Thank you so much, Elena.
It's good to be here.
Could you tell us a little bitabout how you got into filmmaking?
(00:58):
Sure.
I mean, my path was very unusual in termsof where I started and where I landed.
I actually was a Latinteacher for 15 years.
I taught Latin and theater andI was born with disabilities,
but then I also acquired a fewmore rare diseases along the way.
And when I got to the point where Icould no longer teach, I was kind of
(01:23):
stuck at home in isolation for a while,not really sure what I was going to do.
And really, I was unclear whereI was meant to go at this point.
And then after a year and ahalf of that, the pandemic hit.
And by that point, I was like, no, Iabsolutely know what I'm meant to do.
I'm meant to create a communitybecause I didn't feel like I
(01:46):
had community at that time.
And so in the pandemic I startedmy podcast, "Ride the Omnibus,"
started talking to a lot of differentfilmmakers, and musicians, and writers.
And I realized veryquickly, this is so easy.
Anyone can make a movie, obviously.
(02:07):
So I'll just do that, right?
I had kind of a charmed year in that,in 2021, I went on to Kickstarter.
I raised 20,000 dollars on Kickstarter,made a movie, "Our First Priority,"
about medical gaslighting, where Isent a doctor to Hell for telling
a patient it was all in her head.
(02:28):
And the film went onto win a lot of awards.
And it's now playing onAlaska Airlines, actually.
And, it's had kind of a charmedlife as the first thing I ever did.
But it's really incredible to me thatmy pathway into filmmaking was so
very unusual, but it's the only wayI could have done it because really,
(02:53):
to be a person with disabilities ona film set, you also have to be the
person who has the power to makechange happen on a film set and to tell
people, "this is how it has to be."
One of the things that I'm doinga lot right now is also educating
people on how they can increaseaccessibility in film sets as well.
(03:14):
So that was how I got into it.
But, it's a little different now.
Yeah, one thing that we learn in filmis nobody takes the same path and
we all just end up where we end up.
In line with "Our First Priority,"were there challenges and strategies
that you considered while directingduring COVID and as a person with
disabilities on making your set inclusive?
(03:37):
Absolutely.
So there were a lot of challengesthat we faced in general.
I would say one of the biggestones was the fact that I was
having migraines every four hours.
And so we had to learn towork completely differently.
We created a completely differentworkflow, one that said we couldn't work
(03:58):
more than an eight hour day any given day.
Part of that was also having a childactor on set because with a child
actor on set, we couldn't work morethan four hours anyway at a time.
And so that meant that we structuredeverything very carefully.
We made sure that the timing ofeverything on set was structured so
(04:20):
that people got the shots they needed,but then could quickly move on to the
next thing and that we could maximizeour time in whatever way we needed to.
One of the things that was absolutelycrucial for me, was also that I was
directly talking to my actors because Iam deaf in one ear and blind in one eye.
(04:44):
And so for me, it's really hardto communicate if you're always
communicating from video villagewith the people who are on set.
What was really effective was tohave the actors actually come to me
between takes, and we could have apowwow about what was going on in
a given scene and what would be themost effective thing moving forward.
(05:09):
One of the other things thatwas absolutely crucial was that
everybody I worked with wascompletely aligned with me.
Everyone who was a part of this film hadan experience with medical gaslighting.
That was really important to me thateveryone from the PAs to the Gaffers
had this same experience and felt unitedin this story and it was so important
(05:36):
because I think, for a lot of people,it was their first experience working
with someone with disabilities on set,but it was also their first experience
working on a project where everybodyhad the same feeling about the project.
And that it was animportant story to tell.
I imagine that it was helpfulbecause everybody understood where
(05:58):
you were coming from, so yourideas wouldn't be compromised.
I mean, also, it didn't hurtthat everybody knew that I was
going to have brain surgeryright after production finished.
I was like, "No, thisis do or die, people.
We got to get this done because Icould die on the operating table.
You never know.
(06:18):
"I wasn't too maudlin about it, but it was a thing.
Wow.
How did you balance taking elements ofyour own experience and also creating
a character that was separate from you?
To a certain extent, it was easybecause I have so many stories from so
many people I know over the years whohave experienced medical gaslighting
(06:42):
in some form or fashion and havebeen told repeatedly by doctors
that, there's nothing really wrong.
The test shows up as normal.
So what you're experiencingcan't really be real.
Because I have known so many people who'vehad similar experiences, it was very easy
to delineate a world where it's basedsomewhat on my experience, but it goes
(07:05):
beyond that to try to create somethinga little more universal and a little
more well rounded, I would say, in termsof both a critique of the health care
system that creates these circumstances,where doctors don't have the time
and the energy to actually explorewhat's really going on with someone.
(07:26):
And so they take the easiest way out,which is to say, "Oh, it's your anxiety.
Oh, it's your depression."
And just stop there.
Yeah.
So, I saw that you're working on a filmcalled "Shining in the Dark," about a
blind projectionist who starts to seeimages of her dead daughter, and your
(07:47):
slides were really interesting whenI was looking at the cinematography.
Would you be willing to talk aboutthat and how you were cinematically
representing your character's disability?
Absolutely.
So, "Shining in the Dark is a projectI've been trying to get made for a while.
It's been hard to raise thefunds to make it happen.
But one of the things that wasmost intriguing to me about this
(08:12):
particular project was looking athow blindness is represented on film.
For me, because I'm blind in oneeye, people are constantly asking
me, like, "Okay, so what do youactually see out of your blind eye?"
Because the thing that we seerepresented in media, almost always,
is that people who are blind have novision, and that there is absolute
(08:34):
darkness, which is not at all the case.
There is an absolute spectrum of visionthat people experience and there are
so many different places along thatcontinuum where you could experience
anything from light and color to shadow.
It's really interesting to me to envisiona different kind of world of sight.
(08:57):
It's much more interesting to thinkabout not just necessarily blurring
out everything, or creating darkness,but creating color and light in
unusual ways and having an interestinginterplay between the world of reality
and unreality and hallucination,combined with disability in this
(09:19):
sort of nebulous way that feelsmore creative and more powerful.
I would love to see that.
I think it's so interesting.
Is it a horror?
Yes, it's a horror film.
So how do you navigate the complexrelationship of horror and disability,
since horror in particular, disabilityhas been used as like, "oh, it's
(09:41):
scary and it's bad and it's evil?"
Well, one of the things that, for me,when you think about the horror tropes
that have been so awful for disabilityover the years, you think of characters
like Michael Myers, who are alwaysportrayed as, he escaped from an asylum
and he is the villain that we all haveto fear, and then, there's been a very
(10:05):
palpable effect that's come from thesesolo villains like Michael Myers,
making people afraid of anyone withmental health problems, for example.
The thing about that is thatwe're afraid of the solo villain.
It's really important for us to, inworlds of horror, not necessarily have
(10:27):
one person with a disability on screenand have only that person be the villain.
My feeling is that we can change thistrope in really meaningful ways by
creating worlds in which there aremultiple characters with disabilities,
not all of whom are the villain.
It seems It's like a very easysolution when over 26 percent of
(10:53):
American adults have a disability.
You would expect to see more thanone in four characters on screen
to have a disability, but inreality, it's less than 2 percent.
And It's absolutely astonishing when yougo into it even further and you notice
that 95 percent of that 2 percent areplayed by actors without a disability.
(11:17):
When you're looking at authenticrepresentation, I really feel like the
way forward for horror, as well as forpretty much any genre, is to make sure
that you have accurate representationof people with disabilities, but then
also make sure that your writing, yourdirecting, your below-the-line crew,
(11:37):
all have people with disabilitiesincorporated as well, because you're not
going to have a well fleshed out world ofdisability and of people with disabilities
unless you're actually exploring itfrom a variety of different angles.
One of the other things that for me,in horror specifically, the thing I'm
(12:00):
always fighting against is so much of thetime, the disability, the disfigurement,
the thing that is different about youis the thing that makes you a monster.
Whereas I like to play with thatand make ableism the monster.
The feeling of, "You must be thisway because you look this way," and
(12:21):
playing instead with a different wayof looking at things that inverts
the usual is what I like to do.
I like to subvert thetrope as much as possible.
That leads me right into my next question.
You write on your website that you"make work to question the status quo
that asks people to re-evaluate theirown perspective and look at the world
(12:43):
through a different set of eyes."
Can you talk about why that's important?
For me, I first started "Ride the Omnibus"specifically to look at underrepresented
perspectives in any way I possiblycould, whether that was talking to
friends who were from different kinds ofcommunities, whether they were Indigenous
(13:03):
or Black communities, or if they wereimmigrants, or other people with other
underrepresented perspectives thatyou don't see anywhere near as often.
Part of this is my background as a theaterand a Latin teacher, but I feel like
it's always been that our strongest assetis really our ability to empathize with
(13:27):
other people, and our ability to see fromother people's perspectives, to walk a
mile in other people's shoes is alwaysgoing to be where we are actually our
most human, and where we can activatewhat we really can do as a society.
In a time of so much division and so muchhatred over so many issues, the world
(13:52):
over, I really feel that this is the mostimportant thing we can focus on right now.
Yeah.
And a podcast and film,they're great ways to do that.
I know that a lot of my friends are sopassionate about just connecting with
other people and film is how they do that.
What is your favorite partof making Ride the Omnibus?"
(14:14):
The fact that I have been ableto talk to so many incredibly
passionate people the world over.
I mean, it's, powerful getting to talkto Oscar winners and Nobel Peace Prize
nominees and all of these things, butultimately it's all just about connection.
And really making a connection withsomeone else who's very passionate
(14:38):
about a piece of work they've created.
I think there's something reallypowerful in that connection to just
share a love of this one piece of work.
Because I only ever air the episodes thatare about the pieces of work that I love.
So it's very sincere when I share thatsomething really resonated with me.
(15:01):
I'm only sharing the pieces ofwork that I feel passionately
need to be out there in the world.
That's a great way to do that,just sharing what you love.
We're taking a short break totell you about the Dirk Koning
Memorial Film and Video scholarship.
Here's Gretchen Vinnedgeremembering Dirk Koning.
The Koning Scholarship enables studentsto get that kind of an education, to be
(15:25):
a good filmmaker, to be able to expresstheir voice and to continue Dirk's dream.
For more information, and todonate to the scholarship, visit
the link in the description.
Now, back to the show.
Could you talk about yourexperience with FWD-Doc and
documentary filmmaking in general?
FWD-Doc is a really powerful group.
(15:46):
And FWD-Doc stands for FilmmakersWith Disabilities dash Documentary.
But honestly, the filmmakers who area part of FWD-Doc really do a lot of
different things beyond documentary.
There are a lot of narrativefilmmakers in there as well.
FWD-Doc does a really great job ofadvocating for people with disabilities in
(16:10):
front of the camera and behind the camera.
And really has been at the forefront ofa lot of different kinds of initiatives
to help people see themselves on screen.
And make sure that we are actually workingtoward a more inclusive future in film.
(16:31):
FWD-Doc has a really great toolkitonline for inclusion in film sets.
They also have worked with FEAW to createthe Access Scorecard for film event
accessibility, which is an initiative I'vebeen working with a little bit and I, just
(16:51):
deeply appreciate as a filmmaker becauseone of the biggest impediments in the
film industry is trying to get your workshown in film festivals, and if the film
festival itself is not accessible to you,that means there are so many connections
that you can never actually make, ifyou can't physically be there to show
(17:12):
your work and to talk about your work.
FWD-Doc for me personally, has givenme a community that I can really be a
part of, and that means a lot to me andto many others in the world of film.
We have so many resources now that canbe relied upon for not only getting more
(17:36):
information about what's out there, aswell as how we can improve our lives
through what we're doing and sharingthose resources with other people.
It's so powerful to haveall of those opportunities.
I was looking at the Access Scorecard.
I thought it was really interestingbecause as someone who doesn't have
(17:58):
a physical disability, I had neverconsidered something like that.
So that was really interesting justto get me thinking about it even.
Absolutely.
And you don't even have tohave a physical disability.
There are so many people who canbenefit from things like sensory spaces,
to just have a place to go that'squiet and away from everything else.
(18:20):
There are so many things that aretalked about in that scorecard that go
beyond the things that you think of,like captioning and audio description.
Those are great, but they're not the beall end all because there are so many
other things to take into consideration.
Hopefully people are able to seethat and actually make a difference.
(18:41):
What are your hopes for that?
What's the best case scenario foraccessibility in film in the future?
Whew.
The best case scenario for me, isthat we actually have more than
equal representation on-screen goingforward, and that film festivals
become increasingly accessible.
(19:02):
I'm not going to say 100 percentaccessible, because there is no such
thing, really, because you'll alwayshave some degree of access friction,
but if you just work toward improvementevery year with what you're doing,
whether it's on set, whether it'sin the film festival space, whatever
space you're in, you should just worktoward improvement every year, however
(19:26):
you can, with whatever you're doing.
Has there been any recent increasesin accessibility that you've
noticed, or even decreases?
Well, there have been a lot of decreasesin accessibility, unfortunately
particularly now that people are movingaway from online access because they
(19:47):
feel like the pandemic is no longeran issue, which I'm here to tell
you it's still very much an issue.
But one of the things that we'venoticed a lot is that film festivals
that really invest in captioning.
Captioning has become a littlemore de rigueur in the last year
(20:07):
or so than it ever has been before.
We've noticed that people who includecaptions on social media posts are
more likely to have more engagement.
And as a result, a lot of festivalshave taken to incorporating captions
more often, and those are things thatI think everyone can agree on actually
(20:30):
do improve your experience of content.
Not everyone loves captions.
A lot of people want the ability to turnthem off sometimes, but honestly, the
people who need them really need them.
And it seems like Gen Z And youngerall really want captions all the time
from what we can tell in the data.
(20:51):
Why not provide that?
It seems like a no brainer to me.
I totally agree, and you'redefinitely right on the Gen Z thing.
So many people my age, we put captions on.
Do we necessarily need them?
No, we can get by without them, but alot of us just like it so much better.
It makes complete sense becauseit's giving your brain another
(21:11):
way to process the information.
Exactly, and that way if charactershave an accent, or even if we just
miss a word, we can still make senseof what's happening in the scene.
And I know for Instagram videos, sometimesI'll watch them on silent in public,
so having captions is a way to stillunderstand what's going on without having
to turn my volume up or find my earbuds.
(21:31):
Exactly.
Could you expand a little bit onhow the pandemic is still an issue
for people with disabilities?
Absolutely.
So for me, for example, I don't havea suppressed immune system, but I have a
lot of friends who are immunosuppressed.
And so, as a result, I can't interactwith them unless I've been masking
(21:55):
very diligently and very carefullyevery time I've been out in the world.
One of the things that I think a lotof people take for granted is the fact
that we've had this sort of returnto normalcy, but meanwhile, COVID
numbers are still through the roof.
At this stage, in the winter monthswhere we know COVID tends to spike
(22:20):
quite a bit after Thanksgiving.
And we also know that most hospitalsare at capacity and so for those of
us with immune systems that are notas strong, it's always going to be
a problem to actually receive thecare that we need when we need it.
And so, one of the things that I thinkpeople generally heard over and over
(22:43):
again in the pandemic was that the livesof the disabled were not really worthy.
They heard this by saying, "Oh, theonly people who will be affected are
the elderly or the immunosuppressedor people in nursing homes."
And through repeated communication ofthat only those people would be affected.
(23:04):
We also heard coded in thatthat our lives were not worthy
compared to everyone else's.
And so when you're telling morethan a quarter of the population
that their lives are not worthwhile,that ultimately is a huge problem.
Additionally, in this day and age, we'restill dealing with a lot of the fallout
(23:26):
from that because so many people died,so many people have long COVID now and
are still really trying to deal withthe fallout from everything that has
been going on for the last three years.
Right, yeah.
What advice do you have for currentfilmmakers who are disabled and
(23:47):
current filmmakers who aren't?
Well, my biggest piece of advicefor current filmmakers that are
disabled is to just make movies.
Just get your work outthere however you can.
Push.
It's hard, but you can createnew ways of doing old things.
And one of the things that's mostimportant is to connect with other
(24:11):
people who are doing the same things.
So join groups like FWD-Doc.
There are also groups out there likeRespectAbility that are helping where
they can to push the representationof disability in the media.
And I think it's so important forpeople without disabilities to
(24:32):
really be supporting people withdisabilities, however, they can in
their work as well, either by makingsure that they're actually hiring
people with disabilities so that theyhave a representative cast and crew.
Making sure that they have accessibilitywritten into what they're doing as
well, because one of the things thatwe know is that not everybody with a
(24:57):
disability has a visible disability.
And so it's really important tobake accessibility into what you're
doing on set as well, so thateveryone can be comfortable and that
your processes can include everyone.
Absolutely.
I would say, as producer, I have foodallergies, so I always make sure to
(25:19):
ask my crew and my cast if they haveany dietary restrictions when planning
out all of our meals, because I knowthat people need to eat on set, and
I don't want anybody to be left out.
That's so important, and that'scertainly one example of how
you can improve that on set.
How do you go about making sure that youraccessibility needs are met on a set?
(25:40):
So far, the biggest thing is making surethat there is one point person who I
can approach about accommodations, whois not the director and is not someone
who has the ability to fire me on setif they don't like what they hear.
One of the things that I thinkis so important is to have an
(26:03):
access coordinator, just oneperson who is responsible for
saying, "We have these needs onset that need to be taken care of.
And this is how we're going to do it."
And as long as there is one pointperson that I can talk to you about
accommodations I can always kind ofnegotiate for what I need with that
(26:23):
person without too much difficulty at all.
And so it's really important, I think,to always have the ability to talk
to someone who is a third party andis not biased in one way or another
to say, "Oh, we can't do that."
but they're actually focused onspecifically helping however they can.
(26:46):
Yeah, that's a great point.
Are there any specific things that youmight want small filmmakers to know?
Because right now, in school,we're usually in crews of six.
So, we're pretty small,we're pretty low budget.
But what are things that we coulddo, like captioning, that we could
do relatively easy that can make ourfilms and our sets more accessible?
(27:07):
Absolutely.
So I would say with everyone, whoeveryou are is to start where you are.
Start by trying to make thingsaccessible in small ways.
But also make sure that you're making itaccessible for the team that you have.
One of the things that I thinka lot of people get hung up on
is, "well, if I can't make my setcompletely accessible, why even try?"
(27:34):
But what you can always do is tryto make it accessible for the crew
that you have and the crew thatyou want to have on a project.
One of the easiest ways to do thatis to appoint one person in charge of
collecting any access requests, et cetera.
So if someone is sensitive to fluorescentlights, for example, because it might
(27:55):
cause them migraines or headaches, youcan just look at a way of restructuring
so that you have the lights offand you have alternative lighting
sources instead for some of the time.
Or alternatively, when it comes tofood allergies and so forth, you
could have alternative foods availablefrom crafty when you need that.
(28:18):
There are all kinds of different thingsyou can do, but one of the things
that I really love to do is, alwaysincorporating an access check before
any event on set of any kind where youactually go through and ask people,
just point blank, "do you have any needsthat we have not covered here so far?"
(28:39):
"This is where you go for a sensoryfree space if you need some kind of
time away from what's going on on set.
This is where you go ifsomething happens emergency-wise.
Access checks are so incredibly importantto safety as well as accessibility.
And I think that's such a reallyimportant thing to incorporate.
(29:03):
I'm definitely going to be putting thaton my list to make sure that I'm checking
with everybody on things like that.
Is there anything else youwould want our listeners to know
about accessibility in film?
The most important thing is that thewillingness comes before anything else.
So the willingness to change, really,is where everything comes from.
(29:25):
It doesn't come from money.
A lot of people have this inaccurateperception that you have to have
money to provide accessibility,and that's not really true.
You just have to have willingness to tryand to do things a little differently.
I would argue, pretty much always,that the most important thing is
(29:47):
just having the drive to changethings, to make things better.
Awesome.
So at the end of our episodes,we like to do a shout out.
Is there anything you want to talk about?
Anything you're proud of,anything that's upcoming?
Oh, absolutely.
So I'm currently working on a documentarycalled "Monstrous Me," that is about my
(30:10):
relationship with cinematic monsters.
The work sample that's specificallyabout my relationship with
Freddy Krueger is out there now.
I love creating this andit's so important to me.
But I also want to say, one of myfavorite cinematic monsters of all
time is also out on screens rightnow and I just want to give a shout
(30:35):
out to Emerald Fennell's "Saltburn,"which I have now watched twice on the
big screen and I think it's fabulous.
It looks interesting.
I saw the trailer and Iput it on my list to see.
It's a brilliant film.
Well, thank you, Ariel, somuch for talking with us.
It was great to have you.
(30:56):
Oh, well, thank you somuch for having me, Elena.
It was lovely to meet you.
I wish you good luck inyour filmmaking career.
Thank you, and you as well.
Thank you for joining us for thisepisode of Alumni Live: The Podcast.
Subscribe to our podcast, to hear morefrom our alumni across the industry.
Check out Alumni Live onFacebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
(31:17):
For more conversations and networking.
Let us know what topics you wantto hear our alumni talk about the
Grand Valley State University FilmVideo Alumni Network is here for
you, and we're glad that you're here.
Thank you for listening.
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