00:00:13:23 - 00:00:55:01 Jason Welcome to Frame Forward. I'm your host, Jason Steele. And today we're going to be talking about disability and how it affects filmmakers with disabilities. As well as how we can make films that are more inclusive and accessible for all kinds of people. So join us as we look one frame forward into the future film and disability so I'm here today. 00:00:55:01 - 00:01:11:07 Jason I've got some great friends with me. We've all worked on different projects together, and I'm really excited to be able to. I'll get each of you to introduce yourselves and just share a little bit about what sorts of things you're doing in the film industry. 00:01:11:08 - 00:01:29:09 J.R. Awesome. Oh, hi everyone. My name is J.R. Barnes and I'm from Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, and I am visually impaired. I have an eye condition called Peters anomaly, which impacts the way I view the world because I can't see very good see about, I don't know, two, three feet in front of me. It's enough to save my life. 00:01:29:19 - 00:01:52:10 J.R. And I love editing my footage. I use 360 cameras, and I'm a big fan of just grabbing a camera and showing the world what I'm up to. It's very exhilarating. I have a YouTube channel that has 2500 subscribers. I have a tick tock, which at time of recording is 47,000 followers. And yeah, I just love sharing my world. 00:01:52:10 - 00:02:05:02 J.R. And with video you can create anything. And when you're blind like me, audio or automatic focus is a must, I should say, because without auto, most of my stuff would look like the way I view the world. Quite blurry. 00:02:06:08 - 00:02:07:16 Jason Awesome. Niek 00:02:07:16 - 00:02:35:20 Niek Hey, I'm Niek. I'm a stand up comedian. I'm also a filmmaker. I've created a few projects for Telus Storyhive. One about people playing sports or adaptive sports for people with disabilities, and another one about musicians in the central Alberta area and I'm a filmmaker and a comedian, and so I do a lot of a lot of crazy things that I do. 00:02:35:20 - 00:02:59:00 Niek I have a podcast and I do website design as well. Awesome. So it means that I use a lot of different media forms to get different messages across to different people and interact a lot with people with disabilities. One is a specifically a film challenge for people with disabilities, but I also work a lot with people that don't have disabilities. 00:02:59:00 - 00:03:09:05 Niek It also means I have to tell them about the things I face or how I adapt the environment around me. To be able to do the things that I do. 00:03:10:03 - 00:03:12:06 Jason Cool. Awesome. And Marven. 00:03:13:03 - 00:03:46:07 Marven Hi. My name is Marven Likness. I'm a copier technician by day and creator by night, weekends whenever I can, mostly a writer. I also find myself on a on a film set about probably twice a month, maybe two different projects a month. I also am an advocate for ASL and films or any sort of sign language I've done also SEE as well as SEE, which is signed exact english. 00:03:46:19 - 00:04:23:16 Marven Uh, I myself, I lost my hearing April 2016. Uh, my left is gone. My right is considered as hard of hearing. I start at about 55 decibels and I'm also a drone pilot, so I've been doing that a little bit more in film and I think that's quite exciting. Uh, my goals of being on film is to be able to write better but the drone filming has actually taken off on a new level and it looks like I'm going to be doing that a lot more as well. 00:04:24:18 - 00:04:48:16 Jason Perfect. So let's start off with a little bit of just a quick, you know, if you guys have any stories about challenges that you guys have faced when it comes to actually filming or being on a set, just with each of the different struggles that each of you face. You know, let's start with you, J.R. Struggles. 00:04:48:18 - 00:05:13:18 J.R. Well, I guess I call them challenges, but some of the challenges I think I face as a film as a videographer would be convincing people that I can work with video cameras and also just showing the world that because of my lack of vision, I can still use a camera. But a lot of people do question what I'm trying to do at work with cameras and what I'm trying to tell them what I can do because, well, they ask, well, how can you operate the camera? 00:05:13:23 - 00:05:51:16 J.R. And it's just simple as saying it's got auto focus. It's like with the canon, SL2, which is my DSLR Camera, my favorite camera of all time, it's got dual autofocus, so it's rare that it messes up. And I love it for that main reason. I can plug in a microphone to it. I also use the Insta 360 1X2, and that one is pretty cool because I can film 360 videos, which I think 360 is taking off with the metaverse and eventually I think we all will be working on the metaverse online and one way or another wearing headsets in our in front of our faces and just going by 3D audio, 00:05:51:16 - 00:06:14:15 J.R. 3D sound and yeah, I think the challenge is simple. It's just convincing people that I can operate cameras. I can imagine what angles look in my head and I love working with 360 cameras because everything is a possibility because of the 360 camera. When you're holding a little stick that the cameras connects to, it stitches the stick out so you can get levitating shots. 00:06:14:15 - 00:06:45:09 J.R. I can I can pretend I'm a drone. I could just put a bunch of 360 sticks together and I can get camera shots of rooftops or anything like that. It's really exciting. And yeah, I think the only really challenging aspect of it all is just to show people that regardless of whatever disability you have or mental issue of when you can be a film producer, you can really make anything when you can handle and use film you know, videos, cameras, all that. 00:06:46:00 - 00:06:58:21 J.R. The world is your oyster of possibilities with special effects. And I edit everything on my iPad, iPhone and iMac. So I just that's that's about it. I love it. 00:07:00:11 - 00:07:01:01 Jason I awesome. 00:07:01:22 - 00:07:31:10 Niek Man. For me, I usually having CP means that I have some mobility limitations. I guess I try to not let my mobility be a factor in the things that I do, but the fact is that it kind of can be. So that means I use a lot of just tripods obviously, but it means that maybe I'll have difficulty setting up lights or a lot of heavy equipment, but that's why I focus on writing the script. 00:07:31:10 - 00:08:00:06 Niek Or I will do a lot of the interview questions, set up the the locations, but I also just try and be I guess I just I also have done a lot of things in terms of editing and different lots of different roles and like in terms of expanding what I'm capable of doing so that my skill set is beyond just physical things. 00:08:00:12 - 00:08:21:16 Niek And if I really have an idea that I like and I want to do it, then I just ask a friend that has the ability to do a wide sweeping crane shot or or I can hold the boom for an extended period of time or is able to do, you know, like a following shot from one side of the room to the other. 00:08:21:16 - 00:09:03:05 Niek For example, if those are the kind of shots I want, I just ask for somebody with a little bit more mobility to help me get those. And usually kindness goes a long way and and just, you know, accepting the abilities that you do have and just working with that, that works pretty well. Awesome. Yeah, that's yeah. And I guess the biggest thing too is just not being afraid to challenge myself, but also being aware of what my what I'm capable of because I don't I also feel like sometimes people feel because I have a physical disability, there must be a mental challenge as well. 00:09:03:14 - 00:09:54:21 Niek But I really do a lot of, you know, having finished my first feature film recently where I scout with Jason, actually, where I scouted a lot of locations and multiple interviews, multiple preparation, preparation, I mean, interviews like question wise and just a whole process then of editing it and, you know, the coloring process. And just so developing my skills that way and then learning to market it and different film festivals, it's all a huge learning process and I'm really learning to to see what skills are the strongest and then where are the other ones where I might have a bit of a challenge as everyone else would as a filmmaker. 00:09:54:21 - 00:10:15:07 Niek We all have strengths and weaknesses. We just work on where my the strongest work can I benefit a production team with and what are other people strongest at work and where can their skills be used and what kind of team can we create, make the best possible project perfect. 00:10:15:13 - 00:10:21:23 Jason That's a great answer. Marvin, tell us a little bit about your experiences and challenges. 00:10:22:01 - 00:10:54:07 Marven Oh yeah. My my experiences start off mostly in the writing field. Starting off with writing a few projects that were coming from a, from a personal healing and ended up because I was doing a little bit of extra work here and there. I thought I'd throw them into script form. So then I put them out to contest because I was I was told by a few people that they really loved their writing, started winning contests. 00:10:54:07 - 00:11:32:15 Marven So I wrote more and kind of snowballed that way. But me on set lots of times what I'm using, what I can, I'll use a hearing aid and I've been doing that for years, but unfortunately that's hasn't been financially viable for me to keep that going. So lots of times on set for me, I'm kind of lost on what scene we're working on, what what kind of instructions are needed from me until we get into a scene and do a practice run. 00:11:33:02 - 00:12:17:07 Marven And then I can kind of get ideas of, OK, I'm not going to hear this cue over here. So maybe I can have that extra here, the cue and off camera, hear the cue and maybe give me a wave or something like that. And I usually also team up with somebody to tell me when there's a break or not, because a lot of times I don't hear that or even just simple things like like action or, or, or cut or different things like that that I, I can have somebody that's, that's off the camera can fill me in on what's happening also to lots of times the directors or the helpers will be able to 00:12:17:07 - 00:12:56:14 Marven come over and, and face me so I can actually read their lips a little bit and hear a few different things. And so that helps with me in film as well. I'm still in the learning phases of sign language. So I don't, I don't speak for the deaf community because I'm fairly late deafened. And I did do a story for Story City in Edmonton and it's geo location story and that's one of the caveats I put right on that front page is that I don't speak for the deaf community. 00:12:56:21 - 00:13:39:03 Marven I speak from my own experiences with the deaf community or my own experiences with sign language because the deaf community has been been challenged and exploited quite a bit over the last couple of hundred years to the point of in the late 1800s their form of teaching ASL was robbed from them. In the late 1800s. There was a big movement for towards learning how to vocal words from the deaf and it's called oralism. 00:13:40:08 - 00:14:19:20 Marven And even up until the I want to say late seventies, 1970s to late 19th or early 19 or early 1980s, it was actually illegal or not illegal but it was, it was in deaf schools were not allowed to sign in classroom during classroom time that's something many people don't, don't know it that that is very new that you're able to sign in a deaf school in class when you're deaf. 00:14:21:11 - 00:14:28:04 Marven Wow. And that's it's something that that's really interesting to research on. 00:14:29:20 - 00:15:01:16 Jason Yeah. So so the vocalizing with that was like trying to train deaf people to be able to use vocal patterns that we like to be able to speak as best they could. That was the goal rather than simplifying it with sign language, which would be so much easier then. Yeah, because if you can't hear you creating sounds is very tough. 00:15:01:16 - 00:15:15:23 Jason That's a whole challenging thing to learn for sure. Wow. Interesting. I don't know. Do you guys have any other thoughts like that? Like from the blind community? Anything from the past where. 00:15:17:17 - 00:15:40:19 J.R. I think the ridiculous thing was when Daredevil was released on DVD you had to find the described video on the DVD menu, which made no sense because how am I going to find it if I can't see where it's located? So I had to ask someone for help, which said, I'm not there. I'm not being very independent. Like right now. 00:15:40:19 - 00:16:03:22 J.R. You would probably hear described video of J.R.'s eyebrows go up and down because he can hear his children crying in the distance as it's bedtime. When this is being filmed, you know, like someone else might think well, OK, I did. I didn't notice the baby crying. But now that you pointed it out, what describe video. It allows us to be a part of the entertainment by understanding what's going on. 00:16:04:00 - 00:16:30:10 J.R. You know, on a on a clear, sunny day, Brent walks up to the gas pump Oscar approaches with a smile and will describe facial reactions of the characters. So then us blind people, visually impaired people know exactly what's going on there, what's about to happen, you know, Family Guy and things like that. Disney actually does describe video now, Disney plus, but not on all of their programs. 00:16:30:10 - 00:16:55:22 J.R. And that's the annoying part to this day is only certain programs are being integrated with describe video. There's programs out there that just don't have it. And like I have not found any described video just yet on Crave TV as an example. Or I can say other streaming services don't have describe video, which I'm really upset about. Like I just got into a show called 30 Rock only because my wife or my son will tell me what's going on in the show. 00:16:55:22 - 00:17:02:13 J.R. And I'm like, this is actually quite hilarious. And I guess 30 Rock was made in that 2006 but it's such a great show. I love it. 00:17:03:05 - 00:17:03:10 Niek Yeah. 00:17:05:03 - 00:17:07:01 Jason Niek any thoughts for mobility. 00:17:07:01 - 00:18:02:18 Niek And for me, I think the thing that is a little bit bothersome sometimes, like I've run into this recently is a direct battle with technology because our good friends at Google do not update their Google Maps frequently enough. So Marven may know about this if you ever use a transport in Edmonton, ever use Google Maps to get around, you might know that some of the names of places have not been updated, which means that when you when it tells you like, go to this train, stop or go here, it's like, no, that's entirely different name now, which makes it really hard and kind of frustrating when Google says it'll take you 15 minutes to get there. 00:18:03:00 - 00:18:31:01 Niek And for me that means it's at least half an hour. And so then when I don't know where to go because the name is different, it's very challenging. And also I have times where I go into a place and I literally am not able to like almost like literally I can't get into the store because the door is really heavy or whatever and the button is either not working out of order or they haven't flipped the switch to actually turn it on. 00:18:31:09 - 00:18:55:22 Niek So they have this door that they've invested in and they just never fix it. Like I went around a lot of Europe and some of the places like London Underground you just don't have the elevators working. So guess what? You can either just take a million stairs or you can take an escalator and possibly, you know, risk a life threatening injury. 00:18:56:02 - 00:19:21:22 Niek And they're like, Oh, well, if you fall, you can hit the emergency button. Well, guess what? I'm not hitting when I fall the emergency button. Yeah, what I'm saying is it's struggle with technology and mobility, but at the same time, I'm very very motivated to, like, prove to other people what I can do. You know, if somebody tells me on the You can do that, I'll show you, you know, I'll show you what I can do. 00:19:21:22 - 00:19:59:23 Niek Don't assume what I can do about that. I have with them apples, you know, take that and put that in your put that in your movie and watch it. You know that. That's what I say to that. You know, because I think I can accomplish a lot of things. Even this is like I'm not a super advanced filmmaker, but I remember the very first movie we made when I didn't have like when we didn't have like a, uh, what do you call that, a dolly to, like, move a shot from another shot. 00:19:59:23 - 00:20:27:04 Niek So we literally had a we had I remember because we took a picture of it, but super weird. It was literally a tripod attached to a computer chair. And my friend, just like literally one friend was like pushing the computer and somebody else is holding the tripod and trying to pass record and trying to get the smoothest shot possible because we don't have like a slider to move it across the room. 00:20:27:13 - 00:20:54:07 Niek So we're literally using a computer chair. And as students, like, we just had no budget, right? So no budget in a low budget is how we work. So yeah, that's, that's kind of how I work. So that's why when JR is talking about the piece of technology you have in your hand. It's a good idea to just explore it and have fun with it just to see what you can create and see what's possible with it. 00:20:54:18 - 00:21:20:14 Niek Even when, when I was on a previous job with Jason and we started slow making movies and just slow motion everything in the slow motion. Like that's super fun. And now I made that into like one of our projects that we made involved J.R making a sandwich and we filmed it in like super ridiculously comedic slow motion because it's in our area. 00:21:20:14 - 00:22:03:06 Niek So I can put mustard on a sandwich split into super slow motion so like, you know, you just like sometimes mistakes are the most wonderful things because it allows you to, to learn and to grow as a, as an artist. So yeah, and that's, you know, that's how I continue to learn. I always train with stand up, I always film my sets trying to get audio and, you know, then I try and develop my performance from that and yeah, so it's a lot of a lot of fun and it's all about how you try to learn from that so you can find a different way to get your message across. 00:22:03:09 - 00:22:06:22 Niek People manage him. It's time. Mm hmm. 00:22:07:15 - 00:22:13:16 Jason Cool. I think one in five people has a disability. I think that's a that's a standard statistic that I've read. 00:22:13:19 - 00:22:41:15 J.R. Yeah. One in five people have a disability. And regardless how good your vision is, your eyes do start to deplete around 50 to 70 years old, which is very scary because I'm 31. No I'm kidding mine's already gone. But no matter what, at some point in your life you will go blind and you know, studies are coming out now that people that had cataract surgery, laser eye surgery, their eyes do start failing eventually. 00:22:41:15 - 00:23:01:15 J.R. Even after that, just many, many many years down the road. But if we can get into a world that's fully accessible for people that have visual impairments or mental health and we have to make our worlds fully accessible before we ourselves are no longer accessible to make the world fully accessible, because at some point our bodies, we're not immortal. 00:23:01:15 - 00:23:26:11 J.R. We don't last forever. And at some point the day might come. I know my biggest fear right now is the electric vehicles. When have you heard those things? When they when they come to a stop, their engines, our lack thereof, shut off. So I don't know. I'm going to miss gas powered vehicles because they're loud. I'm going to miss Mr. Diesel over there because I won't know when Mr. Electric vehicle is around because they don't go vroom, vroom, vroom. 00:23:26:11 - 00:23:28:13 J.R. They go, you know, you don't hear. 00:23:30:17 - 00:23:41:02 Marven For a while they were actually putting speakers in electric vehicles. So the people who would still be able to hear and I think that's something that that might still be a viable option. 00:23:41:10 - 00:23:42:06 J.R. No, definitely. 00:23:42:23 - 00:23:43:15 Niek Yeah. 00:23:44:17 - 00:23:45:21 Jason Yeah, that's really interesting. 00:23:46:10 - 00:24:29:05 Marven I have one piece of technology because like I'll keep talking about drones because of course it's something I do right now. And for eyesight, my eyes are actually fairly good, but I'm getting to that point where, where I need the reading glasses and I need the distance glasses, right? I'm not too bad in between them. But I'm, I'm ordering in a, a drone, uh, goggles a mainly because you can actually dial in your I think that's your dioptic adjustment is you're in and out, but there's actually a focus adjustment you can do for each eye. 00:24:30:01 - 00:24:50:07 Marven And for me I think that'll work better, because when I fly, it's a little bit blurry because of course it's right up close and, and just having that one little option of being able to dial in your eyes to a screen that's, I don't know, six inches from your face. Now I know that's going to help a lot of people with worst eyesight that I have. 00:24:51:01 - 00:25:13:13 Niek A question Marven and does yourself does challenging if you're doing this this drone pilots flying and you're constantly challenging your vision. Does that increase your like you know like it's like working your muscle when you're working out does that increase your do you see better or does it make it weaker when you're using it a whole bunch and. 00:25:14:14 - 00:25:41:16 Marven Well, I use it so little like with my glasses right now. Like I'm also like a copier tech and I can't see close things. I'm doing a lot of things by feel now. So because I've done it for for more than 20 years, I've but I don't think it, it's making it any better. I think it's just the age that's making it worse. 00:25:42:16 - 00:25:43:22 Niek OK, yeah. 00:25:44:12 - 00:26:03:15 Jason Yeah. I started to notice my eyesight a couple of times lately. Mostly I have been great. And then the other day I went to read and are reading in a jar of something or there was something that I had to read and the writing was so small and I couldn't read it and I had to keep pushing it away. 00:26:03:15 - 00:26:27:10 Jason But then I got it so far away that I was too small to read and I went, Oh, it's begun. It's yeah. So what is something during filming that you've had a really great experience or whether it's related to the whole film industry, what is a really great experience that you've had. 00:26:30:05 - 00:26:53:14 J.R. So it's a great experience that I've personally had is after a few days of learning your lines, if you're in particular short films like I was in one that you directed, that the cheaters, robbers, outlaws, or you know that one. And one thing I loved about that was when people go in front of the camera, the attitude admittedly changes. 00:26:53:14 - 00:27:15:16 J.R. Everybody gets happier, everybody everybody gets excited. You can feel the energy in the room when the cameras are rolling. And I love the bond you build with your actors and your fellow costars and just everybody when you're on set, because when the cameras are on, it's at that exact same moment. Everybody's in the same mental space. And you I don't know what other industry you can get that. 00:27:15:23 - 00:27:40:18 J.R. I don't think a bunch of construction workers are vibing together while they're fixing the roads versus when you got actors in front of a camera. And the other thing I enjoy about filming is creating sound effects or getting sound effects off the Internet and making it work. Because if you're if you do it right, it looks great, but sometimes you can overdramatic it like that comedy scream or you always hear that guy yelling in all the movies. 00:27:41:03 - 00:28:07:06 J.R. It's from like the 1950s. It's like, Oh, you know that one? Yeah, yeah, that one. And you get to finally understand some of the secrets of the industry, but it's people coming together. And when the camera is rolling, as I said earlier, it's I love the possibilities and I love coming together with my community of film writers and directors and producers, and it's just everybody's in it to win it because we all want to be in front of the camera and we all want to operate cameras too. 00:28:07:06 - 00:28:12:10 Jason Awesome thanks. What are some great experiences you've had on set? 00:28:12:14 - 00:28:33:09 Niek I think similarly, to JR but I'll go like a little like I'll add my own twist to it in the sense that the press when we were when we were working on like Love of the game, there was a lot of like there's been a couple of times where people just said to me, I'm so grateful that I was able to share my story and be a part of that. 00:28:33:09 - 00:29:13:18 Niek Like, I've never been able to share my story about skiing or about goalball or whatever sport they participate in. And I appreciate them. Like, I appreciate you for offering me this opportunity to share my story. Also, very recently when I shot an episode of of Off the Record with Niek theelen, which you can watch on Telus Storyhive it was really fun because I shot this episode at a different location than expected, and I was able to really with with an unexpected kind of crew. 00:29:13:18 - 00:29:37:19 Niek So I was able to bring people together who really hadn't worked together before, but that I that I had known from different projects. So just like, Oh, I know a really good sound guy because he got a recommendation from, from someone I worked with in Red Deer, and I got a recommendation from this person because Jason's worked with them and I had a recommendation from that person because my friend Dave has work with this person. 00:29:37:19 - 00:30:01:12 Niek And so were literally able to it felt really cool to just be able to like to, to be able to bring all these people together and be like, well, we don't know each other, but now we do because we have this like we're creating like a new community kind of. It was it was a really amazing feeling to be able to, like, not only bring them all together, but to pay them for their art was really nice as well. 00:30:01:18 - 00:30:32:23 Niek And then same sort of same sort of feeling as you get when it's like stand up where, you know, like you're just really grateful for being able to bring people together and like create like have created an environment where you can create this positive energy and this these emotions and, you know, like we're at the end of the, at the end of the show, we're like having fun we're like talking about our favorite part of the shoot for your part of the day or, you know, just laughing with each other. 00:30:33:10 - 00:30:55:23 Niek And we're looking forward to getting together and sharing it. And when we're gonna screen it and whatever else create kind of a community because of it. So you, you become part of that community which is, I think, my favorite part of filmmaking all together and stand up and, and these different art forms have been able to be a part of, of all contributed to that. 00:30:56:15 - 00:30:58:06 Niek Hmm. So yeah. 00:30:58:06 - 00:31:25:19 Jason I think I'm on board with you on the bringing it community together and giving people an opportunity to, to be a part of the story or create the story or if it's a documentary to share their story. Yeah, I'm like that's, that's amazing. And there's something especially awesome about the first time somebody gets in front of an audience or gets on camera. 00:31:27:02 - 00:31:52:06 Jason It's, you know, whether it's doing stand up comedy, whether it's doing a movie, whether it's, you know, singing karaoke whatever it is. I just I love it. The first time somebody ever goes on stage, it just I lose my mind. I don't know, because it's it's the first time that they're really, you know, putting themselves out there. And so that experience of hearing people say, I got to share my story and I haven't been able to share it, and I can finally you gave me that opportunity. 00:31:52:15 - 00:31:54:23 Jason That's that's the magic. That's my favorite thing. 00:31:55:00 - 00:32:17:08 Niek You know, that's one of the great things like you and I and J.R. and like we've been able to work on this and easterseals projects together and because of it. And then also, you know, whether it's a silly project about a pirate sandwich guy or, you know, a dude super secret spy you know, whatever it is, like, it's wherever the crazy concept is. 00:32:17:17 - 00:32:47:02 Niek And then you're able to bring people in with different skills, like different like being in people with different disabilities and different abilities. We don't really see that. Like you you you work with projects at Camp LG Barnes where that specifically a camp for people with disabilities and brought them to this camp to work with them to look at their strengths and see what they can bring to film crew for a weekend to put together a project. 00:32:47:17 - 00:32:58:13 Niek And that that and is that that's the essence of what we're talking about essentially is being able to look at people's abilities rather than their disabilities. Yeah. 00:32:58:15 - 00:33:03:10 Jason Finding someone's ability their strength and bringing that to the forefront. 00:33:03:12 - 00:33:05:08 Niek With them discover their own ability. 00:33:05:23 - 00:33:13:23 Jason That's it that's helping somebody to discover you know something that they you know that they maybe never thought they were ever going to be able to do great. 00:33:14:11 - 00:33:37:06 Niek And I wonder if that's how J.R. or Marven feel as well, because I feel like when I watch that, I'm pretty familiar with J.R.'s YouTube channel and how he shows the different cameras and the different technologies he uses and how it's accessible to him or with Marvin how you show people how to use the different drones and you're teaching, taking them out on different sites, stuff like that. 00:33:37:06 - 00:33:49:00 Niek Is there any sort of feeling of of teaching them or making these technologies more accessible to people with the things that you guys do? I don't. 00:33:49:13 - 00:34:08:07 J.R. I I know for me, it's just so much fun. So as I turn on that camera, I can be who I want. I can be more of an extrovert. You know, sometimes I wonder if I'm secretly a little introverted at times, but when I'm in front of the camera, you get an energy that is unexpected from, you know, like you can I love B-roll. 00:34:08:07 - 00:34:28:20 J.R. I love shooting B-roll in a vlog because people can see the area I'm in and then I can point the camera at me. And with stabilization getting better and better every day, I can walk around with a camera and it's just it's very mind blowing. And you can put yourself anywhere with the power of greenscreen. Anyone can tap green screen on their cell phones these days. 00:34:28:20 - 00:34:49:19 J.R. You can be in there. I think I did a pyramid or I went to Egypt, but I was still in Canada because of the power of greenscreen. And it's just I love it. You can do anything you want. I just found out my app that I use to edit my footage, Luma Fusion, has a green screen option. All you gotta do is be behind a blue screen or a green screen, and then you can put yourself in places scenarios. 00:34:49:19 - 00:35:03:04 J.R. You can put a video or, Hey, look, I'm on the moon. What's that rover thing over there, you know? And I love it. You can do anything you want with the power of video. It almost brings your imagination to the forefront and anyone can enjoy it and watch it. 00:35:03:23 - 00:35:04:19 Niek Awesome. Yeah. 00:35:05:04 - 00:35:27:01 Jason Marvin, tell us a little bit about a positive experience you've had on set and and also the question of how you've been able to to I guess, help share new technologies or new ways for other people to be able to use technology well. 00:35:27:09 - 00:35:53:04 Marven Before I get on the technology side, I wanted to say one of the things that I really love being on set is the energy that's that gets produced I was recently on a set for seven days in a feature movie, and I ended up doing five days straight with 12 hour nights. And three of those days I actually worked my day job at the same time. 00:35:53:23 - 00:36:34:00 Marven So I basically went from from Sunday night starting a shoot to Wednesday morning being done as shoot before I even got to sleep. But every time I got on set, you're just you're instantly woken up because of that that power and that energy that's going through a lot of times when you're on set, they talk about downtime because there's 80% prep and there's 20% actually filming but you got to remember, too, that everybody's working on set at the same time because you got the actors learning their lines. 00:36:34:00 - 00:36:54:10 Marven You have the cameramen setting up the shots, you have your, your prop people set, making sure all the props are in the right place. And you see all this work for about 45 minutes, and then you do five or 10 minutes of practice and then five or 10 minutes of actual filming for maybe 3 minutes of a film that actually gets on set. 00:36:54:18 - 00:37:19:18 Marven But there's just that whole energy where everybody's knows their job is doing their job, and then it just all comes together for that 3 minutes of film. Which, which gets played out and it's gone again. And then you're off on to the, on to the next scene. That just brings so much energy to me. Just by walking on site and seeing that all that, all the, the creators working together. 00:37:21:11 - 00:37:46:14 Marven As for the technology side of I don't think I could be a writer if I didn't have the technology that we have today. We're really in a blessed time that there's lots of things that help us along the way, and there's many more that we could use that to help us as well. For me, I'm I'm a writer, but I'm also dyslexic. 00:37:47:07 - 00:38:23:11 Marven And everybody in my family that knows me thought that's the last thing that he'll be as a writer. But the technology these days gets my stories out. Like, I've always been a storyteller and I've always been thinking of stories, but I've never had that outlet before. Just a few years ago. And to me, it's, it's it's everything from editing software to grammar to spelling to people that have gone before you. 00:38:23:11 - 00:38:56:08 Marven So you can watch YouTube videos, you can you can see what the structures of a storyline are and you can fill that in. I mean, there was no YouTube when I was, when I was young. We had what's called BBS sites and the web wasn't even around when I was young. So to me, to see all these advancements and, and seeing people who wouldn't be able to create now being able to create, to me, that's very exciting. 00:38:57:15 - 00:39:30:05 Jason So let's talk a little bit about technology and what kinds of technologies there are right now and what technologies might be coming up that will support people with disabilities. Similar to the ones that you guys have. And then he wishes that you might have for the future of technology. What wouldn't really make filmmaking awesome for each of you or whatever parts the process, whether it's writing, flying a drone film, making whatever pieces. 00:39:30:05 - 00:39:36:04 Jason So let's start with some J.R. again What are some technologies that 00:39:36:16 - 00:39:44:14 Jason You. You use regularly that support you and that you'd like to see more of in the future to make things you are? 00:39:45:11 - 00:40:12:02 J.R. So what I'm daily vlogging, I use the Canon SL2 camera with a ten to 15 millimeter lens. So it's a wide angle lens. And the reason why I use my wide angle lenses is so I'm always in camera. It's going to be hard to miss you with a wide angle lens. So that helps a lot. As I said, I use autofocus if I ever want to grab a quick clip and I want to use high resolution on my iPhone 13 pro. 00:40:12:07 - 00:40:39:00 J.R. I have a wide angle lens that came with the phone and the cool thing about iPhone for screen readers, for people like me who are visually impaired, we use voiceover on the iPhone and you can start a video and then the iPhone will tell you it will say face on left side of screen, face in middle of screen, and then you can use that to adjust where you are on the iPhone picture quality eye picture on the viewfinder. 00:40:39:00 - 00:41:00:12 J.R. There it is. You're able to see where you are on the viewfinder because a voice is telling you if you're on the left side of the viewfinder or right side. And I think that helps too. And nowadays, if you're watching this, you're probably watching this on an iPhone or Android, the camera in your pocket, that costs just as much of a down payment as a car is your camera of choice because it's already in your pocket. 00:41:00:12 - 00:41:19:13 J.R. I always tell people use an iPhone. An iPhone can definitely run a successful channel because an iPhone can run tiktok, an Android phone can run, tiktok, YouTube. It's really the power is in your pocket. Just come up with an idea, write it down and go shoot it. Like today, I'm going to follow the adventure of a grasshopper for 24 hours straight and we'll see what happens. 00:41:19:20 - 00:41:26:21 J.R. And then you can use the macro lens on your iPhone or whatever and grab shots like anything is possible you just got to come up with the idea. 00:41:28:05 - 00:41:28:17 Jason Awesome. 00:41:30:00 - 00:41:32:22 Niek Nic made so different set of. 00:41:33:02 - 00:41:41:03 Jason Technology, things that are making your life easier on stuff right now and things that you think would make it even better in the future. What would you like to see? 00:41:41:21 - 00:42:14:22 Niek Well, I find it interesting that you mentioned the stabilization technology. I wonder how good the stabilization technology is because for me I'm very shaky. So there's a certain level of, oh yeah, it'll handle shakiness. But if I shake the inside, shake the if I shake the phone like it's a magic eight ball, will, it still stabilize my picture or will it just look like everything I shoot is the next version of paranormal activity? 00:42:15:06 - 00:42:57:07 Niek Like, I don't want to be making those for the rest of my life unless there's several lots of money involved, in which case we'll continue to shoot that and make them. But for me, I. I believe, like, as a comedian, as a writer, like, not I have started, like, I use a lot of voice recordings daily because for me, especially lately, when I do a lot of business, I'll still email and it's necessary, but I will use voice recordings and voice recordings because it's much easier that for me to type things out except tends to cause muscle spasms. 00:42:57:17 - 00:43:32:07 Niek And so I, you know, I've tried to like enlist the help of friends to actually film things and friends are always good for moral support. And as far as other technologies I use I don't I don't know because my cerebral palsy is it's been something that's been with me for my entire life. But I do agree j.r like during the pandemic, I literally shot a film on the I shot. 00:43:32:09 - 00:43:48:06 Niek I shot a movie on my iPhone in my pajamas on a Saturday and it's ridiculously absurd. And there are several people that probably will think it's ridiculous. And I would watch it once and never watch it again. 00:43:48:16 - 00:43:52:18 Jason I think Time to toast is one of the greatest of all time. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. 00:43:52:20 - 00:44:15:16 Niek It's a movie about toast that I made on a saturday morning before having breakfast during the pandemic, and I decided to just not change out of my pajamas because I was more authentic. And, you know, it ended up getting into a film festival. So just do it, have fun with it. Don't put pressure on yourself to make the most amazing film ever in the world. 00:44:16:15 - 00:44:17:22 J.R. It was even black and white, right? 00:44:18:03 - 00:44:47:20 Niek That's right. It's not going to be James Cameron overnight, so just have fun with it. And yeah, just learn as you go. I use a lot as a try and be creative with my phone all the time by doing you know, slow motion shots or using different filters or seeing what I can do with my phone, you know, or I started using a lot of Canva for promotional stuff. 00:44:47:20 - 00:45:32:18 Niek So that's nice because you can literally duplicate an image or a poster and then change it up. Really don't start from scratch. It's very nice that way and it's very cost effective. So it allows me to create content for film, for posters, to stand up to all sorts of different stuff, you know? So it's great. And yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's going to be different technologies I have a friend in England that has a wheelchair that's essentially like a sort of like a Segway, and he can basically he's got a GoPro attached straight to it and he can basically Steadicam and go in his wheelchair and like whip around. 00:45:32:18 - 00:45:56:06 Niek It's, it's really crazy. So I imagine that pretty soon they'll have all these different attachments that you could put right up to your wheelchair, which is cool. But I imagine that that would be really cool. To have that be that ability to, to have the camera actually be a part of someone's chair, for example, that has more and more more of a mobility impairment. 00:45:56:17 - 00:46:20:04 Niek And then literally at that point, you can do anything I've I've always wanted to to just take a GoPro and, and record myself throughout the day. Like while I'm in Edmonton, one of my next big things is to, to record myself going up this giant flight of stairs and back again, which could take a long time. It could also be really motivational. 00:46:20:19 - 00:46:25:20 Niek So it's awesome to see you see how that happens, you know? 00:46:26:04 - 00:46:27:10 Jason Yeah, for sure. 00:46:28:03 - 00:46:45:03 Niek Yeah. So go out there and just make it happen. Just do it and have fun with it and, and and you'll learn a lot and he'll develop as an artist. And that's the best part of filmmaking is growing your skills and making my friends, I think. 00:46:45:19 - 00:46:54:13 Jason Cool, awesome. Marvin, tell us a little more about technology. What technologies you use, what do you look forward to in the future? 00:46:55:16 - 00:47:36:07 Marven Well, I look at technology and I just look at a mess of technology that I have on my table at the moment. Like I'll actually just take a little quick look around this is the kind of technology that we have today that we wouldn't have had a couple of years ago. And even if you look closely to even just having closed captioning on a meeting with with four people in two different cities, who are able to communicate in different ways, whether we're blind, whether we're hard of hearing, whether we're we're mobility challenged. 00:47:37:15 - 00:48:07:17 Marven But we can get together and we can discuss and we can and we can film and we can create and I think technology, even just from laptops to tablets to your phones to cameras to well, now drones for me, of course, give you that that up up that third dimension view that many filmmakers couldn't even afford, even five, ten years ago. 00:48:08:12 - 00:48:26:06 Marven I mean, to get in a third dimension shot like that, you're talking about hiring, uh, like scissor lifts or booms that can go up people in harnesses. The safety aspect has, has been better. 00:48:26:19 - 00:48:51:16 Jason But it's great also viewing technologies. I know there's you know, we have things like closed captioning or described video. I'm sure you're very familiar with that. J.R. Yeah, and those are technologies that are helping us to be able to enjoy movies. 00:48:54:18 - 00:49:09:16 Jason I know we were talking one other time, marvin, about some of those technologies. When you go to a theater if the technology is set up or not or if it's actually working, you know, can you i. 00:49:10:09 - 00:49:36:03 Marven I actually have never been to a theater where the technology was actually working. I've never had that experience. The the closest i've been is if my phone is actually picking up the voice from the film properly, then I can use a text to speech app. But if you've ever tried those, those are about 80% not reliable. 00:49:38:18 - 00:50:01:14 Jason Even even the theaters that have the technology. So some of those technologies things like a device that will give you closed captioning you know you can just have in your cup holder or whatever or what are some of the other ones. There's hearing loops which allow you to be able to transmit the sound directly into a hearing aid. 00:50:02:04 - 00:50:04:08 Jason Right. Is that that's kind of how that works there? 00:50:04:11 - 00:50:31:16 Marven There is that. But no theaters in Edmonton would carry that. Yeah. If you if you go to if you're going to like the jubilee or something bigger like that, they will have a hearing loop installed. And it is amazing for me to hear that through my hearing aids because what's transpiring is actually coming straight through it. There's no background noise. 00:50:31:16 - 00:50:46:05 Marven There's no I mean, there's some distance from mics and stuff like that. But yeah, that is a whole new world experience. I have had that at that. I'm pretty sure it was the Jubilee that had the hearing loop that that I went and watched a performance at. 00:50:47:00 - 00:50:52:00 Jason Not having those technologies. Does that prohibit you from going to movies? Do you choose? Oh. 00:50:52:12 - 00:51:19:20 Marven Yeah, yeah. Oh, for sure. I will only go to a movie now if it's really something I want to see. Like it's something I've been looking forward to for for months and months, or I know people that are involved in it, like a premiere in Edmonton of actors that I know and so forth. Because, of course, like you in Red Deer, it's almost like a reunion sometimes when you get on set. 00:51:20:10 - 00:51:51:00 Marven So when you get into a premiere of a show that was shot in your city and, you know, 20% of the people that are in the seats, it's almost like a reunion. So I will go to those, even though I can't really get all that, all the, the, the dialog from the movie. And I'm not laughing when anybody else is I do have one instance that I thought was rather interesting. 00:51:52:02 - 00:52:19:16 Marven I did have a local creator that did a movie and just before the movie came out, part of his PR and his funding for the movie was he was selling the script to his movie so you were able to, to like pay, I think it was $50 donation and then you could have the script given to you and then I was able to read it I think that was actually between the first premiere and the second viewing. 00:52:20:14 - 00:52:38:01 Marven So I was able to read, watch the first one, miss a lot of it, but I was able to read through the script and see the jokes and then I could see them being acted out and then I would know what's going on. I know it's a strange way to do it, but I found that to be a really neat experience. 00:52:38:16 - 00:52:41:09 Jason That would be neat. Yeah, very cool. 00:52:43:09 - 00:52:50:12 Jason Is there anything that that you'd like to see in the future that something that will help you out more. 00:52:52:16 - 00:53:24:08 Marven Well, I think just even having the closed caption system working, I know there's I mean, for the last dozen years they've been talking about having closed captioning glasses. So you can actually have the scripts coming that the, the transcribing right on the on the glasses. And I think that would be really good as long as they're not these big honking I mean, technology is getting there, they're getting closer and I could see it coming soon. 00:53:25:06 - 00:53:40:05 Jason Yeah. Yeah, that would be perfect. Yeah. To get gets glasses that have augmented reality with the thing or you could just whatever just be able to read right there. That's the closed captioning. Very cool. 00:53:40:16 - 00:54:04:16 Marven One thing I've noticed with closed captioning too is I don't catch all the words on the closed captioning because a lot of times I'm watching the action. You can't actually sit down and look at the text and up and down, right? Because it's in different places and usually that affects thing. I wouldn't, I would like to have that to be able to float it up and may be able to to see it without missing the background. 00:54:04:16 - 00:54:07:08 Marven Sometimes I think that would be kind of exciting. 00:54:07:18 - 00:54:15:20 Jason If each of you has anything you want to share to kind of wrap things up. Yeah. Do I start again? 00:54:15:20 - 00:54:51:05 J.R. So first of if I could give out any advice, it would be whatever you have in your pocket, be it an iPhone or Android that should be your starter camera. Don't go out and buy the coolest camera. We've all been there. I spend loads of money on two Canon DSLRs and that didn't make my content any better. I've always just been grab and go and right now for our viewers watching at home, you might notice I'm holding this phone in my hand because I'm recording some audio for Jason, and I can just put it out to my face every now and then. 00:54:51:05 - 00:55:16:07 J.R. You might notice me creeping over here when Jason's talking. That's because for all my videos on YouTube, I've never invested. I have never invested in a lapel mic because I just can't justify spending 200 and $300 on mic setups. So what I do is I just use a voice memo, voice memos on my iPhone because I can just put it in my pocket like this. 00:55:16:18 - 00:55:37:16 J.R. And then I can just record a whole YouTube video like this, and you can still hear me. And it's just amazing. And all I'm doing is in editing, I'm putting the audio file over the video under the video file, and then I can just do to sync the audio, I can snap my fingers and that just tells the camera to pick it up. 00:55:37:23 - 00:56:06:12 J.R. And then in my editing software, I can see where I snapped and then I just line up the snaps and then I just don't use the camera mic because most cameras, the microphones don't sound good. And I don't know why I have to do that on purpose, but it drives up the wall. So I always use my voice memos app for everything, even if I'm holding an iPad or I'm looking at a script, I can just set record on the iPad Voice Memos app, and then I can send it off to my computer and still get a good sound quality. 00:56:06:12 - 00:56:15:04 J.R. That way, if I'm giving a motivational speech at a local school, I can record it through my iPhone and set up the camera somewhere in the room and everyone at home can hear me just fine. 00:56:16:07 - 00:56:44:03 Jason Yeah, I don't know how many times myself I've ended up using the either the on board sound or using just like you do with the Taking a voice memo, a lot of like that. And actually, the first times I did voice over work I would actually take my phone and climb under a blanket so that to deaded the sound turn on my voice memo and just record there. 00:56:44:03 - 00:56:57:12 Jason And I've done some voiceover work with that as a sketchy set up and it work just fine. No, they were quite happy with the results. Yeah. So yeah, you never know what. 00:56:58:17 - 00:56:59:06 J.R. Yeah. 00:56:59:21 - 00:57:00:14 Jason Keep it simple. 00:57:00:17 - 00:57:05:19 J.R. Then. Definitely. The simpler, the better or the better. 00:57:06:02 - 00:57:48:10 Jason I've actually and I've heard multiple times that I've had like a a more expensive recorder that, you know, I've spent $400 on to try to get really good sound. But the sound that I get out of it because there's so many options and so many different adjustments to make, I don't know how to use it properly and so I wind up with sound that is maybe more tinny or it picks up the kids running around it's and it's whereas often the sound that's on, on just the on board microphone ends up being better for me or easier for me to work with as a kind of a lower grade film maker. 00:57:48:10 - 00:58:00:08 Jason I'll call myself. I really I find quite often I will record both tracks and I will get rid of the more expensive track because the other one is just simpler. It's more easy to work with. 00:58:00:08 - 00:58:27:00 J.R. So and nowadays if you dare to pay for a subscription, there's plug ins that you can use that to now are AI powered and they can make your sound sound more studio. There's even websites if you just Google search audio I I'm sure you'll find a bunch of free tools or tools you got to pay a small subscription for where the I will edit your audio for you and this whenever there's a will, there's a way in oh my goodness. 00:58:27:04 - 00:58:46:20 J.R. We have the world's knowledge at our fingertips. And if you don't know what to do, like my friend Niek theelen over there to my left your right is really big in to remove.bg which is a free website that will remove the background if you want to get a headshot or see a post or anything like that. 00:58:47:03 - 00:58:53:05 J.R. And it's just remove.BG, which stands for background and it is so cool and it's free. 00:58:53:17 - 00:58:54:03 Niek Mm hmm. 00:58:54:14 - 00:58:55:14 Jason Yeah. There's a lot of really. 00:58:55:14 - 00:58:59:04 Niek Cool free tools, so. Yeah, yeah. Do you have. 00:58:59:04 - 00:59:01:00 Jason Any final thoughts and yeah. 00:59:01:21 - 00:59:07:11 Niek For anybody that just watch this and watched me almost die as JR was talked there, I'm OK. I'm fine. Nothing's wrong with me. 00:59:08:07 - 00:59:08:22 Jason Did you need some. 00:59:08:22 - 00:59:13:16 Niek Water, guys? I'm OK. OK, I don't know if we have the budget in this film for water. 00:59:14:11 - 00:59:17:17 Jason Yeah, I brought a bottle of water for myself. I mean, you could drink out of it. 00:59:17:17 - 00:59:52:09 Niek That's fine. OK, all right. I promise I'm not down with the sickness, ok? Oh, ok. And so what I would recommend is for people to just. Just yell similar to what J.R. said. It's just use the phone that you have in your pocket. But also what I've found myself when I'm like, if you're struggling with, like, ideas, but you like, what I've found is easiest, like through all this time that I've done. 00:59:52:09 - 01:00:18:21 Niek So I find maybe sometimes getting the location is the hardest. And if you have a really cool location, sometimes I find just like writing a story around that location, it helps me. For example, I don't know, like I don't know, like, for example, at a property a friend of mine have, they have a cabin. So I'm thinking about writing a horror movie based around that. 01:00:19:03 - 01:00:43:16 Niek I've already kind of got a bit of a script that I've started, but I've essentially I'm adapting it or before they start starting right now is going to be in like the basement of a house. But now I'm thinking about changing it until I get woods in the cabin kind of feel. So I'm just adapting it to whatever situation whatever might be accessible because that location might not always be accessible. 01:00:43:17 - 01:01:03:17 Niek It might be a building that might be torn down at some point or whatever, or you might only have access to a location for a few days or like. So in some cases, like, you know, you're in a university and like you might only have access to a room for a couple of hours. So just make make use of those things. 01:01:05:05 - 01:01:41:14 Niek Yeah. I guess. What else can I recommend? Yeah, try. And if you don't know the answer, we'll watch stuff on YouTube. What I made my yes. When I, when I made my first feature film, we were shooting a piece of the script, which we're doing an adaptive cycling piece and my friend recently, one of the things that I pulled out of it was if we crash and burn, we learn. 01:01:41:21 - 01:02:09:17 Niek So it's you don't necessarily succeed the first time at least. So you'll learn a few things. And I mean, the first script that I ever made the dialog was very on the nose and and some of the shots, one of the greatest, some of them were like overexposed there's some scenes that I shot outside and you know, like that, of course, being a new filmmaker, that's very hard to do. 01:02:10:02 - 01:02:36:20 Niek And so I would recommend if you're going to shoot something for the first time, pick, pick one or maybe two locations, keep it simple. Don't go too crazy with the lighting. Just use simple house lighting, use a lamp around you, use what you have here at your disposal. Make it like close to no budget film. Don't get a bunch of your friends to invest $1,000 before you make the project happen. 01:02:37:08 - 01:03:03:00 Niek Get that, make the project happen and then say Look what I've created. Now, come out with these characters in this scenario and then I'd like to expand on it. Then when you show it to people, then you can pitch it or look at the types of funding that are out there, like things like story grants or you know, there's different grants for like like Aboriginal people or people with disabilities. 01:03:03:07 - 01:03:05:17 Niek Like take advantage of those things. 01:03:08:07 - 01:03:26:16 Niek You know, there are I use, I think called the photopea, which is sort of a rip off of a certain company that likes to charge a lot of money for their software, won't mention it because they might save a lot of money and they have more money than I do. 01:03:26:16 - 01:03:33:17 J.R. So I'm sure if you go shopping around, you might have an idea of what photo you're saving. 01:03:33:17 - 01:04:09:00 Niek And so this particular company is very great, but not great if you have a lot of money. So yeah, anyways, so the point being sometimes you can even go to places like like libraries. They'll have like, like they'll have special stations where you can edit stuff. I know, I know there's certain like now that certain libraries have particular I who believes in the Red Deer Polytechnic, now they have or they had it for this time and now they have a makerspace. 01:04:09:06 - 01:04:33:16 Niek So you can literally 3D printed things or you can use the computers that they have to edit your project. They have a green screen room right in there you can use and that's all just like all you have to do is show your ID card like or go to the library and rent out different rent out different books on these things or rent out these different technologies. 01:04:33:16 - 01:04:50:00 Niek Borrow them for a week, maybe try out a camera if you can before trying and rent it out somewhere for a weekend. Someone and see if you actually like it before paying the money to, to, to, to actually buy it. Yeah. 01:04:50:01 - 01:05:07:00 J.R. Just go buy one of those fancy red cameras and answer their call. Hey there. Is it red? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Marcus Brownley YouTuber. I love to watch you review technology is into the whole eight K technology. I'm still into 4K, but I don't know. 01:05:07:08 - 01:05:34:06 Niek Another great thing that's really simple is I don't know I use a lot is the there's just button on the computer on Mac specifically that you hit and you could speak into your Mac and you can it types out your word, your sentences. I don't know if you use this Marven or J.R but I don't know if you know about this file, but there is a button that you can hit and it'll speak, you can speak into it and it'll type out your stuff. 01:05:34:13 - 01:05:40:08 J.R. Yeah. It's usually to the right of the space or left of the space where it's called dictation. 01:05:40:19 - 01:05:55:12 Niek That's the next movie. That's the next set of my next documentary called To the Left of the Space bar it's a sci fi documentary about technologies and the Yeah, in space to the left of the space bar. 01:05:55:20 - 01:05:57:04 Jason To the left of the space bar. 01:06:01:08 - 01:06:05:07 Niek If you think that's crazy. I made a movie about toast. don't doubt my abilities. 01:06:06:11 - 01:06:12:16 J.R. What about you, Marvin? Any tips and tricks for people that want to get into filming or using a drone or anything like that. 01:06:12:16 - 01:06:18:16 Jason And any other final thoughts as well? Anything could be can be related to film or could be related to disability, can be anything. 01:06:18:16 - 01:06:54:04 Marven What I think my final thoughts would be to creators. You you you've heard directors say they will not work with children and they will not work with pets or animals because of the difficulties. What they won't say with what a lot of directors won't say is that they won't work with people that are disabled. We don't need to be right in the limelight and we know how to get around our disability in many different ways. 01:06:56:22 - 01:07:22:03 Marven Having disabled on site is going to make your movie, your film, your creation. It's going to make it real. It's it's not going to be a a a fake placard for for for a film. It could be even in the back row. You don't have to explain it, right? If you have a deaf person walking by in the background, you don't have to explain it. 01:07:22:14 - 01:07:34:01 Marven If you have somebody looking at a monitor with with closed captioning on it, you don't have to explain it. But it's going to add to your story. It's going to make your story more real. 01:07:35:07 - 01:07:38:21 Jason I feel like that's that is a great note to close on. 01:07:40:13 - 01:07:45:05 Niek It was really nice being part of this project. Yeah. Thank you for having us. Yeah. 01:07:45:05 - 01:08:19:05 Jason Thank you guys for being a part of this episode. And join us next time as we take the world of film and we look one frame forward for today's final frame. I'm thinking not just about the technical technological element, but the human element as well when it comes to accessibility and the lives of people with disabilities on my chest, this is Camp LG Barnes t-shirt. 01:08:19:05 - 01:08:53:15 Jason Camp LG Barnes is an organization on Gull Lake that is a year round resort that supports people with disabilities. They have a wheelchair accessible boat so that people in wheelchairs can actually go out and fish or go swimming in the middle of the lake. They have cabins that are accessible. And so Camp LG Barnes has always prided themselves on being a place that is accessible and where people can have adventures, summer camp type adventures all year round. 01:08:54:00 - 01:09:21:05 Jason Another organization that I want to share about is the hub on the Ross, which is a five day a week program providing arts and culture again for people with disabilities. So many activities and so many people would come every single week or multiple times a week to be able to be a part of art or writing or music or theater. 01:09:21:05 - 01:10:14:03 Jason So many different things. Unfortunately, though, during COVID, the the government who was funding both of those programs pulled funding from both programs and said that they would not be reinstating programing funding for either of those programs. This was devastating to people with disabilities, having their arts and culture and entertainment possibilities, recreation possibilities pulled absolutely devastating the camp LG Barnes Society, who owned the property and own all of the the equipment for the camp they have worked themselves to the bone with volunteering. 01:10:14:16 - 01:10:39:19 Jason The board volunteers constantly out there. There's so much work that's being done by volunteers in order to keep that organization going. And I know they've got some fundraisers coming up, so definitely check those out whatever you can do to support because there are so many people who have had so many smiles and it's made such a difference in so many people's lives. 01:10:40:21 - 01:11:10:10 Jason We have to keep that going. And the other program, The Hub on Ross, the Red Arts, Council, took up the charge and took over that program and is now running that as a one day a week program at our local YMCA Northside Community Center. And so as I'm filming, it's on Wednesdays and we've managed to secure enough funding to be able to keep it going on Wednesdays, you know, for the next year. 01:11:10:21 - 01:11:36:12 Jason But whether that can continue or whether we can grow it to move back towards multiple days a week, maybe that five days or even seven days a week, that that remains to be seen. Pretty exciting to see people's smiles. We've got people doing karaoke, we've got people doing playing instruments, doing art, so many different cool things. And it's really exciting. 01:11:36:19 - 01:12:14:10 Jason But I really want to share why these sorts of situations, these sorts of organizations and their purpose is so important. This is a friend of mine, Heather Lawrence. She passed away very recently, and I was just at her funeral the other day and Heather worked with children with disabilities, helping them to with their physical therapy, wheelchairs, walkers, canes, mobility, aids of of different types and helped them with a lot of that physical therapy. 01:12:15:20 - 01:12:42:19 Jason And I heard a story at her funeral that I think is really important and poignant. There was a young boy who really wanted to ride a bike. Now, Heather was a cyclist it was her passion. She loved cycling. And so I'm sure when this young boy came in and said, I want to ride a bike, that probably triggered a kinship in her to really want to help this kid. 01:12:43:09 - 01:12:53:13 Jason This kid had balance issues, mobility issues. And so the question of whether this kid would ever be able to ride a bike was unknown. 01:12:55:23 - 01:13:27:23 Jason If I recall correctly. I think that they did several sessions and this kid was struggling but really wanted to and was struggling. And one session it was raining and this kid said, no, I want to ride anyways. I'm going to do it. And when they got to the parking lot where they'd been practicing their riding, there was a huge puddle and this kid got a big grin and Heather knew that this was the day that this kid was going to ride. 01:13:27:23 - 01:13:55:15 Jason And he did. He ran, he rode through that puddle, made big splashes, you know, went through it a couple more times. I'm sure and it was just this amazing moment. And it was it was the puddle that motivated this kid to finally be able to just push through and make it happen when I think about people with disabilities in the film industry, there is the bicycle and there's the puddle. 01:13:56:09 - 01:14:27:14 Jason The bicycle is the tools it's the accessibility pieces, right. So whether it's closed captioning for the hearing impaired, different tools to help with stability, for people to have mobility issues, wheelchair ramps for people in wheelchairs, these are the tools that are needed in order for people to be able to with disabilities to be able to access the the possibility of participating in the movie creation process. 01:14:27:17 - 01:14:54:05 Jason Or the movie viewing process. And without these tools, they can't participate no matter how much they want to no matter how much they would enjoy it. And believe me, there are a lot of people with disabilities who love making films. Check out the Easterseals disability film challenge look that up. I think I want to say there was 90 films this year. 01:14:54:05 - 01:15:34:16 Jason I could be wrong. I might have that number wrong. Submitted as part of a film challenge. It's a blast. Every year I put together a team, gather bunch of people with disabilities, and we make a movie and we've had so much fun but without the proper tools, it's really difficult for people to be able to do the filmmaking tasks, whether it's writing, whether it's actually running a camera, editing, whether it's even acting can be a struggle if you can't get to set or a set doesn't have a wheelchair accessible washroom facility, things like that. 01:15:36:22 - 01:16:00:19 Jason And on the other side of it, there's the so there's the tools, which is the bicycle. The other side of it is the puddle. It's that motivation, that piece at the end that is going to give us so much joy that we just we're going to we would we would even push through the difficult the difficulty of not having the right tools just in order to get to that puddle. 01:16:02:07 - 01:16:33:14 Jason And the puddle when we're talking about people with disabilities is representation, right? Knowing that whether it's behind the scenes and I'm going to be part of creating something and be able to see that creation on screen, be able to say, I had a piece in that right. As you heard Marvin say, Marvin said he doesn't like to go to movies anymore unless it's a really important movie or something that he's in. 01:16:33:23 - 01:17:14:12 Jason So, yeah, if he was a part of it. Yeah, he's good to go and watch it. If there's representation for people with disabilities on screen, actors with disabilities who are in roles that they're seeing that same struggle and they can say, Hey, I relate to that person. I relate to that character. That's the puddle for the viewer. Is seeing a character who you can relate to, who's going through the same struggles and to be able to at the end, you know, you know, the reason that we feel tears of joy or exhilaration or pain at the end of a movie is because there's something about the character of the story that we've just seen that 01:17:14:12 - 01:17:37:06 Jason relates to us and if it doesn't relate to to that person, they're less likely to go. And so we need to see representation on screen of people with disabilities. We need to see it behind the scenes. We need to have the tools for them to be able to create and be part of the process, whether it's the creative process or the viewing process. 01:17:37:11 - 01:18:07:09 Jason We need those tools. 20% of people on this planet have some sort of some form of a disability if 20%, that's 1.6 billion people have a disability. And if they aren't finding themselves represented on screen or behind screen or having opportunities, they're not going to participate in that process as much. Yeah, they'll still go and see the odd superhero movie you know, because it's still fun to watch a superhero movie. 01:18:07:16 - 01:18:28:04 Jason But let's let's give them real reasons to go something that makes them passionate. Watch them. They want to show up and see it because there's somebody with cerebral palsy in this movie and I've got cerebral palsy. I want to see that, right? Like that's what we want to be able to create is those opportunities, create that puddle at the end, that excitement. 01:18:29:08 - 01:18:53:19 Jason I'm going to finish the story of Heather because I mentioned that Heather had this boy and he rode through the puddle and it was so exciting. From then on, every week Heather would show up on the day that that kid's appointment was with jugs of water that she'd filled up at home and carried in her vehicle and or on her bike. 01:18:53:19 - 01:19:12:11 Jason As I know, she bike to work quite often as well. And she would come to work with jugs of water. She would fill up those divots in the parking lot so that that kid would have that same excitement to be able to ride through the puddles. And because, I mean, who doesn't want to see a smile on a kid's face as they splash through a puddle? 01:19:12:17 - 01:19:45:07 Jason Right. I mean, the joy of being able to create that opportunity for somebody is absolutely it's it's unparalleled I can create the most fun movie, but you know what? I get more joy seeing somebody be able to explore their passions and have an opportunity to do something really cool that they think is great. Maybe I've done it a thousand times, but when I see somebody else do something for the first time, it excites me. 01:19:45:17 - 01:20:21:16 Jason So I can just imagine the joy that Heather felt watching that kid go through those puddles over and over. And so as an industry, let's create the tools that allow people to be able to make movies. Let's get them onto our sets with those tools so that they can be a part of that creative process. Let's create films that include people with disabilities on screen so that they can see themselves represented on screen. 01:20:22:04 - 01:21:01:00 Jason Make our world not a difficult, challenging, scary place for people with disabilities, but a place that is full of possibilities. Let's fill the world with puddles, and that is today's final frame. If you want to find out more about what we're doing here at Frame Forward, you can find us at FrameForwardShow.com. You can also find out about Camp LG Barnes at lgbarnes.org. the hub 2.0. 01:21:01:00 - 01:21:13:10 Jason If you're a Red Deer that is, you can find that through the Red Arts Council and yeah, come find us. Let's play.