Julie Harris Oliver: Kiah Amara, welcome to the other 50%.

Kiah Amara: Thank you. Hello.

Julie Harris Oliver: Hello. So I wanna start with like you and your origin story.

How did you get into the business and what are all the things that you do?

Kiah Amara: Yeah, so I, I always really love talking about this because I have such a long, a long history in disability space and in art space. So, and a long history of being disabled, even though I didn't always identify as disabled. So my sort of original point of origin is actually from a group called Penguin Project which is a community theater like companion program.

So being from the rural Midwest, of course community theater is a big thing. Penguin Project started in Illinois in Peoria, and I was part of the DeKalb group, the DeKalb Sycamore group. That was sort of the second iteration of this. And basically what it was, was a program that was a bunch of disabled folks paired with non-disabled mentors.

Doing a musical. And the whole point is that it [00:01:00] was all the disabled folks who were all the leads and the non-disabled folks were just shadow mentors. But the thing that was really, really wonderful about the program is that it wasn't about teaching social skills to disabled folks or about teaching, you know, language or anything like that.

Obviously being in theater is, is great for many reasons. But this program, I was actually in it as a non-disabled mentor. And through the program we would have every week something where the mentors would go and go, okay, here's how you lead a blind person, or Here's how braille works, or Here's how to have a conversation with somebody who's nonverbal.

So it was really just all about the mentors being in a space of, hey, these are new, new people, new communication styles, new engaging with environment styles that you might not be familiar with or comfortable with. So we're just gonna teach you how to be comfortable with everything and how to get along with everybody.

And that was so reversed cause this was 2009 as well. Yeah. So that was so reversed [00:02:00] of what most programs are. Cuz again, most everything was, you know, teaching disabled people how to seem less disabled in spaces so that they could fit in. And this was a space that wholly taught okay, folks who don't identify as disabled, here's how to just know everybody and see everybody in, you know, a relationship sort of way.

And that program included what was called Friendship time at the end, which was basically just time for non-disabled and disabled people to sit around and talk with one another and hang out with one another. And just be used to having conversations together. So even though I was disabled and had my disability at that time, I didn't identify as disabled.

Again, 2009 in the Midwest. I was somebody who was considered very low need. I was a dancer and got straight A's and all of that, so I was not somebody who could possibly be disabled. But that program was definitely a space where I was like, oh, these are my people. And I sort of recognized them as my people [00:03:00] before I was recognizing, you know, myself as disabled. And then I had a whole long string of things working with Penguin Project for many years. I became sort of a liaison and did a bunch of stuff in the Midwest helping other people start penguin project programs.

I did disability art with Chicago Children's Theater right out of college and then moved to New York and worked with New York City Children's Theater and did sensory friendly performances with them. And that was sort of how production accessibility started was in doing these sensory friendly performances, a lot of production accessibility comes from theater spaces.

Mm-hmm. And making theater spaces or like live shows and galleries accessible. And then moved over to film TV because I, I had always really loved film and television as an actor, and that space felt so much more inaccessible than the theater world. And then just sort of went, went from there. It's a big tumble from this really amazing, you know, volunteer experience when I was young in community theater space all the way up to, you know, things in New York City[00:04:00] and, and LA now.

So, yeah. Yeah.

Julie Harris Oliver: Well that's, I love that. And I wanted to, I had some very, some questions from the very beginning of that story. First of all, what was the musical?

Kiah Amara: Oh, so what was the very first musical that we did?

There's actually a big thing with what musical comes first. In each iteration, you do the same first musical, and I can't remember what it was, I wanna say it was Annie. Annie might have been the first thing that we did. But I did a whole bunch of musicals with them, so I can't even remember at this point what, the first one that we did was. We had done Music Man.

They did Beauty in the Beast. We did Little Mermaid. But I think the first one, I think the first one was annie

Julie Harris Oliver: Classic.

Kiah Amara: Yes. A classic. And actually I do remember now because I was a mentor to two different folks, I was a mentor to the person who played Annie and I was a mentor to somebody else who was one of the orphans.

So it was super cool because I got to be there like all the time and hang out with everybody all the [00:05:00] time. So, yeah.

Julie Harris Oliver: And how did you hear about that that opportunity in the first place? Like what, what was, how'd you first come to, oh, I'm gonna do this, this thing.

Kiah Amara: So yeah, again, I'm from a really small town in rural Illinois.

So for our community theater space, it was sort of like, if, you know people in the local community theater space, you know, everybody in the local community theater space. So when they decided that they were gonna do the program, they just sort of sent out a notice to everybody of like, Hey, this is the thing we're doing.

This is Penguin project. Feel free to come to the onboarding and do this summer show with us. Cause they always took place. Rehearsals were all over the summer and then you do the show sort of first thing in the, in the fall and the school year. And just knew I wanted to do it right away and was, was ready to go.

A lot of folks who were part of the theater space were friends already from the community theater space in my town. So getting able, being able to do a specific show that was just, you know, not focused on us and was focused on other people who didn't get as many theater [00:06:00] opportunities in the space was super exciting. So I don't remember ever not thinking about it.

Julie Harris Oliver: So let's talk about how you got into I suppose that did lead to the advocacy work and, and kind of that evolution, but can you talk about specifically how you got into the advocacy work for film

television?

Kiah Amara: Yeah, so when I graduated and I, I went to school in Wisconsin, so I, the, the first place I lived after school was Chicago and was working with Red Kite which is a, a disability program that's a part of Chicago children's theater and was also just sort of teaching in the general, you know, Chicago school area through Chicago Children's Theater.

And there's another program called Able Ensemble in Chicago, which also does film. They do like film shorts, things like that as a part of their program, which is also a theater-based program. And so meeting all of the folks who I had met in the Chicago space, I was really interested in transitioning just from [00:07:00] theater to doing more in film and tv.

My degree in, in theater arts and musical theater. I was an actor at the time. And so I was really interested in making the space that I was largely working in, which was tv, film, commercials, that sort of stuff more accessible because I had been in the theater space and knew that I could bring everybody into the theater space and the theater space was really welcoming.

But I had found not only for myself, but for my friends that the issue in, in TV and film was sort of twofold. One, if you have a non apparent disability like me I'm also usually not particularly apparently queer to folks and not particularly apparently non-binary to folks that it became this situation where, you know, casting folks or creative people would be like, but you're not what the audience expects from disability, so I can't put you, I can't cast you in this disabled role because the audience won't get it.

Which was always very hard for me because, as I said, from Penguin [00:08:00] Project, even though I didn't identify at the time, I knew those were my people and that was my community. And that was sort of my long journey to realizing, oh, I am disabled. I am neurodiverse. That's why I feel so, you know, akin to all these people who do I already identify as disabled?

And the other piece of it being so many production spaces, we're talking about, oh, we'd love to have more disabled folks, but they have too many needs. It's too risky. It's to this, it's on and on and on. Right. Those lights, equipment. Yep. And there's a great Venn diagram image which I can't remember the name of the artist right now.

But I will, I will send it to you later. That basically just has the Venn diagram of not disabled enough to too disabled and of course not disabled enough is like, you're not allowed to be on benefits. You can't be seen as disabled. All of this. And the bottom is like the assisted suicide space. And the only thing that's the acceptable amount of disabled is inspiration porn.

And I think especially at that [00:09:00] time was really, really true in, you know, the media space of disability as well, which is like, there's one kind of disability also non apparent disability is not really a thing, and we definitely don't cast authentically for non apparent disability. And, and on and on.

Julie Harris Oliver: So, can we talk about the definitions

a bit? Because you just identified as queer, non-binary, neuro divergent. I would suspect the queer non-binary is not in the disability

category. Is that correct?

Kiah Amara: No. So it's not indivisible. So my company is Indivisible Entertainment. We very much focus on queer, TG and C, which is transgender nonconforming and disability stories.

And that's because that's how I identify. But one of the things that I, I actually give talks on this too, is that. There is so much disability crossover in so many other communities being queer, not a disability, being trans, not a disability. Obviously there are additional pieces of that when we're talking about the social model of disability, [00:10:00] right?

Which is that disability is, are you disabled by the barriers that are placed in front of you? And I think, you know, there are elements of that in a lot of different culture spaces of what are the barriers that make engaging with society disabling. Not inherently a disabled identity, though. We, we keep those things in two different places as far as communities and cultures go, but there's so much disability in, in the queer space especially neurodiversity, you know, the percentage of autistic folks who also identify as queer is like 76%.

So there's a really a close connection there a lot of the times.

Julie Harris Oliver: Yeah. And I'm also hearing it, the, the accommodation may be the piece to focus on rather than. All the different disability categorization.

Kiah Amara: A hundred percent. And that's absolutely where we are as far as production and accessibility goes to.

It's really easy to fall into what we call compliance mindset, which is that sort of fear of the Americans with [00:11:00] Disabilities Act, fear of the ADA and fear of getting sued for not doing what the ADA requires of you. Mm-hmm. But a lot of that requires specific disability. Sometimes requires specific diagnosis, sometimes requires specific, you know, medical documentation.

And getting so much of that is not only inaccessible for a lot of intersectional reasons, it's also sometimes not safe for folks to have. So we rely a lot more on just trusting folks.

Julie Harris Oliver: Believing them when they tell you who they are?

Kiah Amara: Yeah. Which is, which is a piece of what's called access intimacy. But that piece of access intimacy is just like, You tell me what you need and I make it happen.

You don't need to prove to me why you need it. We don't need to have a fight over it. And we've found this to be really successful on production as well, because of course, those productions that wanna bring disabled folks in and then only give disabled folks what they need can create a lot of animosity.

As [00:12:00] in any workspace. You don't wanna be sitting, you know, sitting doing your job and seeing somebody being taken care of and know that you're sitting next to them on a, you know, 12 hour production day and you're not allowed to go get a drink of water. So making sure that that accessibility again, when we come into production, We send out a survey to every single person and say, tell us what you need.

You don't have to identify as disabled, you don't have to be connected with the community. Even if you are connected with the community, you don't have to tell us. You can just tell us what you need. And I think that's, that's super important in the world at large, but especially in film, tv, production,

Julie Harris Oliver: every,

everywhere and especially all our workplaces.

Yes. So it's like the I If you're really going to focus on inclusion and belonging, that means making the place accessible for everybody and helping everybody with what they need. Yes. Is what I'm hearing you say.

Kiah Amara: Yeah. I, I always laugh with D E I D E I A idea, D B I A, all of the different iterations that, you know, [00:13:00] that that space has been that I, I have told many a person, like for me, it doesn't matter until you put the A first.

Cause for me, true accessibility includes, All of those things, all of those things can fall under sort of the widest version of accessibility, which is that it doesn't, you, you can't have belonging if somebody can't get in the door. You can't have diversity if somebody can't get in the door. So the first thing you have to do is make the space accessible.

Julie Harris Oliver: Okay. So let's talk about what does that mean, because I think people may have ideas of what accessibility means, but what does it actually mean? And you've did you create this job or you're, you're doing this job of helping sets become accessible. So let's talk about that.

Kiah Amara: So indivisible, we have a very specific framework and that framework is simplifying. So for us, we always use this sort of two sentence phrase, which is, accessibility is a state of easy engagement and accommodation is the flexibility that we [00:14:00] use to get there.

Julie Harris Oliver: Would you say, and they say that one more time.

Kiah Amara: Mm-hmm. Accessibility is a state of easy engagement and accommodation is the flexibility that we use to get there.

Julie Harris Oliver: Okay. Say more about that.

Kiah Amara: Mm-hmm. It is so easy. Again, this compliant mindset, right? The disability umbrella is huge. It's 25% of the US population.

Even me who, you know, I've been working in this since 2009. Engaging with tons of individuals in the community, engaging with the community at large on an international scale. I don't know everything that everybody needs. I don't have a solution for every space, and I never will, because every time I meet a disabled person, even if you know it's a hundred people who all have CP Cerebral Palsy, every single one of them can have a different need.

That's even a saying for, you know, autism and ADHD. You meet [00:15:00] one person with autism. You've met one person with autism.

Julie Harris Oliver: I was about to say that, so, yeah, exactly.

Kiah Amara: So you're like, it's true across the disability community though, not just for autism or neurodiversity, but everybody has their own unique experience of disability.

And to think that you can encompass 25% of the population in any one, you know, in any one bucket.

Julie Harris Oliver: Yeah. In any one bucket.

Kiah Amara: It is just, you know, it's, it's mind blowing to me that sometimes people think that that's even possible. So again, we were talking about like the mind, the bogging down, right?

That people get really overwhelmed with knowing the specific answers beforehand and like knowing oh A equals B, if the person comes in in a wheelchair, this is what they need and it just doesn't work that way at all. That for us, we always push people to, you know, you shouldn't be spending if you're, if you're a new producer, right?

And this is your first time working with disability community, [00:16:00] or you just wanna be more inclusive of disability in your set. A lot of times folks dive into, okay, let's go to the ada. What do I need to do? What are my legal rules? What are my very specific guidelines?

Julie Harris Oliver: Because it sounds overwhelming if you think, oh, I'm gonna have 150 people on my crew.

I have accommodate everybody's what? Where do I even start? I mean, that feels like a very simple, it has a list. I can do the checklist.

Kiah Amara: Yes, everybody always asks for the checklist. And for us, we always just start with, you just have to open a dialogue. That's really all it is. You send out an email that says, this production cares about your accessibility.

We care about this space being easy for you to engage with. Please what? Let us know what you need from us. And if you don't know, let's have a conversation and come up with a solution together. And that's really all it is, and everything else grows and builds from there. Of course, we [00:17:00] love disabled leadership because disabled folks are the ones who have spent their lifetimes figuring out accommodations for things, figuring out workarounds, figuring out how to come up with those accessibility solutions and those accommodation solutions.

It's why we only work with Disabled pacs, not only because they have the life experience to get it done. PACS are production accessibility coordinators. But the reason why we only work with disabled folks is because not only do they have the life experience to come up with those solutions, they have the community connections to know, oh, well, here's a solution that worked for a friend of mine.

Let's try that. Here's a solution that worked for a friend of a friend. Let's try that. But then they also were there to create a safe space for other disabled folks or folks with access needs to step forward and say, okay, I wasn't comfortable telling, you know, my executive producer that I have profound hearing loss on one side because I was worried that they wouldn't let me use a walkie-talkie and they wouldn't [00:18:00] hire me because they would think that I couldn't do the job.

But to you knowing that you're also disabled, I'm okay to go, Hey, here's my issue. Here's my disability. What's the solution that we can use? That's the same reason why we keep everything sort of, even if there's disclosure, we don't share disclosures, things like that. It's all just how can we be in dialogue to come up with the best possible solutions.

And again, all of the experience is still wonderful. Just like it's wonderful in any job, you know, I can come into a set and know oh, there's a temperature issue. Great. Here's three solutions for somebody who has, you know, an overheating issue. Regardless of if they have a disability, regardless of if they've told me about it,

Julie Harris Oliver: every woman in menopause would appreciate the temperature gone down a couple

matches.

Kiah Amara: Exactly. And that's, that's, that's a hundred percent. The thing is that we, we have been so focused just on disabled folks, and again, we still are as leadership and recognizing [00:19:00] that disabled folks are the ones who have been excluded from this space. But also recognizing that the whole industry just needs to shift and become more accessible in order to open that door for disabled creatives, disabled leadership, and disabled crew.

Julie Harris Oliver: So I would guess people's first instinct if they're new to this, would be, oh, we need to hire a production accessibility coordinator if I'm doing a show about people with disabilities. I'm guessing you would disagree

with that.

Kiah Amara: I would disagree with that. However, I'm not mad about it being a starting point.

And it a hundred percent is usually our starting point. It's folks who are in pre-production, just about to go into production, who are looking at their list of things going, oh, wait, wow. I actually don't know anything that's happening. I probably should have brought somebody in sooner who understands more of these, the, the details of, of how we can find solutions for the things that we're approaching.

But some of the most wonderful productions that I've been on are folks who it's not a disability themed [00:20:00] space. Maybe one of the lead creatives is disabled. And so they thought about accessibility, or it's somebody who has met me prior and was like, I just didn't know how accessibility might fit into this project.

So I wanna have a conversation about it. I wanna know what we can do. I wanna know what we can add. Again, whether you have a really small space and it's, you know, 30 people working on your short, or you have a massive series and it's a thousand people working on the project across multiple sound stages, all you have to do is remember that disabled folks are one in four, right?

25% of your space

Julie Harris Oliver: you have disabled people in your crew, you just may not know it,

Kiah Amara: right. They don't wanna disclose for you. They, there's been no reason for them to, you know, disclose that information when they're, it's likely on crew, especially for folks who are IATSE which is everybody who's sort of below the line crew.

Those folks are not used to being taken care of. They're used to being told power [00:21:00] through if Yep. They're used to being told, if you have the time to sit, you're doing your job wrong. You should be running around all the time. Which is the same reason why we have pipeline issues for disability, because so many of those entry level roles are not accessible to disabled people.

But those are the folks who we go in with a big focus on that. You're like, nobody wants to tell you they're disabled in that space because you won't hire them again. Not, not only will you not give them what what they need, you're not gonna hire them again. So there's been absolutely no reason for folks to identify as disabled.

And even for us, our data and experience has shown that when we do come into a production and we're getting folks' feedback, we start out with like 11 to 15% of folks identifying as disabled. And that percentage rises by the end of production. You have more people who are saying, oh, actually I am disabled.

Oh, actually I do identify with, you know, dyslexia or O C D or whatever it may [00:22:00] be. You know, chronic migraines, things like that, that all fall under the disability umbrella. But so many folks don't identify with the culture space because historically it has been more dangerous than helpful to do that.

Julie Harris Oliver: Yeah. And things like, I'm just thinking about the chronic migraine thing. You know, women are so conditioned to have their pain disregarded that we're just gonna work through regardless. I just heard about the UK having business accommodation for women in menopause.

Mm-hmm. So doing things like having fans on desks or having more flexibility depending on how people feel like that, that. It seems revolutionary also. Anyway. Two, kind of two tracks. I'd love to go down with you, like, I'd love to hear some like concrete accommodations that, that you help people with.

And also I wanna talk about representation on screen. So why don't we, why don't we first talk about accommodations that you, that you help people with. I'm curious, do you typically go [00:23:00] on set for the duration or for a consultation at the beginning or somewhere in between?

Kiah Amara: It can be a big swath of things.

So we're sort of in the place now where the work has progressed enough that because we've been in enough spaces in pre-production and production, folks are starting to realize, oh yeah, this would have been really useful. To think about this in development or, oh, it would've been really nice to keep you on in post and to talk about PR in marketing and what makes marketing accessible and what things reach the disability community and how does the disability community wanna be communicated with.

So now we've started doing, we're sort of expanding our timeline of a project. It used to be that we'd be brought in for, you know, a consultation in pre-production, and then we'd do a couple odd days of production. And usually it was days where there were you know, lots of disabled actors in the space, because of course, production still always think about their actors and their talent before they think about their [00:24:00] crew.

And now we've sort of expanded past that, where now we're doing our consultations in development and letting folks know in advance like, here's the things you should keep in mind. Here's the things that you wanna be aware of now that can make a big impact. Even in your audience engagement, you know, however many months or years down the line that might be for a specific project.

So that's really wonderful. Because again, it's not only we're expanding our work, but it's also people expanding their understanding of how accessibility and disability are really integrated into everything that we're doing. So I would say that's where we're at now.

It's usually, you know, a couple meetings, things like that in development. If it's a very disability heavy project, we might do more support in those sort of early stages and then on for most of pre-production and production and then a little bit of post and then again moves into the consultation in, in post and in marketing in pr, but always hoping to expand [00:25:00] that fully.

I think the thing that's really interesting now is of course pacs. So production accessibility coordinators. For Indivisible, those are specifically designed as a role that can have trainees, that can have PAs or PAAs production accessibility assistance, who work as a part of that team. And we're specifically building it as an entry point for disabled people to the space, right?

Because as I mentioned, PAs, those are really inaccessible positions because those are usually the people who are asked to run around the most, to do the most on walkies, to lift the most weight to all of these sorts of things that are not particularly accessible for a lot of different disabled folks.

So for us, we're creating a space where people can come in, have an entry level position, and also do a lot of good across all the departments. So specifically being a coordinator, [00:26:00] right? We didn't build this to be its own department. We built it to be something that integrates with every single department.

Mm-hmm. Because every department has its own connection to accessibility, whether that's wardrobe for talent or, you know, construction needs to make sure that they're building space wide enough for a wheelchair, whatever it may be. But we also always push right that so many people are bringing in disabled consultants as writers.

We're bringing in disabled consultants as consulting producers.

So Inevitable Foundation which is a nonprofit org that focuses on mid-career disabled writers, has some really wonderful tools and also some really wonderful articles, data research, all about how. Sort of folks creating different versions of writers or different versions of producers where it's, you know, they're creating a unique box in order to sort of underpay disabled folks in a lot of spaces when [00:27:00] really they should just be hiring a disabled writer.

And for our side of stuff that is, people should just be hiring a disabled producer, right? You should just be hiring a, as a producer, fun producer. Yes, as a producer. So that's sort of the space we're in now is that as folks see more and more purpose for production accessibility and sort of realize how much it's integrated into everything now our advocacy has sort of become, Great,

we would love to have a pack on your set. It seems like you have lots of needs for budgeting, for going through your scripts and making sure that you know, we always use the example of like, Did you need to choose a grass field for that? Or can it be, you know, a blacktop behind a school somewhere for that school festival?

Because one of those locations is very inaccessible and is gonna be very hard to get people around, and one of them is much more accessible. But all of that is just the creative work that a disabled producer can do. [00:28:00] And producers already have specific focuses. There are so many specialized producers.

So to bring in somebody who is a producer, who is just disabled, who has the ability to, you know, help with your line budgeting, help with your set accessibility, help with all the creative choices that will affect how accessible your space can be, is also so important, but is different from somebody who's just boots on the ground, coordinating your access, walking around set, making sure that that bathroom, you know, stays accessible and doesn't get.

10 boxes of, you know, toilet paper stacked in front of the door so that you can't get in it anymore. They're very different jobs with very different functions, and we're all here for, you know, building the careers of disabled creatives and crew.

Julie Harris Oliver: Great. Now, I've heard you talk in the past about looking at things from physical accessibility, you know, making sure that people can get around on a set and also which was new for me to hear [00:29:00] about accessibility.

Like how do you need your call sheet printed out or do you need it printed out, or how do you, the communication accessibility, can you talk a bit about that?

Kiah Amara: Yeah, so we always break this down into three pieces. When we're talking about accessibility. We talk about space, time, and communication. And that's another sort of framework for our simplification is that it's just, it's space.

Time and communication. So the communication piece of that is huge and is always the first thing that we're tackling. So when we send out our initial survey, the first piece of that survey is how do you want us to communicate with you? And that might be somebody saying, I need you to text me, or I need you to voice call me.

Or somebody who's deaf saying, dear God, don't voice call me. You can text me, or you can video call me and make sure there's ASL. So it's just all about starting that conversation around how can we, how can we listen and talk to each other in the best way that [00:30:00] works for both of us? So some of the things that happen in communication then like you mentioned with digital accessibility that's one of the first things that we usually tackle and that ask goes out in our survey because those are all free things that we can do really easily.

Again, as somebody who is a, you know, disabled producer in PAC in the Space, I already know how to do that. So if you hire me, you hire that skillset as disabled, creative or again, as production accessibility. So being able to turn something into dark mode, being able to switch something, a script that has to get printed out into a large print script.

Being able to say, okay, where do I need to go to get a braille script made? Where do I need to go in order to turn this into dyslexia accessible font, right? All of those things that are very small pieces, but can make a really big change for somebody. Sometimes that's as simple as like, oh, your email, if you can write it twice and post the second part in dyslexia accessible font.[00:31:00]

Right. It's all of those really, really tiny things that are free mm-hmm. That folks just don't think about as making a big difference. I'm a spoony, I have a chronic medical disability, so we talk a lot about spoons which is basically a measure of energy and how much energy you have to do things in a day.

And so we always just talk about all these tiny pieces are about just saving spoons. If I can make it easier for you to read this email or easier for you to read this script, then you have spoons. You have the energy to do a bunch of other things in your day that you need to do, and you're not wasting your energy trying to get around barriers that don't need to be there.

Julie Harris Oliver: What's a spoony?

Kiah Amara: So spoony is the community term for folks with chronic medical disabilities. And the term was designed because it's based on what's called spoon theory. Which again is sort of, it's a communication process that's used to describe chronic fatigue. So it's like disabled folks speaking to non-disabled folks [00:32:00] talking about chronic fatigue which is that everybody has a certain amount of spoonfuls of energy every day.

And so somebody who doesn't have a chronic medical disability or doesn't have chronic fatigue might have 10 spoons. And somebody who does, might only have five. And each task that you're trying to do in the day, depending on how complicated or simple that task is, takes a certain number of spoons.

So like eating breakfast might take one spoon and going to a doctor's appointment where you have to get an MRI might take three spoons. And if you overspend your spoons on one day, then you have even less spoons the next day. Which is a really great piece of what we talk about when we talk about time as accommodation, which is that crip time, which is the term for functioning within a time space that recognizes disability and different accessibility needs.

Julie Harris Oliver: What word did you just say?

Kiah Amara: crip time.

Julie Harris Oliver: Okay.

Kiah Amara: That, [00:33:00] that's, that phrase is specifically about recognizing accessibility in how we deal with time, which recognizes spoon theory as well.

And this is why we always focus on simplifying, cuz I can use a lot of words that are culturally relevant and that means something to the culture. But really it just means how much energy do you have and how much time does that mean it takes you to do things.

Julie Harris Oliver: I'm learning so much talking to you. I, I, I wish I knew about the spoony thing when I

was working in production and suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome. Mm-hmm. That explains the thing. Mm-hmm. Wow. Okay. And then so time might be the time it might take someone to get to set or the time it might take someone to do something that people don't think of. Cuz be on set in 30 seconds may not be a reasonable request of people.

Kiah Amara: Yes, absolutely. And I think the cer the super important thing about crip time too, recognizes things like New York. Working in New [00:34:00] York is a really great example of this because there are accessible buses, right? There's accessible transportation. And so everybody thinks that you can make it there in the same amount of time that it would take somebody to just walk out their door and hop on the subway and get to a location.

But most folks don't realize that only a very small percentage of the subway system in New York is actually accessible and has elevators and of that. Only a very small percentage of those elevators actually work. It's something like 25% of those elevators are down every single day.

Julie Harris Oliver: All the time.

And they're at the furthest end of the platform.

Yep. And if you're late, you can't be running between trains.

Yeah.

That all makes tons of sense.

Kiah Amara: Yep. And even if you do, you know, charter, one of the accessible buses or things like that, they're, they don't design their routes around you. So most disabled folks have to build in an extra two hours of leeway time to try and make it to their [00:35:00] location.

And they still don't have control over if that bus comes on time. So they're relying on a bunch of barriers working with them in order to make a certain schedule work. Which again, is, that's all part of the social model of disability is that, The expectation, right, is, oh, the wheelchair user, they're slow.

That's why they're here late. And you're like, no. The wheelchair users, they're late because they have access to a sixth of the transportation options that you have. And the one that you might think works the best actually takes an extra two hours and they don't have control over the driver. And also the driver just walked off the bus to go do something and they don't know what it is.

And on and on and on. So that it's all the extra time that it takes to get around those barriers and come up with creative solutions. And also the energy that it takes to come up with those creative solutions and go around those barriers.

Julie Harris Oliver: I mean, I'm exhausted just hearing

about it. Yes, it's, it's like, ah, it's so hard.

And also I get, just going back to language like that term crip time

doesn't feel like something I should

[00:36:00] say like that. Doesn't that, that feels like it sounds like a

derogatory term.

Kiah Amara: So the, the word Crip is obviously, it's a reclaimed word for the disability community that's based off of the term cripple.

I think much like the queer community, again, as I said, there's lots of, you know, comradery between queer community and disabled community. Much like their words in the queer community that have been reclaimed words. Disability community has that same thing. For words like crip time or crip rage.

Those are things that are terms that you can just reference. That being said, yes, you should not call anybody a Crip who hasn't self-identified that way. Yeah, you shouldn't, you know, that's very much a word as far as like using it as an identity term that's only used within the disability community. But things like crip time and Crip rage, at [00:37:00] least for me personally, I am always more than happy to hear people use those terms.

Because it's identifying again, it exists within the social model of disability. And what it's really saying is not only do you recognize this disability issue, but you also have the culture knowledge to know the disability terminology for it. And I think that's really wonderful. And cool.

Julie Harris Oliver: Okay. But you wouldn't wanna say like, oh, they're late. Crip time.

Kiah Amara: Like, I think it depends on your, your, your framework for that.

And again, if you are a non-disabled person, and if you are a straight, white, non-disabled person in a room full of straight, white, non-disabled leadership waiting on one, you know, one person, yeah. One disabled person to come in, it's all about your power structures, right? And if you can actually have a conversation with somebody and say, Hey, so there's actually a word for this.

There's, there's [00:38:00] a word for why this person is late all the time, and it's called crip time, and it's about all the barriers that that person has to face in order to get into this room. Then you can recognize that word in the really positive space that it is designed to occupy. Because again, you, you really have to recognize both the functional and the cultural side of that word.

Julie Harris Oliver: So context is very important.

Kiah Amara: Context is very important, yes.

Julie Harris Oliver: What is Crip rage?

Kiah Amara: So Crip rage is sort of twofold. Crip rage has to do with the anger that disabled people feel for having to deal with all the barriers in the world, right? So it sense it's specifically a rage at all the barriers.

It's a rage at ableism, it's a rage at all of those things. That's sort of, its most common use, right? It's just like crip time where you're like, it has a very cultural context [00:39:00] where you're like, it's, it's a rage against ableism that disabled people feel because we have to deal with it all the time.

The other piece of it that I really feel as Spoony and this is much more like, you know, a community held identity held thing, is that I experience Crip rage a lot when I want to do something. And my body on that day has decided too bad you can't.

Julie Harris Oliver: Enraging.

And

Kiah Amara: so, yep. It's a very specific anger that's about that or that's about, you know, disabled folks usually have a very, very high pain tolerance.

And so that, you know, one side of Crip rage being, when I'm interacting with a medical system and a doctor asks me for my pain level and I can say with a straight face, oh, it's like an eight. I'm often told, oh, it must not be because of how you're reacting. And that's a part of that sort of Crip rage space too, is I'm telling you who I am and what I am and what the experience [00:40:00] is and I'm not being listened to.

And also, you know, the personal side of it being, I'm trying to do something with my day or my body or, you know, I did wanna be at that meeting and now I've woken up and my knee's not working. Or, you know, I'm supposed to have a, a voiced interview and now my voice isn't working. So I have to either try and find an interpreter last minute or do you know?

It all spirals as well. But I think the thing that's, that's always important about it, it's all within that social model of disability where it's like, yeah, sometimes it's personal and disability related, but even with the medical, you know, my, my medical example, it's largely about the barriers that if it weren't for all those barriers, I wouldn't need to feel bad about the fact that I wanted to do this thing today and now I can't.

Or I wanted to do this, I wanted to work on this thing for my job today, and I can't. And part of that grip rage again is I can direct that anger at myself because I feel guilty, but all of that is, you know, ableism as well. So really it's this rage at, [00:41:00] you know, the ableist system that we live within.

Julie Harris Oliver: That reminded me of, I

just heard, you know, the new Michael J. Fox docu-series That's out. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. The director,

um mm-hmm. And he was talking about, one day Michael showed up and he was like, well, how are you today? And, and Michael's like, well, actually I'm in excruciating pain. And he was like, I had no idea.

He's like, well, I live with it every day and I just carry on.

He's like, what?

Kiah Amara: I think something. Have you, have you seen the film yet? I've seen, I think the first episode. So I think I, I saw, I saw it at the premiere at South by when Michael was actually there to talk as well, which was amazing. So cool to be in the same room as Michael J.

Fox. But part of that, that episode being too, that Michael's like, cuz he, he asked in the interview like, oh, why didn't you tell me? And Michael says, well, you didn't ask. And I think that's something too of accessibility at large, right? Is that anybody who has an accessibility [00:42:00] need is used to just handling it and doing what they need to do.

And I think something that's always important for folks to remember. Both on the disabled side and the non-disabled side is that people do want to help and support and make things accessible. It's just that the world is so big and diverse that a lot of times we're just not thinking about it at all.

And it doesn't remotely cross our mind that somebody is in pain or can't get in the room, but wants to be in the room or whatever it may be. That, that's such a, such an important thing. And I love that I can say that I'm, I, I get to echo something that Michael J. Fox said in my work, which is you can ask. I think that's why that communication piece and always just starting with open dialogue is truly, truly, if only one thing matters, it's that is you just have to ask.

Julie Harris Oliver: Yeah. Like, let, let's not force people to be heroic every day. Mm-hmm. Like, you can make these a little bit easier. Mm-hmm. And then can you just touch on the space part of it a [00:43:00] little bit?

Kiah Amara: Yeah. So space is a lot more of those things that you think of as sort of basic ADA, right? Where you're like, okay, according to the ADA, A wheelchair user needs 36 inches of space, you know, 36 inches wide and 60 inches to make a turnaround.

It's also things like, okay, sensory friendly space, what does that look like? Can we have a room where the lights are dimmable and where there's lower noise and we can put, you know, some sensory friendly objects in there, like headphones and whatever it may be to make those spaces more accessible.

Those are a lot more tangible. Anything that's space related is much more tangible but still includes that piece as well of like, the ADA is a fantastic place to start a conversation. And if you have the capacity and the finances and the time to rebuild everything so that it exists exactly to ADA Standard, amazing.

Do that and then do more. But. I know so many folks who are like, ADA is great. I would [00:44:00] love to have that. I don't, so how can I get, you know, a, a curb ramp that I can have right here so that even though this sidewalk doesn't have a curb cut, even though it legally should because the ADA is over 30 years old, it doesn't.

So now what do I do? And that piece again of like great start with the ada. If you can make that happen, perfect. Otherwise everything becomes a one-on-one conversation. Same with again, our accessibility spaces. If you can have your own independent room that you can use as sensory relief space, we always make a point to have that on every single one of our sets.

And we do a lot of ultra low budget, super small indie. It just matters what your priority is. And obviously prioritizing folks as wellbeing is something that we think everybody should do. But if you don't have it, then it's great. What can I keep in my fanny pack? Can I keep earplugs in my fanny pack?

Can I, you know, what else can I offer in the space? Can we have somebody who gives a [00:45:00] warning when there's gonna be flashing lights by the camera or for a scene that's happening on set? All of those things that have to do with how people engage with the physical space.

Julie Harris Oliver: Now can we talk a bit about representation and where we are on that journey?

Kiah Amara: Oh, yes. I think we're so much better. Again, as I said, starting out in 2009 and being used to, you know, folks being like, well, you are not disabled enough and you're too disabled. That still exists, but I think we have a lot more disabled leadership who's in the space a lot more. Folks who have been in the space for a long time who are now identifying as disabled.

And a lot more advocates who are super interested and excited about including disabled creativity in their projects. Luckily it seems like the authentic casting piece is pretty much a given now, right? Folks expect that if you're casting somebody for a disabled part, [00:46:00] that person should be disabled.

The term for that is if you don't cast authentically is actually called a crip up. So another place where that word comes back into play. So if you're casting inauthentically, a lot of times now that's sort of an automatic boycott from the community, so people will avoid that as much as possible, which is fantastic.

However, and again, Inevitable Foundation has some really great, you know, writing on this. We have also found that as disabled, like representation increases on screen, we haven't found an equal rise in disabled people identifying with those characters and saying, yes, that's me. As the characters have risen, the percentage is actually lower for folks saying it's an accurate representation.

And that's because we still really lack the behind the camera representation from disability.

Julie Harris Oliver: Okay. Let's unpack [00:47:00] that. So producers may say, oh, let's put a wheelchair using person in this show. Mm-hmm. Check, but perhaps they don't have a full backstory and authentic experience. They're just, I'm, I'm thinking of that character in Glee.

What was that kid's name? You know the one who would get up and dance?

Kiah Amara: Archie Arch Archie. Yeah. There's always memes about that wheelchair dive into the swimming pool. But it's, it's less that cuz it's really wonderful to see, you know, You have a procedural show and the nurse at the front desk is, you know, limb different.

Right. That's great. That's an under five role, meaning she doesn't have a lot of lines. Maybe she only says two lines in that entire episode, but disability was apparent in the space. It doesn't matter. That person doesn't need to have a backstory that that's actually a really common faux pa, and I dunno if that's the right word, but it's what my word, my, my brain is bringing up is that because disability has been [00:48:00] so underrepresented, a lot of times people avoid casting disabled folks in everyday roles because the cycle of misrepresentation the word for that too is the perception gap.

The perception gap is that, oh, there's a person in a wheelchair there, there must be a reason they're disabled. Like there must be, there must be a story about their bravery and an overcoming. And there can't just be like disabled people who exist.

Julie Harris Oliver: It does must be the main focus,

Kiah Amara: right? Disabled people are Passover for small roles because folks who are looking at it go, oh, perception gap.

Oh, if they see a disabled person though, there'll need to be a reason for them to be disabled. Which no disabled people just exist. We're just around,

just let them on the front desk. You don't have to do a deep dive,

Julie Harris Oliver: right? They can do whatever it is. But the other side of that being that when people do go after disabled storylines and wanna tell disabled stories, a lot of times you have a bunch of non-disabled people telling that story, [00:49:00] and that's how you wind up with situations.

I mean, I, I have a, a, a fantastic in front of the camera example, which is that an autistic actor who was cast for a role is relatively low need autistic person. So potentially a non apparent disability for some folks had to study Rain Man, which is a crip up. To perform autism the way the creatives wanted them to perform autism, even though they themselves are autistic.

And I think that's very true in, you know, background creative space too, right? Where we get these terrible, terrible representations like me before you and like music where there's no community input, it's just somebody who is still living in what's called the charity model in their head, right? They're saying, oh, I'll be a good Samaritan.

I'll tell a disabled story so that disabled people can see themselves represented on screen. [00:50:00] But if it's a non-disabled person who's writing the character, who's designing their story, who's controlling the lens of the camera, who's doing all of the work for you know what that story actually is, then whether or not you cast somebody who is authentically disabled to play that character,

you're still gonna have the disability community going, well, that's not my experience of being disabled, because again, you wind up with all these, these portrayals that the creative core of them is non-disabled and comes from a non-disabled lens, which is why again, that piece of like, okay, who's your disabled producer?

Who's your disabled director, who's your disabled writer? All of that is what we actually need when we talk about this word again, crip the lens. If you want a disabled lens, if you want a disabled story, you have to have the disabled creatives and production accessibility is [00:51:00] supposed to be there as a support for everybody.

Production accessibility isn't a creative tool to work around a bunch of non-disabled people who have decided to tell a non-disabled story and realized way too late that they're wildly off base. And you know, very lost in the perception gap of what disabled lives are really like. So that's sort of the big, the big push now, right?

Is just making folks realize that the perception gap exists and that they have been looking at disability and at disabled lives and at disabled people through the haze of this media perception gap that has existed for so long. And we have to get more disabled folks behind the camera. And again, that production accessibility is really just there to support that happening.

We wanna be there to back up the disabled writer, disabled director, disabled producer, and let them do the real creative work that needs to happen to see more authentic disabled stories.

We hear very parallel stories [00:52:00] with race and actors. Right. America Ferrara tells a story about she'd go to auditions and they'd be, have be more Latina.

She's like, I can't be more Latina than I am. I'm what I

am. Yeah.

Because I am that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

Kiah Amara: There's, there's lots of it that has to do with that multi intersectional piece too. Which again is a whole other, other podcast section, but since we're a queer TG and c disabled company, we talk a lot about that.

And as you said with the, the racial piece of it too, we just worked on another short with somebody who's an Afro-Latina, who's disabled who also cast a deaf Afro-Latina in their short just to play a random role cuz it was the right actor. And so the set spoke four languages, right? The piece itself was multilingual English, English, Spanish.

But we also had Brazilian Latinos who were speaking Portuguese and we had ASL as a part of the set space too, that [00:53:00] so many of those stories, right, are then, oh well this world can't exist because it's too many things at once and that's how media looks at it. And I have absolutely been,

Julie Harris Oliver: unlike the world.

Kiah Amara: Yep. I have absolutely been in rooms too where somebody's like, oh, well if they're black, we can't also have them be disabled. Or, oh, if they're trans, we can't also have them be lesbian. Like they have to be one or the other. Otherwise, it will overwhelm the audience and I think that's something we so have to get past like.

The audience is smarter than that and the audience wants more than that. And also we all have friends who come from very diverse intersectional spaces, even if we ourselves don't identify that way. Like you have somebody in your life who is that thing? I always love talking about getting to see everything everywhere, all at once for the first time.

Because that's a disability film, right? That's a neurodiversity film that's all about ADHD for as much as Yes, it is absolutely about family and generational [00:54:00] trauma and all of that. It's also about ADHD and the creatives have specifically said that, you know, ADHD was a part of this story and the functioning of the piece is like in allegory for ADHD and how the ADHD mind works.

And I do not have ADHD, but my husband does. And when I watched that for the first time, I just cried at the end of it cuz I was like, oh my gosh, this character is you. This is a hundred percent you. And nowhere in the film do they even say ADHD. Hmm. It, it just is, it just exists that way. And that's really what I wish we had more

Julie Harris Oliver: it j it just, we need to give audiences a bit more credit in general. We can handle it.

Kiah Amara: And just realize how diverse your audience is too. I always found it so funny that people are still like, ah, unless it is this white male superhero with a gun, no one will care about it or this story.

And I'm like I love a good you know, action movie, [00:55:00] you know, all of those sorts of things. But also, have you watched Queer Disabled, Afro Surrealism?

Julie Harris Oliver: Every audience is not the cis hat white male between 18

and 34.

Kiah Amara: Right? Well, and again, you're like, disability is 25% of the population.

We literally have the data on that being a trillion dollar untapped marketplace just from disabled people and people who know and are friends with disabled people. Because even if I am not a wheelchair user, I'm not gonna go see the Me Before You which poorly represents, you know, friends of mine. It doesn't even matter what the connection is.

If somebody in my community says, Nope, that's not me. Don't watch that. Don't support that, then I'm not doing it. So you're not just losing that person, you're losing all the people who know and care about that person and all the people who know what that space actually looks like and what that authentic space actually is.

Who can spot really easily that you're doing it wrong? [00:56:00] Yeah.

Julie Harris Oliver: So let's all be better and thank goodness you are around to help everyone do that. What have I not asked you about that I should have asked you about? Hmm.

Kiah Amara: I think that the only thing that I always love to spout off is just tons of people who are doing really, really great work.

I think that's a piece that we miss so often too, that people so often fall into, oh, well we really wanted this, but we couldn't find anybody. Hmm. Or there we really wanted this writer, this director, this actor to be authentic, but nobody exists yet. Which is also just not true. So, Jess, not sure. Not true at all.

And I, I already mentioned Inevitable Foundation. They're really wonderful. I work a lot with Respectability, which is another nonprofit org that has an entire alumni system and lab program for disabled creatives. That's directors, that's writers, that's producers. It's casting folks. It's tons of people.[00:57:00]

I also, I've worked with Ariel Baska a bunch who runs a nonprofit called ride the Omnibus. And we're actually doing another conference, which is called Accessibility in Horror, which is taking place July 8th and ninth. And that is entirely focused on, you know, disabled creatives on Cripping, the lens on why there's such a connection especially for queer disabled filmmakers to genre space and filmmaking and how that's a whole world in itself.

There'll be tons of disabled creatives who are speaking there as well. And Forward Doc is gonna be one of the folks who's helping out with that process as well. We're using some of their guidelines for our festival accessibility and the accessibility scorecard that Forward Doc did with the film festival accessibility group will be a part of that too.

So, so many things again, Forward doc Inevitable Foundation, respectability, ride the Omnibus. And those are just sort of a very small [00:58:00] smattering of the groups that are doing things. There's always conferences and talks and just so many things that are, that are taking place in the community that tapping in is, is really not, not hard at all.

And if you reach out to anybody, the community will connect you to everybody else in the community as well and say, oh, we're not the right fit for this, but you know, who you should talk to is that person over there. So just getting started, just getting started can make all the difference. Okay.

Julie Harris Oliver: We're gonna link to all those things in the show notes and then how can people reach you,

Kiah Amara: How to reach me. So you can find us at indievisibleentertainment.com. It's spelled like indie film, indie visible entertainment.com. We have a contact form on there. And that website includes tons of information about all of the, many, many things that we do.

Again, everything from actually producing content and doing a bunch of in-house stuff as a full production company to production, accessibility, [00:59:00] specific things to helping staff up. If you are looking for those writers, directors, producers casting all of that, all the way down to, oh, I need this captioned.

How do I do that? So really covers a wide range of stuff. We are always happy to do generals with folks. Just to sort of help start you on your journey of accessibility and disability culture, and you know where you should go next. We're, we're always very excited about that.

Julie Harris Oliver: Thank you so much Kiah Amara.

It's been so great to have you on the podcast.

Kiah Amara: So wonderful to be here. Thank you so much.