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first-post Hi, new member here

G

george38

Hi, I'm a retired professional set designer who worked mostly on theme park and live theatre projects, with a bit of TV and a few other types of venues. Most recently I taught production design and related subjects for five years at a program for adults on the autism spectrum who wanted to work in the film industry.
 
Hello!

Love hearing from someone who taught people with autism. I'm autistic myself and it feels like there's a distinct lack of autistic people working in the industry for some reason.
 
When I was invited to join the staff, I had absolutely no idea what autism was, except for occasional "Hollywood-inspired" thoughts. Since there was no training, I decided to just treat my students like they were college freshmen and see how it went. It went fine for the five years I was there, although of course I had to adjust a bit with some people. But overall I didn't see much difference in their engagement and motivation than I did when I was teaching college freshmen while in grad school.

Based on my own experience, I have to think a lot of resistance is due to just plain ignorance.
 
george38 said:
When I was invited to join the staff, I had absolutely no idea what autism was, except for occasional "Hollywood-inspired" thoughts. Since there was no training, I decided to just treat my students like they were college freshmen and see how it went. It went fine for the five years I was there, although of course I had to adjust a bit with some people. But overall I didn't see much difference in their engagement and motivation than I did when I was teaching college freshmen while in grad school.

Based on my own experience, I have to think a lot of resistance is due to just plain ignorance.
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I can see that sadly. I haven't managed to break into the industry yet but even with normal jobs I've found it's better to keep the autism hidden and hope that they don't notice there's something different about you. Shouldn't be like that though.

When I've tried applying for jobs in film and television, one issue I have found is with accessibility. There aren't enough remote positions to accommodate anyone with a disability who may not be in a position to relocate, and I get that not all jobs can be done from home, but things like logger work and general production admin can be.
 
Welcome to indietalk, george.

I have spent a big part of my career in theme park and live entertainment. It
was always a great back-up gig when my movie work wained. And I have a
friend in entertainment who is autistic. He calls himself the "Artistic Autistic"
 
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