Innovative film school, Inclusion Films, trains adults with special needs for jobs in the entertainment industry through a vocational program that focuses on gaining independence and communication skills.
Ray Martino was best friends with Joey Travolta, brother of John Travolta, growing up. Joey Travolta spent his early years as a performer and actor, and worked as a special education teacher turned director/producer before founding Inclusion Films in 2006. A year earlier Travolta produced a documentary Normal People Scare Me with an autistic teenager who acted as the movie’s director. Through his unique professional experiences, a novel idea was born. He founded a revolutionary film school to train adults with special needs such as autism, Down syndrome, and cerebral palsy for jobs in the entertainment industry. Martino signed on as artistic director and director of classes without hesitation. Martino was illiterate in his formative years, but that did not stop him from becoming a seasoned actor, writer and film professional. He wanted to help his friend in his mission to change the lives of creative adults with special needs and prepare them for real life experience in the workplace, even Hollywood. Martino said, “We wanted to work with adults, give them help with connections, and start a formula where we would work with guys and girls of special needs and take them to the next level.”
Inclusion Films Practical Film Workshop attends to adults with developmental disabilities as a “vocational program” for basic film production skills. Students work with entertainment industry professionals, produce films from start to finish and learn every aspect of the creative process. Martino stresses that more than anything, learning these trades are a method to teach students confidence and courage in pursuing their dreams and being able to potentially gain employment in the field of their choice.
Students attend the film school Monday through Friday for a five-month semester where they learn filmmaking hands on. “Not only are they involved in all facets and specialties, their communication skills become one-hundred percent better and they are learning a trade,” according to Martino. Line producer and production manager at Inclusion Films, Bill Dion expressed that the students are not the only ones doing the learning, “Each day I come in expecting to teach the students something new, only, in the end to have them teach me.”
With headquarters in Burbank, California, Inclusion films hosts a second location in Bakersfield and summer programs across the country. Associate producer for Entertainment Tonight and The Insider, Laura Pierson, participated in a guest speaker workshop where she engaged in a question and answer session with the students. She says of faculty member Martino and his pupils, “He has done so much and given the students at the school such a shot at success. I love going there, all the students are such an inspiration to me.” Pierson insists that programs like this are important to be a part of because they raise self-esteem, “Even though you have some challenges doesn’t mean you can’t be a winner.” Martino says industry professionals like Pierson are brought in because film students can relate to them on the level of people also working their way up.
The students work as a team to create two short films and a major thesis film project throughout the semester while acting as a production crew. Students get to develop their natural talents such as animation, camera operation or set design. All of the students participate in writing and get a chance to learn about acting through the creative process of film production, which introduces them to a multitude of related fields from cinematography to art direction.
Some students aim for internships in production companies while others have gone on to work in the entertainment business, even starting their own ventures. Martino explains that even though not everyone will work in entertainment, they ultimately come out of the program with experience and completed products of their endeavors.
Most recently the students are producing a commercial for a canine companion project training program. Former student Tyler Norman, who has Asperger’s syndrome, wrote and directed 2009’s “Spud” about overcoming bullying, which won multiple festival awards. Alumnae Michael Cooney started the production company, Team Diversity Media, and works with students from Inclusion Films. Using their Hollywood connections to bring in industry professionals such as veteran actor Joe Mantegna to speak with their students and other accomplished filmmakers to mentor is a formula that is breaking ground for everyone involved and Hollywood.
