THISABILITY
19 Camellia Place
London
&nbs p; TW2 7HZ
7th March 2007
Dear Sir/Madam,
Following the recent success of the Children’s BBC Drama ‘Desperados’, I am hoping to launch an agency to represent people with various disabilities and raise their profile in the world of film and television.
To fully understand the reasoning behind doing all of this, first let me tell you a bit about myself. My name is Diane Kasperowicz and I have worked in the film industry for eight years as a Second Assistant Director. One of the many and varied parts of my job is to source the supporting artists and in the case of ‘Desperados’ I had to find 7 opposing disabled basketball teams for the shoot. (This was a mammoth task in itself and I would at this point like to say a huge ‘thank you’ to all of the national basketball teams and individuals who helped me)
Whilst this industry seems fairly large in scale, it is indeed small in personnel and now it seems whenever anyone is looking for someone with a disability, they call me. Since September I have provided disabled artists for productions such as ‘Chucklevision’, ‘Holby City’, ‘The Margate Exodus’ and most recently ‘Land Enemy’ which is currently in production.
Which brings me back to the point of this letter!..
As far as I’m aware there are only two agencies that represent people with disabilities and they seem to have a limited number of people on their books. Whilst I do not intend to be a rival to these companies, I aim to work with them - raising awareness and actively seeking work for people with disabilities within our industry.
Our Agency is split into two categories – Supporting artists (or extras as they are more commonly known) and Main Artists (for more serious acting roles). There would be no joining fee nor monthly subscriptions. Our Agency will run as a normal artist agency meaning a small percentage of the daily rate will be deducted from the artist. This is standard practise and will be taken out at source, however, because of the way the industry works, I cannot guarantee that everyone will immediately get work – indeed it may be a lengthy process in the initial stages. My main objective is to raise awareness and create opportunities.
THISABILITY is in it’s infancy as I write this but I am confident that in a very short space of time, I can provide people with a variety of disabilities, new opportunities which they never had before and open new doors for them.
Promotion and advancement is only my first step in trying to change people’s perceptions towards hiring people with disabilities and I intend to relegate to the past, the common practice of using able bodied actors in disabled roles.
I am hoping that you will be able to assist me by talking to people associated with your organisation and passing on my details. Or I could send you some fliers to put up if you could forward me your address.
We are interested in representing anyone from any background, any age with any form of disability who has a keen interest in becoming an actor or supporting artist.
People should contact us on 07847 473 641 or send an email to filmagency@yahoo.co.uk and we will forward them an application form.
Many, many thanks for your cooperation, help and most importantly your time.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Warm regards,
Diane Kasperowicz