The Telus STORYHIVE Adventure !

“I don’t believe it… they accepted our proposal! We have $20,000CAN to make a documentary, and they know we are complete beginners!  How amazing is that???”

Early in 2023 we had been writing umpteen grants, covering The Whole Dyslexic Society’s objectives, one of which is to improve Outreach, to have people understand why dyslexia exists, what it is, and what to do about it. First point to make is that writing grants is exceptionally boring, tedious, and mostly unrewarding, hence the incredulity and the excitement.

STORYHIVE Telus provide production grants for short documentaries including training, mentorship and distribution on TELUS Optik TV in 2024…  In February 2023 they had said ”pitch us any short documentary ideas that you are passionate about” ... well that wasn’t too difficult and our working title became ‘The Need for NeuroInclusivity in Education and How’, so we pitched. Currently the title is ‘Who Knew? Everyone is Able to Learn’… but ‘who knows’ what it will be eventually.

They wanted our Logline:

Sue, the dyslexic mother of a dyslexic son shares a discovery, a little-known truth, that changed their lives for ever…. Everyone is Able to Learn.

Our Synopsis: Did anyone ever ask you how you think and learn? Do you think mostly with the sound of words or with pictures? Do you talk to yourself in your head; do you create an internal film when you read a book... do you do both? Why does it even matter?

Well, it matters to one third of the population who think in a different way to the way they are taught. They are incorrectly labeled learning disabled, when in fact, they are perfectly capable of learning. 

We ask what is dyslexia, is it a learning disability? Is it just reversing ‘b’s and ‘d’s, not being able to read or is it a gift?

Ironically, it is the current teaching system that contributes to the cause of many learning challenges… and all it offers the teachers is to advocate for more of what the children couldn’t do already, expecting a different result… which is the definition of……?

This was part of the Synopsis:

Sue Blyth Hall is on a mission. She is a passionate, empathetic woman with a strong sense of justice, who is dedicated to bringing about that change.  It is the education system that is disabled by a lack of understanding not the children.  For them, they are living with a misdiagnosis of a life-threatening disease... how can this continue?  She cannot stay silent.

Discovering her son was dyslexic launched her on a quest to uncover the truths and myths associated with many so-called learning disabilities.   Her dream is for everyone, especially parents and educators to know the truths she uncovered, so that every child can enjoy their learning experience and fulfill their potential… from day one to forever.

We had to create a  1 minute pitch video  -  I created the text and Laura, our Administrator, created the images.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rDexZI0hBc/

They could definitely see we were beginners 😊!

Apart from the first cheque getting lost in the mail, everything went very smoothly. They sent us a HUGE StoryHive Creator Content Kit, 94 pages (!) for us to read… obviously they had no experience of dealing with dyslexics who don’t like reading… 😊.  

First task is to create a Bonus Edition, basically a practice film.  Everything just fell into place, as it does, when it’s meant to happen… Wendy, Sue’s TEDx coach helped with the script, Josh, a friend of Julie Brewer’s is a film-maker, Rob, a lawn bowling friend of Sue’s, a retired radio broadcaster led the interviews. The young man who designed Sue’s book cover designed the artwork for the thumbnail.  With just the location to go… the most wonderful couple who own Millstone Farm and Organics, just around the corner to Sue, offered to close their farm shop for the morning, and allow themselves to be completely disrupted and rearranged for the filming.

We kept it simple for the Bonus film.  Sue, and a very articulate Emily Tucker (a students’ mother) had a conversation led by Rob. The filming day was magical, the farmhouse shop has the best energy, there was plenty of laughter and plenty of material for the bloopers!

We all learned many lessons, met the deadline and prepared for the next stage; the Main Edition for which we were given a fabulous mentor from the National Screen Institute, Maureen Levitt. She is SO experienced and so gentle with this Steven-Spielberg-in-training.  She found us a Director, Kelly Conlin of NiceLady Productions and guided Sue to create a ‘treatment’ which does sound medical, but its really a game plan. Several attempts later it was good to go and then the Production Schedule, Characters and Locations needed to be secured.

‘Who Knew? Everyone is Able to Learn*’ is made possible with the support from TELUS STORYHIVE, and will be available for free on TELUS Optik TV in 2025.

*We have had several working titles, the latest one is ‘Who Knew? Everyone is Able to Learn’