MISSION STATEMENT

Our Mission is to grow and perpetuate a positive, recognizable brand of products by creating and producing quality entertainment that is content-specific, featuring characters with a disability, authentic by hiring actors with the same or similar disability and universally appealing to attract mainstream audiences and thereby be a main force in “Breaking the Hollywood Stereotypes & Ending the Discrimination of Characters and People with a disAbility.”

Our products, feature length motion pictures, short films, television and supporting services all feature 3 elements that are rarely and in most cases never are combined in the same project.

The first element is obviously content-specific, meaning that they all feature, in the starring roles, a character with a disability. In addtion and strongly related is the characters and the stories (the screenplays - plots of the movie) are non-stereotypical. They do not center on the disability. In some cases it makes up more of the persons' character then in other cases as people with a disability are as diverse as society as a whole.

The second element is being authentic. THe stories are written and the films are directed by a person with a disability. Current projects have the founder and president, Larry N. Sapp II fulfilling those roles. In the future, as Abilities United grows others will also have those responsibilities. But in all cases, the writer will be a person with a disability giving an authentic voice to the stories and the actor will have the same or similar disability as the character tehy are portraying. This provides authenticity like no other motion picture or television program.

The third element is universal appeal. The motion pictures and television programs produced will have an appeal to a wide general audience as part of the goal of changing the stereotypes is so the general population will see beyond the disability and right into the person. This can only happen if the films are interesting and entertaining to attract a wide- general audience based on usual factors of genre and ratings.

Although most previous attempts by well-meaning able bodied persons to create movies with the same theme of the featured character having a disability, has had one or two of these elements and would be content-specific and/or universally appealling at best. But none have all three elements as Abilities United Productions' provide.

Service

By the nature of our products, Abilities United provides for a very much needed service of hiring those who are discriminated in the industry because of their disability. The more prominent the disability the more discrimination. This is admitted by the industry through a report published by the Screen Actors Guild in 2005 and yet not much if anything has changed since then. Abilities United does make a difference and will hire those with the same or similar disability as the role they are hired for. and in some cases to be cast in roles that are supporting and may not have had the specific description of a character with a disability showing all in the industry that actors can portray many different roles whether they are able bodied or have a disability.

COMPANY VISION

Abilities United Productions will be a highly visible motion picture and television production company known for producing unique, top quality entertainment products enjoyed by a broad audience, bringing an authentic voice & representation of those with a disability. The future of American popular culture will have actors with a disability known as household named celebrities and within the motion picture industry as a participant in the turning point for characters on the screen, for actors and people behind the scene with a disability. Movie audiences will recognize and appreciate the difference of authentic entertainment versus the well-intentioned products produced and acted by those who have never had a disability. The discrimination and perception by the industry that performers with a disability can only be hired for roles specifically written as characters with a disability will be a memory in the past. American cinema expands to include the content-specific, authentic and universally appealing movies from a variety of production companies and studios as movie ticket consumers no longer label the actors or the characters as disabled and future generations will be able to realistically achieve their dreams of having a career in the motion picture and television industry regardless of disability. 

It is amazing how most of Hollywood and even those in the media reporting on the industry ASSUME there are plenty of voices and representation of those with a disAbility and that there plenty of programs that help those with a disability in the motion picture & television business - but there is not. Click here to read the truth!

The only industry study on those with a disability was commissioned by the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and published in May 2005. Complete with recommendations it is surprising that virtually nothing has changed. Obviously Hollywood is not affected by such reports of blatant discrimination as other industries. Read the Executive Summary by clicking here.

Abilities United is founded on the works that were created by its founder and president, Larry N. Sapp II who is a spinal cord injury survivor and therefore is paralyzed from the mid-back down due to a fall in 1995. To learn more or to just get to know Larry read," Larry's Bio."

The Stereotypes
Most of the movies in the past that did feature a character with a disability all centered around the trauma of first becoming disabled, surrounded by political agendas, or be predictably inspirational.To break these stereotypes, Abilities United has developed projects that feature characters and stories where their disability struggles are not the plot but merely a part of who they are as a person, such as their sex, race or creed.

Click below for a Featured Actors with a disAbility page and for a personal thought or two in the blog section!