Elliot Hedley: Disability Advocate One Song and One Documentary at a Time
Description
The disability community must have self-advocates. Meet Elliot Hedley, budding songwriter, filmmaker, and screenwriter on why being a voice for his community is so important.
TRANSCRIPT
Elliot Hedley: Disability Advocate One Song and One Documentary at a Time
Welcome back to DDA's Encouraging Abilities podcast. I'm your host, DDA Communications Manager, Evan Kelly. Now with me today is a friend of the association, Mr. Elliot Headley. Elliot is an extremely creative self advocate who creates music and films, which we're gonna talk heavily about. Having studied film at Capilano University, he uses his craft and abilities as a tool for advocacy.
Navigating life with cerebral palsy, he dedicates himself to uplifting the voices of individuals with disabilities. His commitment extends beyond the screen. He actively participates as a peer mentor in the possibilities...
Social Media Fellowship. Now Possibilities is another organization here in the lower mainland that supports people with disabilities. He operates his YouTube channel Red Fighter Productions 96 where he showcases some of his advocacy work and music. So Elliot, happy to have you here today. Thank you very much. Okay so Elliot, tell me a little bit more about yourself in terms of the music and film and stuff. So film, like it's not a film. Film
I became like, well, as a kid because my parents both are in the film industry. So yeah, so it's a whole big family thing. Oh, wow. So what did your parents do in the film industry here? Was it here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, originally my mom was from London, so they costumed theater, right, make costumes for theater, originally. And then she transitioned to like costumes for film.
And my dad does props, same as my brother. So they build me props, like guards knives, et cetera. So. That is, so your brother does props as well. Yeah. That's really, you're right. That really is a family affair. Is it just you and your brother? I have a few more brothers, but they don't do the same thing as me and my brother. So you have a few more brothers. How many kids are in your family?
Um, so there's me, Jack, Eden, and Lee Baxter, about four of us. Cool. So, yeah, to their families, but yeah. But that's interesting that you're all involved in that. That must make it fairly easy for your mom and dad. Did they work together? I don't know if they're retired now, but do they work together on films and stuff? They used to, together. Yeah.
uh... the laughing but that did was got to know and now my mom is a off-duty so she is trained to do fifty without all our while is in the end uh... is that for physical disabilities or any sort of range of disabilities well it's what you would just a few non-disabled
I presume. Oh in July, oh wow, still working on it, that's amazing. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, we got distracted talking about your parents there, let's talk about you again. So you've grown up with cerebral palsy your entire life, how was that for you? At first it was tricky because people didn't understand me and even though the cerebral palsy is fixed in speech and physical
this phase. So, yeah, I did go to speech therapy for that. And also, thanks to my mom again, she got me a game called Rock Band. I think you've heard about it before. Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah. So, the doctor said, oh, you're not going to be able to play guitar or do anything with your back hands. So I started playing like...
locked down to my left hand, like, it's okay, not doing anything big, but then over time, it was from like stuck in this one position to I can actually play notes.
Mm-hmm. Well, of course you can play notes. I've got video of you playing in a bass guitar. We'll get more into that a little bit later. Yeah, and so your musical aspirations started on rock band. That's kind of cool. Yeah, I think people nowadays ask, what is rock band? It's a 2000's thing.
That was before, that was after my time I'm afraid. You see, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you, because I myself, I'm a musician, I've been playing drums for 40 years, maybe even longer, I'm not even sure.
And so you and I definitely have that connection. And so, okay, so you fast forward from rock band, did you, before going to university or anything else, did you transition into an actual instrument? And I don't mean to offend people who use rock band, but it is not an instrument. So I first started on guitar. So I was guitared and halfway in my...
say halfway in high school I transitioned to bass because I went to Sarah McLachlan School of Music. Oh yeah wow. Yeah so that helped train like local Eastman artists like myself to get more trained in the arts. So what was it like going to the Sarah McLachlan School of Music?
amazing is a meeting connections and people know each other is you all from the east side and how big of a school is that i'm not even sure about that uh... they get the football field though it is a very every hopefully have to speak three hours a year
What is the thrust of that school? I mean you were taking guitars so do they just offer a whole bunch of different musicians? Do they offer composition? Like what's the kind of thing? They do like vocals, they do drums, there's drums out there. Singing, songwriting, bass, etc.
and DJing too if you want to be a DJ. DJ. That's for another conversation. And so from there you went to Capilano University? Yeah. I literally went there 2016, so that's three COVID years and
I was the only guy with cerebral palsy in the group, so it was like, it's kind of like awkward moments, so, so, what do you have, like, what's your story? I said, okay, here's my whole backstory to my classmates. They said, oh, you have some, excuse my language for you, you have some really dark shit.
So in terms of going to either Sarah McLachlan school or even Capilani University again, going to these schools as a person with a disability, how did you feel like inclusion was? How did you feel? Did you feel accepted? Yes, Sarah McLachlan is going to do that one first.
And for me, because usually with a guitar, you have to use all your fingers, like, oh yeah, left hand or your right hand. But for me, I only can use three fingers. Okay. So I'm like my own unique style of playing. And that shows some extreme adaptation. Like, that wouldn't be an easy thing to do for anybody. No. No. No. Even for you, who's a drummer. Oh, it's impossible for me as a drummer.
I have never picked up a guitar really in my life but And and so so you got through that that transition working with with three working fingers And how did that change your approach to the guitar and songwriting or just playing? For me so if you give me a music sheet I won't even cannot read music sheets. I just like make things
like as any artist, they make art from anywhere. So if you gave me MC Sheets, I would be like, I can't read this, but I make lyrics, that's what I do mostly. Yeah. Yeah, that is a good bunch of my years doing music.
then for Cap U, I want to like follow my footsteps in my family. But I know being kind of a disability is a tricky thing in the film industry. So. Now you, now you went to Capilano University for film, correct? Yeah, for film, then I transitioned to documentary after like halfway points because
I failed, not failed, I didn't graduate from motion picture. But they asked me if they wanted to do documentary. I said, yeah, so I went for it every year. So I graduated from that. And so you finished, you've got your degree and everything like that? I got a certificate. Oh, okay, okay. Saying I'm a documentary filmmaker.
Oh, I gotcha. Gotcha, okay. And I was gonna, you know, one of my questions is, you know, what got you into film? Well, your parents, probably. Yeah. So, that's... Yeah. And so, are you able to sort of, obviously you're passionate about music because we can even, we're gonna jump a little bit more into that. Yeah, of course. So how do you, these are two passions of yours, filmmaking and music writing. Do you bridge those two or do you keep them separate?
Like right now, I own a project. It's for people with disabilities. It's about artists who have disabilities and do art. And I asked some possibilities to do directing. And I said, do you want me to do some music? Just maybe in the background? And they said, yeah, yeah, that would be awesome. So...
I'm making some music for them and directing their project. Oh nice. Yeah. Still don't have a working title yet but... And that's for doing some background music on some... Was that a documentary or something? Yeah, documentary. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And so, Till, like, the band Lakewood Grey, can you tell me a little bit about that? So...
During COVID, everyone was super isolated and they were bored out of their minds. Yup. I started playing music like, not every day, just like every few days. And then I called out some of my old high school mates from back in the day, and they were like, hey, do you want to make a band? So we made an online band for a few years.
I started writing this song and I like
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