The internet is a beautiful place. It has no borders and the mainstream doesn’t reign as much as it does in the real world. Please post your films online and get your voice out there! Film festivals are great avenues as well. There are awesome resources online for getting your films in festivals and getting them out to a bigger audience!

If you have any work that you have online or could post please send it my way! I can link to it here and also get more information for you about getting it out there.

The process is long and slow but there are ways to have your voice heard. I’m listening, let’s talk!

The Philippines and Santa Cruz, California aren’t too close but they don’t have to be far either.

Thank you so much! This made my day. I just bought myself a cup of coffee so I'm going to say you bought it for me in spirit. I don't always feel like the best of creatures so your words have made me very happy. Thank you :)

First can I say you are a lovely person for striving to support her and her dreams. There are so few blind people in film and the amount of female directors leaves a lot to be desired. That's really scary for people like her and I but it can also be fuel to fire passion. We are a small few now but the more we work and the more we create, the better the situation will become and the more people will be inspired to pick up a camera despite their eyesight or their gender.I'm sure you are already supporting her in her dreams from the way you phrased your question but I can talk more about the subject. Generally let her know that eyesight should never get in the way of what she wants to do. Seeing in a different way makes films better, more enlightened, more thought-provoking, more memorable. Always be willing to help her with her art and her goals but don't assume she needs extra help because of her eyesight. Be receptive and listen to what her needs are, most blind people I meet want friends and family to be there to help them but overall want to be independent and not constantly have their hand held. This is different for everyone though, so make sure you know what she wants help with and what she wants to do herself. This is tricky but kind and honest communication is key.Lastly, be an advocate for her. Her work will show that she can do what she loves and do it well, but you can also help make that known. Share her work with people you love, talk with her about her process and her ideas, always defend her abilities over jerks who discriminate.I wish her all the luck in the world and respect her so much for walking along the same harrowed path that I do.If she is interested in talking with a fellow blind filmmaker or would even be interested in collaborating along the way, please have her send me any contact info she feels comfortable giving out (I would keep the info private and not post it on the blog). There are so few of us, it would be lovely to connect.

My story has 21 years of weird experiences and adventures but here is some of it in short:I was born sighted with a genetic timer that waited until I was about 4 or 5 to start killing off the cells in my retina. I spent the next ten years adapting to my surroundings as I was expected to, not knowing that my experiences were vastly different than the people around me's were.I grew up around visual artists and story tellers, from my father who pioneered many fields in visual art to the talented artists that surrounded me in childhood to the amazing work that I consumed. With all this inspiration I decided at the age of 11 that more than anything I wanted to make films. I loved filmmaking even before that but after that I was determined.Then when I was 15 years old, for the first time in my life, a man in a lab coat told me that my experiences were different and that I wasn't just making things up. After ten years of optometrists telling me I was lying and just wanted glasses, after ten years of convincing myself I was selfish and wanted to see more than a normal person could, there was finally an eye doctor who looked at my eyes and told me they weren't working in the same way a normal eye does.At this point I was already going to an art magnet high school and working on a concentration in film. Despite my disappointment that I would never get to drive (which was a big one), I felt so happy to have finally earned the title blind. I held it with pride and it took me awhile to even realize that some people might take my eyesight as a sign I couldn't make films.I continued to make films every year of high school. Got my diploma and my certification in film and headed to UC Santa Cruz. For the past three years I have enjoyed an exceptional film program here at UCSC, where I can make countless short works and learn from amazing professors.My eyesight gives me a unique experience that I only wish other people could understand. One of my biggest inspirations was my grandfather who passed away before I was born. He was blind from the age of 5 and he still graduated from Harvard and became a well respected rocket scientist.Since I've been diagnosed I've absolutely suffered discrimination. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said I suffer it every day. Though I've also had so many people who have inspired me, respected me and supported me. I try to take all of the positive words and allow them to give me strength to fight the negative ones.We are survivors, we have to do twice as much fighting but we still find our way to our goals.Now it's your turn! How did you cope with going blind? How did you still achieve your dreams? What are the best parts and the worst? What's some advice you have to people who are going blind and still want to do what they love?I will post your answers and your stories here if you send them my way.

I try to create films from my perspective.  I like to do most of the work, I write my own stuff, direct, film and edit.  I'm interested in films that are from my perspective specifically since it's different than so many peoples. I'm interested mostly in independent work, I can work with other people but my visions are always very clear and I want to create them within my own means.  I do have trouble getting things in focus on a camera to be perfectly honest but as long as I'm creating something that is beautiful to me then I'm sure someone else can find it beautiful.  I love composing shots and I tend to put the camera in a place where sighted people wouldn't necessarily put it.

I could go on for days about the content of my films but mostly I like making films that feature the less featured people of this world.  I'm less interested in the average and overdone heroes, I like complicated stories about people who are more realistic and less represented.  I want everyone to see themselves in my films but especially people who never get to see themselves so blatantly.  I know I never saw a young blind girl in film, I want everyone to have a chance to see someone with their unique struggles.

As for cameras, I tend to use the different cameras provided for different classes at my University.  Each class has a different camera available to students, so I've gotten to use a Sony EA50, NEX-FS100, PMW-EX1 and a Panasonic HMC150.  When I'm not making something for a course I just use a Canon T3i since it's a lot cheaper.

No doctor was able to diagnose me for ten years of my life. I have a disease called Stargardt's disease. It's pretty uncommon (1 in 10,000 Americans have it) and hard to diagnose. It's a form of macular degeneration that appears in young children which is quite rare.There is so little help for people without a diagnosis and that can be extremely difficult when young. I had to live like a sighted person for so many years and was expected to do so much that I couldn't do.If you (or anyone on here) ever have any worries about going blind with or without a diagnosis please message me and I can privately or publicly answer any questions you have. It's a difficult thing to live through and I wish that I had more support even now.Also I study Film at UC Santa Cruz. So there you go, I'm loosing my eyesight and I'm still getting A's in all of my film production classes (making movies is my concentration in my major and also my favorite thing in the world). I love making films so much and though people have told me it's not the best choice for me, all the support and respect for my art was what really stuck.Just because we can't see doesn't mean we can't thrive. I'd love to hear more of your accounts of going blind. If you send me stories I'll post them here on the blog.

I do a lot of Mac related accessibility features but honestly I find that most of the popular sites have terrible accessibility features. Honestly if you find a better blogging site with better accessibility features I'd love you to link it to me. I might move over there so more visually impaired users can view my blog and communicate.

As someone who also suffers from a myriad of mental disorders (to which I will not detail in such a public forum), I both sympathize and have great respect for your sister.  It is difficult for people like her and I to achieve what we want to achieve and anyone who is able to do it has my utmost respect.  Though personally I get quite hurt when someone compares my vision to another person's.  I was told my vision was fine for so long that once someone finally believed me, I was quite proud to identify as a visually impaired individual.  Please don't take that away from me or belittle me.  I was brought up around sighted people and was told I myself was sighted.  This lead to the way I act and the way I interact with my surroundings but unless you want me to magic over my bad vision to you, please don't assume I see in a certain way or that anyone has vision worse (or better) than mine.  

I am out to make my dreams happen as well and if your sister had a crowdfunding site too, I would muster up my lack of funds (I am a college student after all) and I would support someone like her, carrying out her dreams despite great adversity.  Honestly, I'm not about a sliding privilege scale, if we empower those with less privilege, we'll get a lot more done than shaming random people with more.

So please, support your sister in everything she does to make the world a better place.  And maybe spend more time doing that than commenting anonymously on young woman's tumblrs.

-Sky

I like to think that nothing will ever take me down and I can do whatever I want even though I'm blind.  But then I have a friend who works at Dominos and gets me an interview there and the hiring manager straight off the bat tells me I can't work there the second I mention that I'm blind.  I always I assumed that I couldn't be in the military or be an astronaut but that didn't faze me because I've always wanted to be a filmmaker and never wanted to put myself in dangerous positions to make history, I wanted to make history behind a camera.  Though when people start telling me I can't work at entry level jobs, I started to realize how hard it is for me to get work in a sight-obseessed world.  So far, most people have been inspired by my willingness to make films despite my disability but I imagine I'll suffer a lot of discrimination along the way.  But honestly what's success without some struggle.  So I guess there are a lot of things I wanted that I couldn't do, but the most important things are always worth fighting for.

Hey Anon!

Today I’ve decided to do just that.  I can answer the questions I’ve received in the past while, over the next few days but people need to keep them coming.  Also I hope to write some post just about life and my experiences.