I finally did it! Last month after nearly 4 years of hard work, after 4 years of blood, sweat , and tears, I announced to my friends and family that The Wheelchair Chronicles was finally completed. At the time of that announcement, I didn’t know how to feel about it being all over. I didn’t know how to put my feelings into words so you all could understand where I was coming from. Sure I was joyous about this huge accomplishment in my life, but that was pretty much it. Now that I’ve had time to take it all in, I can now share my feeling in deep context than I could when the film was finished.
Let me tell you, this has been a wonderful journey for me but when I started it was completely different. In February 2012, I had no clue what I was doing. I had decided a month earlier that I was gonna focus the direction of The Wheelchair Chronicles from telling stories of people with disabilities to telling my story. I was worried because one, I had never worked on a film, let alone a documentary in my life. Second, I wondered if my life was too boring and that no one would care if my story was told or hell, no one would watch me tell my story. I didn’t wanna go through the process of working on this and no one not giving a damn when it was all finished.
As I started my journey I was getting guidance from of one my professors at DePaul who had experience in filmmaking and that helped this first timer out immensely. I got a lot of early support from my friends and family at DePaul, my professors, my family, and my mom. That gave me the motivation to keep going. People were actually excited when I would tell them of my progress, I couldn’t believe people wanted to hear my story and felt like telling my story would help a lot more people with disabilities. To be honest, that was a heavy burden for me at times because I felt I had a responsibility to share my life with the world, to change people’s perceptions of people with disabilities, and to be an ambassador/advocate in the disability community.
As time went on, I started to embrace how I was going to present this film. I wanted this film to aid in how able-bodied people viewed the disability community, and to change the beliefs that able-bodied people had of us through misrepresentations of disabled people in the media. I felt that I could help in contributing to that change and let my voice be heard. In the last two years of this film being completed I became more active in the disability community, and more people became interested in The Wheelchair Chronicles and the work I was doing.
During the last year or two, I joined Access Living, I joined the Young Professionals Council, got an article written in the Sun-Times, joined another wonderful organization in 3Arts, doing projects for UIC, and hell, even being the head marshal of a big time parade. As I was nearing the end of this project, not only did I want this film to change the beliefs of able-bodied people but I wanted this to film to be apart of my disability advocacy, and my continued role as a disability ambassador.
Now that it’s all over and I’ve had time to think about everything, I’m so glad that I’m done with this amazing journey. I didn’t know when I started where this film was gonna take me, but it has taken me places I’ve never thought possible and where it’s gonna continue to take me in the future. I’ve met so many wonderful people through this journey and that I’ve developed great relationships with. You all kept me going when I wanted to give up, when I was questioning myself and my abilities as a filmmaker. I’m grateful to everyone who supported me on this journey, and grateful to everyone who’ll support through my next project.
Justin's Wheelchair Chronicles 