Zach Anner has cerebral palsy, which helps him as a writer on the TV series, "Speechless"; voice actors who work on video games end their long strike against game producers; Facebook has a new feature where you can watch original video content.
'Speechless' writer Zach Anner: People with disabilities can be anything, even jerks
The path to success in Hollywood is often a circuitous one. For comedian and writer Zach Anner, that was certainly true.
Anner is now a writer on the ABC sitcom, "Speechless," but his first big break came in 2010 when he submitted a video audition for a reality TV competition called "Your OWN Show: Oprah's Search for the Next TV Star":
The video went viral and Anner won. He made a travel show on the Oprah Winfrey Network called “Rollin' with Zach," about what it’s like to tour the country and go on adventures when you use a wheelchair.
That success turned out to be short-lived, though. The show was cancelled after the first season.
But the exposure from his Oprah show led to a another travel show for the website Reddit, and a web series called "Have a Little Faith." It also helped Anner build a strong following on YouTube, where he posts funny videos like this one from his "Workout Wednesday" series:
Anner also wrote a memoir called, “If At Birth You Don’t Succeed: My Adventures with Disaster and Destiny,” and became what he describes as a kind of “disabled celebrity."
When "Speechless" premiered on ABC last year, Anner was brought on as a consultant and played a small role in one episode. The show centers on a 16-year-old boy named J.J. who has cerebral palsy and is non-verbal. And in a rare turn for Hollywood, the actor who plays J.J. — Micah Fowler — has cerebral palsy himself.
Anner spoke with The Frame host John Horn about his career and about writing for Season 2 of "Speechless," which premieres on Sept. 27.
Interview highlights:
On how people with disabilities are usually portrayed in film and TV:
Often, characters with disabilities are either inspiring or they are an object of pity to make other characters look better. And I feel like with what "Speechless" is doing, we're finally getting characters with disabilities who are complicated, they're funny, sometimes they can be jerks. And it's just great to see finally characters with disabilities that have depth and nuance, because that's been one of my biggest goals is to teach people that sometimes people with disabilities and cerebral palsy can be a--holes. And I feel like I've done a really good job of proving that to people.
On how his role in the first season as a role-model-type figure for J.J. came about:
I didn't know this until afterwards, but Scott Silveri [the creator of "Speechless"] had been kicking around this idea for a while, because I was consulting on season 1 and in the writers' room they had up on their idea board: J.J. meets a Zach-Anner-type. And then he called me in to do a table read, which I later learned was an audition for this part. And I gotta say, I am not confident in my acting ability, but they do some great directing and editing of that show and were able to bring something out. So, really, my goal for the character was just not to suck because everyone else on the show is so great. But beyond that, I just wanted to play the type of character with a disability that I would have liked to have seen on TV when I was growing up, because there weren't too many examples when I was a kid of like, Oh, this is the cool type of person that I can grow up and be ... There was Professor X, which was a good role model. And then there was a kid from the Burger King Kids Club, and I think that was it.
On his experience as a writer on season two of "Speechless":
Basically, everyone's role is to come up with good stories to tell. And then make sure they're authentic and make sure that they're funny. And I feel like what I can bring is a sense of authenticity. But they got it right in season one. I feel like what I bring in season two is maybe just a little more insight into what this character might be going through in certain situations. Because, you know, I was a teenager with a disability, and I remember just wanting all the things that all my other classmates wanted — to have relationships with girls and to have independence. And there was just a little bit of a different route that I would need to take. So whenever I can have insight into, Oh, J.J. might go about it this way, and the family conversation might veer off in this direction ... I love to do that.
To hear the full interview with Zach Anner, click the blue player above.
What we learned from the guy who watched 24 hours of Facebook's new video platform
Have you noticed that new tab on Facebook? It’s called Facebook Watch, the social media giant’s new platform for original video content.
You can find Facebook Watch just below the Messenger tab on the left side of your desktop main page, or on the new play button icon at the bottom of the screen of your Facebook mobile app.
It’s a space to check out original content that includes news, sports highlights and even scripted series.
Henry Goldman is the former head of video at Buzzfeed News. He consumed 24 hours of videos on Facebook Watch — over about a week — to find out how it works and what the future of video on Facebook could look like. He wrote about the experiment in a Medium blog post.
When Goldman spoke with The Frame's John Horn, they walked through the new platform on John's laptop. Here are three things we learned about Facebook Watch:
1) "Humans of New York," a series that was based on the popular blog, Facebook and Instagram accounts, is an example of video content that works well on Facebook Watch.
GOLDMAN: That's what's special about that brand. It's highly curated to create intimate, voyeuristic looks at real people that you wouldn't necessarily get to see. The way they weave it together into these 20-minute videos is really artful and beautiful. It has performed quite well on Facebook's platform and I think people are connecting with it. It's not like any other piece of media you see on Facebook, certainly, but you can't imagine that, really, anywhere else.
2) Facebook Watch's competition is a combination of YouTube, Amazon, Netflix and Snapchat. But mostly it's viewers' attention.
GOLDMAN: With most apps, attention is what they want. They are competing with sleep. They're competing with school. They're competing with work. They want you to be in their space as much and they are doing something that is slightly different than all of those [sites].
3) Audio is essential to the success of Facebook Watch's video shows. See: podcasts.
GOLDMAN: I do think [users] putting in their earbuds when they open up Facebook [is important]. That "Humans of New York" video is really wonderful, but I think it only works if you're paying attention to it and listening. I don't think it works if you have other stuff going on and it's in the background tabs, because you're not getting to look at these beautifully shot interviews. And I don't think it works if you're just looking at the captions.
HORN: I think what you're almost describing, and what Facebook Watch is — when it works — is video podcasts. You are looking at a good aggregation of content that you have to consume in a certain way, and that is by watching your phone or your laptop, listening to the story behind it.
GOLDMAN: Yeah. And when you listen to a podcast, you say, Oh, I'm going to subscribe to this. I want more. I want to see the new things that come up. I know what I'm going to get from this and I enjoy it and I'm going to grow with it.
To hear John Horn's full interview with Henry Goldman, click on the player above. For more content like this, subscribe to The Frame podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.