LONDON, UK – 17th February, 2020 – Samsung’s brand manifesto, ‘Do What You Can’t’ calls on users to defy barriers and do what can’t be done in the everyday. How people capture moments and express themselves creatively depends on the tools they use, and with the ever-expanding world of social media, the opportunity to create epic things with smartphones has never been greater.
Meet Gareth Berliner and Kiruna Stamell, renowned comedians and performers who seek to champion diversity and disability. Over the past few months, they’ve made the most of their time at home in lockdown with the creation of their children’s TV series, Pirate and Parrot. Filmed in their kitchen, entirely using Samsung Galaxy smartphones, the series aims to celebrate diversity and educate and change people’s perception of disabled people.
What Galaxy device do you own and how has it played a role in your life during the lockdown period?
What features did you find most useful during this project?
What are your main objectives for Pirate and Parrot? What do you want to achieve?
Our show celebrates diversity, and we include disability as the biggest flagship of diversity. Our main goal is to help educate and change people’s perception of disabled people. We want to create positive change in the world and would love Pirate and Parrot to educate hearts and minds.
You cannot be ‘diverse’ or champion equality without championing disability. Disability in a children’s show has been proven to directly improve access for disabled people, as kids learn to be adaptable. We want children to watch an episode and feel empowered to play ‘Pirate and Parrot’ on their own terms, making up stories with friends and family. It not only fosters resilience in the community but encourages healthy attitudes to diversity. We want to be able to give opportunities to more disabled actors and crew who are so often excluded from lots of productions because of their disabilities.
How did you find shooting and editing from home using your smartphone?
Staying disciplined was challenging during the pandemic. Our brains were full of real-world worries, and the pressure to be productive was at an all-time high. Our Samsung devices alleviated a lot of our workload, as shooting and editing from home was far easier than we expected. They’re versatile and can be placed in all manner of places and positions to capture content. Being able to edit from anywhere in the house is liberating.
Was there a key feature of your Galaxy device that allowed you to create the show during lockdown? How did it make the process easier for you?
Do you have any other creative plans for the future using your Samsung Galaxy device?
Yes, we’ve decided to expand our channels and go full throttle into social media production. As people whose bodies are ‘non-conformist’, we aren’t connected to an endless world of influential people ready to elevate our circumstances. As disabled people, our stories go largely untold, so we’ve decided to become the original source of our community and normalise disability. We’re a positive representation of a disabled relationship, as we both proudly identify as disabled. One of us has an invisible disability and one of us has a physical one and we want to share that with the world. So, expect a stronger presence from us on Instagram and TikTok, and continued development of our brand. Our phones are so integral to all of this, we’re even looking forward to investing in a third Samsung phone to devote to our joint projects.
Why do you like shooting and editing using Samsung devices?
If you had to give top tips for people looking to create content from home with their smartphone, what would it be?
Google ‘how to’ videos. Someone out there has always got a great guide to follow. Don’t waste your life stumbling around in the dark, but by all means experiment. Push the features to their limit. TikTok was one of the best teaching tools for us, in terms of learning old school linear filming tricks.
We also found story boarding useful in helping us tell our stories and optimise them for each platform. Developing 15 second Instagram videos is a great way to get started. We often feel intimidated by great content creators, but they were once beginners too!
You also need to be brave, as people have strong opinions online so self-care and looking after your sense of well-being is very important. This is best done by staying connected to the things that are important to you offline. Ask yourself, what are you putting out into the world, is it an enriching experience get from your content or a destructive one? If you enjoy the world of content creation and social media, then keep persevering!
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