The White Wolf is back in Montreal!
Hello everyone! My name is Sierra Lynne and I was born in Vernon, British Columbia on October 8th 1997. If you’re wondering how I came all the way from BC to QC, it was very coincidental. As you may know, Dan is from Salmon Arm, BC, just an hour away from my hometown and we had a family friend connection. My grandparents are friends with Dan’s parents Rick and Reina and in 2015, my mom and my grandpa were visiting them. My grandpa brought up that I was autistic and my mom mentioned I had been in acting classes for five years at that point and that I was very interested in filmmaking. When my mom came home she encouraged me to sign up for the advanced camp as soon as I could. I was very interested in participating, as I had always wanted to travel to the other side of the country.
It took almost two years to work out when I could come and where I would stay, so I finally came to Spectrum Productions in the summer of 2017 as a participant for the advanced camp! I shared my character, the White Wolf, who I had created as a Marvel character, with the SCU group and they welcomed my character into their universe. I started writing Illusionist 2 with Robert Girolami and Calvin Brett, and getting to act in a short film for the first time was very exciting for me! I had never expected to play my own original character in a movie and it was awesome finally getting to use the acting skills I had!
As I’ve spent more time with my fellow autistic creators I’ve become more in tune to how my autism makes me different. I came from a small school and I was the only autistic student in my grade, so I didn’t have others to compare myself to in a fair way. I was always trying to act as normal as I could and blend in. It is pretty typical for high schoolers anyway, and since I’m high-functioning it was alright. Unless you put a math sheet in front of me. I will never be good at math, that’s why I got into acting. From the first day I walked into the studio I could feel the acceptance and warmth from Dan, Liam, and Sonya who listened to my ideas and gave me lots of time to experiment with ideas and editing. Thanks to their help and the friendships I’ve made in the community, I’ve become proud of how my autism makes me unique.
I went back and forth from Vernon to Montreal to work as a production facilitator in the summer of 2018 and 2019, and worked from home in BC during 2020. Since coming to the city five years ago, I have fallen in love with the community, and now I have officially moved to Montreal!
It’s been a long journey and now I have a really clear vision of what I want to do going forward. I want to see Spectrum’s community grow and have some real influence in the filmmaking industry and collaborate with other studios in Montreal or even in Los Angeles!
If you’ve read this whole thing, thank you! I hope you are as excited as I am about the future of the studio. I want to make you, our community, feel more involved as we try to move on from last year. I will continue writing updates and Creator’s Corner posts to help promote the work of all the autistic creators who have made specials and series outside of the studio.
