Meet the Team
Sarah Michaelson
Founder, director, producer
Sarah received her Master’s in Counseling from Gallaudet University. For the next 30 years, she worked as an employment counselor and advocate for Deaf and disabled job seekers, where she saw that lack of reading skills had huge repercussions on career success.
Sarah’s eureka moment came after attending a bilingual ASL and English improv class at Second City taught by Deaf actor Crom Saunders. Crom’s nuanced acting style reminded her of her partner Michael’s humorous voiceover acting. What if she could put together these two artists by making films to engage all kinds of young readers? From there, the animated storybooks grew through the contributions of diverse artists and editors to whom she is eternally grateful.
Sarah is in awe of Calvin, Red, Izzy and Max, the heroes of her films. She hopes that their stories help all kids find their superpowers.
Michael Herzovi
Producer, voiceover supervisor & artist
Michael spent his boyhood and adolescence reading, much of it in the library. As a Chicago-based voice artist with over 20 years acting and storytelling experience in a variety of voices, he enjoys defying audience expectations as a writer, actor and solo performer. He met Sarah Michaelson after a podcast performance and his life changed forever. In his spare time he studies dialects by binge-watching Netflix.
Learn more about him at michaelherzovi.com.
Collaborators
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Crom Saunders
ASL MASTER STORYTELLER
Crom Saunders is an Associate Professor in the ASL Department at Columbia College Chicago, where he has been teaching ASL Linguistics and Interpreting courses since 2009. He is currently the Director of the Deaf Studies BA program, which he helped create in 2014. He holds an MA degree in Creative Writing from California State University, Sacramento (2002). Saunders is developing a body of research based on the representation of Deaf people in the media, and how this ties in with the history and development of ASL and Deaf culture. He’s also researching and developing an ASL translation of the works of Shakespeare.
Visit him online at thecromsaunders.com.
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Heba Toulan
ASL PERFORMER
Heba Toulan, born in Cairo, hails from the Washington, D.C. area. Her credits include The Laramie Project, Olivia for Twelfth Night, Hecate for Macbeth at the Woodlands Arts in the Park and Shakespeare in the Shade, DeafBroadway's Rocky Horror Picture Show, COMPANY, and Les Miserables, She recently starred in SENSES, Compromised Experiment, and The Window Washer. An accomplished model, Heba has modeled for over 10 brands, and walked for a number of designers. She can be found behind a book, or fostering/rescuing great pyrenees.
Learn more at hebatoulan.com.
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Matt Lauterbach
EDITOR, ACCESSIBILITY
Matt is a bookworm who loves learning about the world with his two sons, Jasper and Roscoe. He is a filmmaker and educator with nearly two decades of experience crafting engaging content for museums, classrooms, the web, and the big screen. Matt’s imagination often wanders, and he has notebooks filled with ideas — some practical, and some fantastical.
You can learn more about what Matt is working on at allsensesgo.com.
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Dianne Lee
EDITOR, ANIMATOR
Dianne Lee is a video editor based out of Chicago with over ten years of experience working with various ad agencies and local filmmakers. She believes a good story can actually do some good in the world, and her job is to make those stories the best they can be. She loves creating experiences for people, whether that is through a visual story or hosting a dinner, or organizing a bike trip around Chicago.
Visit her online at dianneleeis.me.
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Shuling Yong
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Shuling Yong is a Singapore-born, Chicago-based award-winning documentary filmmaker, DP and Location Sound Recordist with a passion for social change. She has worked on films like Becoming (Netflix, 2020, dir. Nadia Hallgren), The Feeling of Being Watched (Tribeca/POV, 2018, dir. Assia Boundaoui), And She Could Be Next (Tribeca/POV, 2020, dir. Grace Lee and Marjan Safinia), Radical Grace (HotDocs, 2015, dir. Rebecca Parrish), In Time To Come (HotDocs, 2017, dir. Tan Pin Pin. Shuling’s most recent film Unteachable premiered at the Singapore International Film Festival 2019 and became the first local film to clinch the Audience Choice Award in the festival’s 30-year history. During production, Unteachable was selected for the Tribeca Film Institute Network Market 2018, Good Pitch² Southeast Asia 2017, and won “Best Pitch” at the CNEX Chinese Documentary Forum 2017.
Visit her at shulingyong.com.
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Lauren Miller
EDITOR
Lauren is a Chicago-based film and video editor whose work spans fiction, documentary, and accessibility-driven storytelling. They’ve worked with organizations like American Society for Deaf Children, Enhance Arts Project, Proteor Prosthetics, and, of course, Sally is Sarah Productions, to help create art that is more inclusive and representative of people from all communities. Lauren loves a good binge of early-2000s TV (the longer the season, the better) and spending time with their dog, Harley. They grew up on adventure novels and still love revisiting favorites like Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, which sparked their initial interest in pursuing thoughtful disability representation in media.
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Stephanie Sunata
OUTREACH & IMPACT PRODUCER
Stephanie has worked in the film industry for 10 years with experience on everything from TV shows, reality series, documentaries and feature Hollywood films and every phase of the process including: development and research, production, post-production and distribution. Her primary focus is outreach and impact for social-issue documentaries, which gives me intimate knowledge of what it takes to independently market and distribute a film that makes positive social change. Recent collaborations include “For the Left Hand” from Kartemquin Films, Lucia Small’s final film “Girl Talk,” Joe Winston’s “Punch 9 For Harold Washington” and the award-winning “Subject” from Lady & Bird Films. She also is interested in and passionate about accessibility in media and improving experiences for diverse audiences.