Carmel’s Dream Store Media Debuts Powerful Diabetes Documentary

Writer // Janelle Morrison • Photography // Submitted

Carmel headquartered Dream Store Media shines a light on diabetes with its latest documentary, “Sugar Coated: The Pieces of Diabetes,” that recently debuted and is currently streaming on Prime Video on Amazon.

The documentary follows four families living with diabetes and features local and medical experts who are working on managing the disease while searching for a cure. The film not only educates viewers on the diabolical affects diabetes has on individuals, families and caretakers, it also reexamines the general public’s understating—or, more importantly, lack of understanding—of diabetes and who is at risk of being diagnosed with it.

Dream Store Media’s Earned Credibility in the Medical and Entertainment Industries

We first introduced Dream Store Media to our readers in our July 2017 cover story, “Hollywood Comes to Carmel.” Dream Store Media is comprised of unique and award-winning production experts who create impactful visual stories. The team masterfully brings together technology, design, cinematography and a marketing mindset, creating impactful and unique media experiences with in-house designers, producers, animators and FX engineers to expertly manage their deep breadth of projects.

Dream Store Media partnered with the Academy for Continued Healthcare Learning on “Sugar Coated: The Pieces of Diabetes.” Their film was funded by an independent medical educational grant from Novo Nordisk. Dream Store Media’s Brett Gordeau, CEO and producer, and Christopher “Chris” Mapes, CTO and producer, directed “Sugar Coated,” which was co-executive produced by Amanda Kaczerski. The documentary was filmed on location in Carmel, Fishers and Indianapolis, Indiana, Kauai and Honolulu, Hawaii, and Chicago, Illinois.

Insight on Fighting Diabetes from a Local Medical Expert

Dr. Rhys Davies Jones, M.D., a family practice specialist with over 40 years of diverse experience in Carmel, Indiana, is one of the medical experts featured in “Sugar Coated.” When asked why Jones felt compelled to contribute to the documentary,

he replied, “I was convinced that whatever Brett and his team would produce, it would be a wonderful contribution to the public and would be tastefully done.”

Jones continued, “There are between 80 and 120 million Americans [with diabetes or prediabetes] that are totally unaware. The average diabetic has it 10 years before he/she is diagnosed. That’s a lot of damage being done to people’s systems that could have been mitigated and reduced by quite a lot because we’ve

gotten really good at dealing with this now. The public needs to be asking their doctors, ‘Do I have prediabetes? Do I have diabetes? Can you test me?’ And those questions would help a lot. It is important to get the message out about diabetes and especially prediabetes.”

It’s an Important Message That Can Save Lives

The documentary itself took about two years to create, but the conception for the project began nearly nine years ago.

“Amanda [Kaczerski] and I have been working on the funding for this [film] for nine years,” Gordeau shared. “I’m a prediabetic and have been for 13 to 14 years now. I work very hard to avoid diabetes, and for me, after my diagnosis, I looked at the world differently. I walk into the grocery store, look around and think, ‘Oh my gosh, everything is sugar and carbohydrates.’ With time and education, I realized that through exercise and diet, I can still have an enjoyable life. So, when the time came to really look at how we would produce this documentary and the ‘message,’ I knew Chris [Mapes] had some pretty interesting ideas and would bring a lot to the table.”

Upon viewing the documentary, I learned that residents of Hawaii and the South Pacific are fighting a huge battle against diabetes.

Dream Store Media’s Chris Mapes lives in Hawaii and shared his knowledge of the area’s current issues with regards to battling the disease and education about it.

“We had to figure out a way to get as much of this content [that we produced] out to the public as possible because [diabetes] is a huge issue here in Hawaii,”

Mapes stressed. “One in every five people are afflicted with it here because of lack of education on the disease as well as a lack of food education. We wanted to help with this messaging by sharing four stories out of the 10 to 15 that we shot in this documentary.”

Mapes continued, “We tried to keep this documentary as upbeat as possible, but it is diabetes. It is a serious disease. We featured a couple of amazing kids and adults as well as some phenomenal medical doctors who are leading experts in diabetes research. We knew that we couldn’t use traditional means to get this message out and put our heads together to come up with a way to disseminate it to as many people as possible. Ultimately, we landed on the Amazon model and were approved for distribution on Prime Video.”

Gordeau concluded, “There is a broad and popular misconception that there are just two types of diabetes, and that’s not the truth. We talk about that in the documentary with the experts who discuss how it’s really kind of a group of diseases, and there is a Type 1.5. We always hear that it’s about eating right and exercising, but it’s also about genetics, and we were fortunate to have some of the leading professionals in the entire world share their knowledge on diabetes with us in ‘Sugar Coated’ that we are able to share with our audiences the world over.”

“Sugar Coated: The Pieces of Diabetes” is available now on Prime Video for FREE! It is a compassionate and educational film that is well worth the 45 minutes of your invested time.