There was an immediate and unanimous consensus on a strong decision: the roles of autistic students would be played by autistic students. This choice was motivated by two observations: on the one hand, in terms of directing actors, we did not want to « play autism » to neurotypical people, and on the other hand, the series seemed to us to gain in legitimacy with the participation of autistic people.

In this perspective, we also chose an autistic person, active in inclusion, to play the role of the expert. This was Hélène Vial, a lecturer at the Université Clermont Auvergne.

Once these choices had been made, a great deal of work was done on the conditions of the filming, to make it as inclusive as possible.
Meetings between Aspie-Friendly’s operational team and Picsprod were set up to train Picsprod’s staff on the specificities of autism, and to define together the modalities of inclusive filming for autistic people.
Meetings between Picsprod, the Aspie-Friendly operational team and the autistic students enabled the students to be trained in the context of filming, and the joint choice of filming arrangements that would be comfortable for everyone.

Throughout the filming, special care was taken to accompany the autistic students:

• Setting up dedicated rest areas
• Awareness-raising for non-autistic extras
• Attention to the sensory conditions of the shooting, in particular the sound level
• Adapted filming schedule
• Predictability of filming (daily information by sending schedules)
• Constant presence of one or more trusted persons, both in the technical team and in the team of actors
• Signposting of filming locations

The filming lasted three weeks, including two weeks for the reconstitution of the university context, on the premises of the Université Fédérale de Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées.
Some forty extras were mobilised in addition to the five autistic student characters and the expert.