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Full-service video production company-Episode XI Studios, LLC (E11S) is located in Charlotte, NC and is in the final stages of producing a short film about Charlie Petrizzo and Project 2 Heal of Waxhaw, NC. The film’s title,“Charlie’s Scars” (charliesscars.com) will be submitted to the Sundance Film Festival, which takes place in Park City Utah, January 2011. The goal of the film is to address the process of healing, and how the unconditional love of a dog can help individuals overcome a painful past.
The mission of Project 2 Heal (P2H) is to help children overcome pain through the unconditional love of a dog. Project 2 Heal works solely with Labradors, a breed with the very best traits for companion dogs. They are excellent with children, train easily and have a pleasing disposition.
P2H carefully chooses championship dogs for breeding companion pups, selecting for a history of healthy, intelligent dogs. Specially trained volunteers nurture P2H puppies for their first two months of life. The program's training methodology is based in positive reinforcement, which molds dogs into well-behaved, self-confident family members. And family members are coached to interact with their puppies in ways that maintain harmony and discipline.
At life’s tough crossroads, Charlie Petrizzo discovered the intersection of puppies, children and purpose.
By the time he was 16 years old, Charlie had run into the kind of roadblocks that would make it easy to give up or grow bitter. Twice he had faced down death, each time paying a steep price – disfiguring scars, physical limitations and chronic pain.
Charlie was hit by a car when he was five years old. People who saw it said he flew through the air like a rag doll. The accident resulted in a massive brain trauma, a comatose child and the challenges of recovering from paralysis. The doctors told his parents their child might not ever walk again.
The Petrizzos took their son home to take care of him. To keep Charlie from being so lonely, his parents brought home a puppy. That puppy became Charlie’s best friend. Charlie started to recover.
When he was 16, life threw up another roadblock. Working at a summer job, Charlie moved an extension ladder and struck a live electrical wire. Knocked to the ground, ladder seared into his left side, Charlie again spent months recovering – this time from third-degree burns, a process that meets every definition of hell. In addition, damaged muscles in his left torso had to be removed, leaving extensive scar tissue and undermining the stability of the infrastructure that supported Charlie’s body. Chronic pain that continues to this day resulted as muscle and bone on the right side of his body over-compensate for the loss on his left side.
If anything is more resilient than the human body, it must be the human spirit.
Charlie recovered physically and emotionally. Although he asked “Why me?” more than once, eventually Charlie awakened to the miracle of his recovery. He chose to live in gratitude instead of bitterness or self-pity. He saw himself as a lucky man, a blessed man.
After college, Charlie married the love of his life, Sandy, a woman who loved him exactly the way he was. He launched a financial career during the boom years of the American economy and moved to the Wall Street of the South, Charlotte, NC. Together, he and Sandy adopted two little girls.
Despite his success, Charlie felt discontented with life in the financial world. His experiences had given him a perspective on money and materialism that didn’t fit his career path. He left the financial world and made a decision to follow not a career, but a purpose: He would breed dogs. And not just any dogs. Labs with a bloodline carefully selected for the traits required for the best service dogs. He would train the best pups in every litter as service dogs and companions. Then he would give them to children he understood – wounded, hurting children.
On 3 acres near the outskirts of Charlotte, Charlie and Sandy Petrizzo launched a volunteer effort that brings together Labs bred for their gentle spirit and problem-solving intelligence with children who have special needs, from autism to cancer to Down Syndrome and more.
As significant as that effort is, Charlie’s long-term vision is much bigger. He sees a state-of-the-art breeding and training facility that will enable his organization to connect many more service Labs with many more hurting children. He sees an amusement park where dogs and their families can come together to play and explore in beautiful natural surroundings. He sees people who have found purpose in learning the training techniques that produce the best service dogs – people whose lives have previously been broken by crime or poverty or addiction.
Charlie Petrizzo knows first-hand what can take place when special needs cross paths with a special breed of animal that is trained to heal.
As an extension of donating skilled companion dogs for special-needs children, Project 2 Heal also donates puppies to be trained as service animals for the sightless, extreme diabetics, those with seizures, and others. The puppies are sent to a women’s prison where the prisoners spend eight to twelve months preparing the puppies to serve their owners, but when Charlie finds out that one of the prisoners was involved in one of the United States most heinous crimes, he questions his participation in the prison program.
As the story unfolds, Charlie makes a decision about the prison and reveals his plans to expand Project 2 Heal to become a one-of-a-kind facility for those needing healing.
Episode XI Studios, LLC (episodexistudios.com) is located in Charlotte, NC, and believes in going well beyond a camera and a tripod, by using a cinema approach to video production by using camera cranes and dollies-the gear Hollywood uses. The end result isn’t a video production, but a Hollywood-style production…and all for the small to mid-sized company.
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bsowell[.]episodexistudios.com 
