Joe Aaron, co-creator of the Nickelodeon cartoon “Doug,” and Harding graduate hosted a free screenwriting workshop for students on Saturday, Sept. 22, in the Reynolds Recital Hall.
Aaron said his goal for the workshop was to “demystify” the filmmaking process for students. Senior Amy Morris was one of 63 people who attended the workshop. She said Aaron breezed through in a matter of hours what would have taken a semester anywhere else.
“He gave us the important gist of the writing process,” Morris said. “And great tips like write what you don’t know but what you want to understand.”
Aaron has spent the last week on campus encouraging Harding students to get involved with his new movie to be filmed in Little Rock called “Guttersnipes.” Aaron spoke in chapel on Thursday, asking students to donate whatever small amount they can to the film’s fundraising site, Kickstarter.com, and to spread support for the movie through social media.
“Guttersnipes” is about a homeless teen who meets an abandoned autistic girl. The story follows the relationship that develops between the two girls. Aaron said that while the story was inspired by his relationship with his 20-year-old daughter who has autism, it is not necessarily an “autism story.”
“It’s two girls and it’s like they don’t speak the same language,” Aaron said. “But they’ve got a hard situation, they have to eat every day to survive the night and one has to be responsible for the other. I just want it to be about the relationship. It’s the figuring it out that’s at the heart of the story.”
Dylan Treadwell is one of ten Harding public relations interns helping Aaron raise the $75,000 necessary to create the movie. Treadwell said it is important to him that the movie is made, because of its lesson of compassion for those who are different than you.
“I have a little sister with autism,” Treadwell said. “If more people had been aware of what my family and I had to struggle through as well as how my sister interacts with her world, it would have made things a lot easier.”
Aaron said he decided to bring his campaign to Harding because of the sense of familiarity he feels with the Harding community. Aaron, who moved to Searcy as a child shortly after his father’s death, said Harding played a unique role in his adolescence.
“I kind of thought Harding raised me,” Aaron said. “It was kind of my other parent … I never felt abandoned really because I always felt like ‘because I’m here, it will work out,’ that’s why when people ask me where I’m from, I say Searcy. This is where I call home.”
To learn more about “Guttersnipes” or make a donation to the film’s production, visit guttersnipesfilm.com.
