Bigfoots in Arby's: Marietta Teacher Wins Screenwriting Competition

Sonny Harding, a dramatic writing teacher and yearbook adviser at Marietta High School, was awarded first place among teachers in the Georgia Film Academy’s 2024 high school scriptwriting competition.

Teachers from across the state were encouraged to submit the best 10-minute play or short film script from their class, as well as submit a script of their own.

The scripts were judged anonymously by industry professionals and Kennesaw State University graduate students and evaluated based on the Georgia Film Academy’s curriculum.

A first and second place student winner and teacher were selected from each category. First place received a $1,000 University System of Georgia scholarship while second place received a $500 USG scholarship.

Bigfoot Lives Under an Arby’s

Harding was one of the six winners, winning in the teacher category for his 10-minute play, “My New Friend is a Bigfoot Who Lives Under an Arby’s.”

The play, set in a 1990s Arby’s, follows the story of a young girl who discovers a Bigfoot in the basement of her new job.

“It’s supposed to be a short play, but it’s very silly,” Harding said. “(The idea) slowly evolved. I really love the movie “Men in Black,” but I always thought that if something like that were real it would be underfunded and strange, and a little more mundane and boring.”

Aaron Levy, the dramatic writing curriculum and lead trainer for the GFA, who has known Harding since his master of arts and teaching program at KSU years ago, said he always thought of Harding as a clever and funny writer.

“He’s a great teacher and he’s one of the few teachers that actually loves to write, so I’m a big fan of his,” Levy said. “We judge these plays blind…but I was not surprised when he won and how quirky and fun it was.”

Levy believes it is important for teachers to write alongside their students, which is why the GFA included a teacher selection portion of the competition.

“While the teacher is the facilitator of the class, they’re also a member of the writing community,” Levy said.

Motivation for Students

According to Harding, teachers were only allowed to submit one play and one screenplay for the contest. Harding said he had his students look at what they had done for the semester and vocalize whether they felt it was strong enough to be entered. From there, he made the decision of which two scripts to submit.

“I was rooting for my students more than I was for myself because I had some really interesting, strong works that I submitted for my students,” Harding said.

Harding believes that contests like the Georgia Film Academy’s help motivate students to try harder.

“Sometimes if we ask a student to write a 500-word essay, they’re just trying to drag it out to hit a word count and make a rubric happy,” Harding said. “But in dramatic writing, they have to make an audience happy when they read their works out loud in class. That’s a more rewarding goal than any grade I can give.”

Harding has been teaching the dramatic writing course at Marietta for about 6 years, around the time it was created by the GFA and the Department of Education as an English language arts core requirement.

“I wish this class existed when I was in high school,” Levy said.

Addressing an Exploding Industry

According to Levy, the GFA was former Gov. Nathan Deal’s attempt to address the exploding film and television industry in the state.

When the film tax credit took hold and production started to pour in around 2015, there was a growing need for more experienced crew to work on film and TV productions, Levy said.

Because of the lack of trained professionals in the area, Levy added, many productions began hiring people from out of state.

The mission of the GFA is to educate students at both the high school and college level about the ins and outs of the industry so that they have experience immediately out of college.

At the college level, with partner institutions in the USG and Technical College System of Georgia, students can take courses taught by industry professionals. All students begin with an introduction to on set production, where they learn about different jobs and set etiquette while also getting hands-on experience with industry equipment.

Other courses were created based on the job market, including grip and rigging, lighting and electric, set construction and set painting.

“If you take two courses from the GFA and do well, you can apply for an internship and start working in an actual craft area,” Levy said. “Oftentimes, this leads them to be recommended for future gigs and starts their film production career.”

From Classroom to Film Set

Levy believes opportunities like the high school dramatic writing course and script writing competition act as a pipeline and incentivize students to pursue their dreams at the college level.

Harding began teaching the class because of his own passions for screenwriting and playwriting and thinks it’s a good alternative to traditional senior English classes.

He hopes the class, which had about 25 students last school year, will continue to grow.

“We have really strong theater and film departments in the school, so I hope to also collaborate with them to actually get the (student’s work) made,” Harding said.

Over the summer, the GFA held a reading by professional actors of the winners’ scripts.

Levy added that students are usually over the moon about the reading.

“Up until this point, they have developed it in their classrooms and cast their classmates. Now, you hope that your classmates will become expert actors but that’s not always the case,” Levy said. “By the time they hear it with professional actors, they can’t believe it.”