After seeing his parents produce an indie film in 2023, Henry Davis, a then 11-year-old autistic kid, asked, “Can I make a movie too?” We gave him a budget of $100 and a choice of neighborhood locations in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He sat beside us and, with a few prompts, wrote a script. Henry had been non-verbal when he was diagnosed but through his hard work and therapy he began speaking. We thought this new interest in film  would help him continue on that journey, even though at the beginning dialogue was still difficult for him and we had to help with voice over. Two years and many episodes later the budgets are still $100 and Henry is performing all his lines and along the way involved our friends and family. We’ve used everything from DSLR cameras to cinema cameras if we had them handy. Henry’s helped with claymation and basic compositing based on his designs, and in post loves choosing the sound effects.

 

Over the episodes a story pattern has emerged—Henry and his friend T-Rex get in trouble then fight and/or save the world.  Whenever we ask if he wants to change things up, Henry simply points to his stack of all 20 of The Bad Guys books by Aaron Blabey, and says, "I'm making 20 episodes." Henry understands the power of IP is consistency.

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Many thanks to Hannah Meyer, Olivia Jampol, Roberta Colindrez, Jennifer Makho,lm, and JD Davis for their help!