Toronto Film School student’s Simpsons Couch Concept airs Sunday

Katie Hemming was just six or seven years old when she recalls first watching the much loved Simpson family making their now iconic entrance into the living room at the end of the show’s opening credits.

Now, the 21-year-old writing student at the Toronto Film School will see her very own “couch gag” concept brought to life when the popular show airs her idea.

“It is my first, real, official piece,” said Hemming, who is enrolled in the Writing for Film and Television program. “This is a great way for me to start out my writing career.”

The airing of Hemming’s gag comes after she entered a contest on a whim more than a year ago.
She got an email in February 2013 advising her that the couch gag had been chosen as a finalist. She didn’t win the contest, which was decided on by votes via social media, but a few months later, to her surprise, Hemming learned that the writers of the Simpsons had read her gag and had liked it so much that they were going to air it.

Almost a year passed when she was finally given the airdate of Sunday, April 13.
“It is going to be so weird seeing it on there,” Hemming said. “And they are going to give me an animation still of the couch gag, which will be pretty cool. I can’t wait to get it.”
The animators of the show also “Simpsonized” Hemming’s likeness, which she said is a little embarrassing, but still a neat memento of her first foray into the industry.

In her couch gag, Hemming explained, the Simpsons enter their living room as usual, but the floor is laden with bubble wrap.
“They start jumping on it and popping it because you can’t resist doing that to bubble wrap,” Hemming said.

When the family sits on the couch, the family patriarch, Homer, sits down last, emitting a sound that leaves the audience wondering if it was a belch from the bubble wrap, or something else of a more bodily nature.

Hemming grew up in Port Dover, a small community in Norfolk County in Southern Ontario, on the north shore of Lake Erie.

School was difficult for Hemming, who has high functioning Asperger syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder, and lives with anxiety and social challenges. But, she grew up in an artistic household of writers, musicians and creativity and said her parents have always encouraged and supported her in all she does.

Hemming discovered her love of writing when she was in Grade 4 and was given an assignment to write a short story. She penned a tale of a dancing bear and a youngster who longed to see it.

“When I got older I realized it is actually about being left out,” Hemming said. “And that was how I felt in school.”

The story impressed her teachers and her family and that set her down a path of wanting to be a writer.

A movie lover, Hemming said when she found out as youth that you could be a writer for movies and television, she started reading books by American screenwriting guru Syd Field.

“That is what got me through high school,” she said. “I went to the library and I wrote during lunch.

Writing served as a creative outlet and also a coping mechanism as Hemming navigated the
Catholic school system while dealing with her different needs.

Hemming, who has harboured a lifelong love for all things animated, said she travels through life with a personal mantra “keep swimming”, a quote from the animated film Finding Nemo.

“That has really helped me get through some hard times,” Hemming said. “It drove me to become who I am.”

Out of high school, at 18-years-old, she tried to attend a film school on the west coast to study screenwriting, but after just three months, unable to properly deal with her overwhelming anxiety, she said she had to drop out and return home.

“I came back and I regrouped for about a year,” Hemming said. “I took a modeling class to try to learn new things and experience new things. I matured a lot in that year and matured into myself.”

But, through all of this her desire to pursue a career in screenwriting persisted. It was then that her family decided, largely in support of Hemming’s goal, that they would move to Burlington in order for her to be nearer to Toronto and in turn she could attend school there.

Toronto Film School was the obvious choice for this budding film writer, she said, because of the small class sizes and its accessible location at Yonge-Dundas Square.

“(Toronto Film School) fits better with my level,” she said. “And they are very flexible with my schedule because I can’t be around all people all day because it gives me anxiety.”

She works with a doctor who helps her deal with being comfortable in a classroom of people, presenting in front of people and working in groups.

So far at Toronto Film School Hemming has taken courses in Documentary Screenwriting, Broadcast news, story editing and more.

“My main goal is to work at Pixar as a writer,” Hemming said. “I have always been into Pixar and animation.”

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