Steven Spielberg wasn’t the only young lad who carried a camcorder in his youth, making short films with his friends. Aaron Waltke, who graduated from Center Grove High in 2002, did the same. As a teenager, he discovered that if he made ambitious short films entirely in French, his French teacher would give him an A.
“That was when I caught the filmmaking bug. I also made comedy shorts, which my parents politely tolerated,” said Waltke, who also participated in the Center Grove marching band and was active in Troop 245 of the Boy Scouts of America, earning Eagle Scout ranking.
He chose to study at Indiana University because his family had a deep relationship with the school. His dad, aunt and uncle were alumni, and his grandfather worked not only as head usher at Assembly Hall but also as an engineer in IU’s psychology department, building custom inventions for experiments. In his free time, he built mechanical sculptures that were displayed around town.
“My personal favorite was one called Franklinstein, a 12-foot mechanical sculpture. From one angle it looked like Benjamin Franklin and from another angle Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein,” Waltke said. “This giant animatronic would rock back and forth when you got in front of it, shouting quotes from ‘Poor Richard’s Almanack.’”
While at IU, Waltke took eclectic, broad coursework, majoring in telecommunications and minoring in English, theater and culture.
“I knew that if I wanted to be a storyteller, I needed to have stories to tell,” said Waltke, who joined the oldest sketch comedy group in the state, Boy in the Bubble, where they put on a brand-new sketch show every two weeks.
“We would spend a week writing and rehearsing and then perform the next week. No one told us that was insane,” Waltke said. “That ended up being great training for the entertainment industry, where with film and television, you’re expected to generate high-quality content very quickly, sometimes on the fly, and usually in about two-week increments.”
At IU, he also worked with WTIU, the PBS affiliate, producing a documentary as part of a series called “Our Town” that spotlighted different Hoosier towns. He was told his Bedford documentary was the most viewed and most successful fundraising documentary of the entire project when it aired.
After graduating from IU in 2006, Waltke worked as a production assistant in Chicago on films like “Fred Claus.” On that production, he worked a night shoot in January when the temperature was minus 6 degrees.
“I was bundled up in seven layers of clothing, having to prevent people from crossing a bridge for a certain scene as the film crew helicopter flew over it, mimicking Santa’s sleigh,” Waltke said.
After projects in New York, he took a gamble and drove to Los Angeles, where he edited content for what was then a newfangled thing called YouTube. The first two pieces he edited went viral, and at 22 years old, he was hired as a writer, editor and producer for National Lampoon.
After the recession, he worked in reality TV, including developing and helping to sell “The Real Housewives of Miami.” During that time, he performed sketch comedy with friends and made short films for the LA Comedy Festival. One of his scripts made its way to DreamWorks Animation, and he was offered a job writing urban fantasy scripts for Guillermo del Toro’s “Trollhunters,” Netflix’s entry into CGI TV animation.
“I remember in college watching ‘The Devil’s Backbone’ and thinking, ‘Wow, someone is carrying the torch for dark fantasy. This is the type of story I connect with,’” Waltke said. “I never would have guessed that four years later I’d be collaborating with my hero [Guillermo del Toro].”
Waltke has worked with the Hageman Brothers (Kevin and Dan), Marc Guggenheim (who created “Arrow” and “Legends of Tomorrow” for the CW), Rodrigo Blaas (who worked on “The Incredibles”), Chad Quandt (“WondLa”) and Ashley “A.C.” Bradley, who created Marvel’s “What If…?” He also flexed his comedy muscles as head writer for “UniKitty!,” a “LEGO Movie” spinoff from Cartoon Network. He co-showran the final installment of the “Trollhunters” series, “Wizards: Tales of Arcadia.”
When he joined “Star Trek: Prodigy” as a writer and producer, the Hageman Brothers joked he was employee No. 1 since he was the original Star Trek fan.
“Some of the first action movies I saw in the theater were the Star Trek films with my dad, so that was really special to get a chance to contribute to the canon of that incredible universe,” he said.
Currently, he’s the showrunner and executive producer on “Wings of Fire,” a forthcoming television show based on high fantasy novels by Tui T. Sutherland.
“It’s like the next generation’s ‘Harry Potter,’” Waltke said. “When I read the books, they reminded me of my own experience reading ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit,’ which was my gateway to fantasy.”
A showrunner for television is similar to a film director.
“I’m responsible for all creative decisions,” he said.
“Wings of Fire” is in development and will stream on Amazon Prime.
“Because this is a fantasy series, there’s quite a lot of CGI animation, and that can take longer to produce,” he said.
Waltke, who has received an Emmy Award, a Peabody Award and multiple nominations for his work in film and television, was named by The College Magazine to its “20 Under 40” list. He’s married to writer and mystery author Ellen Tremiti. The couple have a 2-year-old daughter named Ramona.
In elementary and middle school, Waltke played Warhammer with friends. Several of them have reconvened in group chats and now travel annually to one another’s city for a weekend of gaming. Last year they met in Tucson; this year Waltke is hosting in Los Angeles.
Waltke rarely experiences burnout because film and television projects have a natural end.
“I’m lucky because I get to bounce around working in different genres,” Waltke said. “Some people don’t like that chaos, but for my own ADHD brain, it’s nice to change things up to keep the creative well refreshed.”
