Pahīatua filmmaker’s Twlight Zone-esque idea

Derrick Sims grew up in the United States and now lives in Pahīatua. He has worked on several short films in both countries and hopes to start production on a new short film in October.

By Leanne Warr

Derrick Sims has had a lot of late nights recently.

The American-born filmmaker has been working on a teaser for his latest project, Shadow of the Deathbird, which he hopes will help him raise money to start production in October.

Sims, who lives in Pahīatua, says the idea started out as an omnibus series, which is inspired a little by Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone.

“Where every episode is kind of a standalone story, with different cast members, different locations and different directors.”

Sims started writing “a bunch of story ideas” and had planned a season or two.

But it was a question of how to tie those episode ideas together and The Twilight Zone, with its idea of a boundary between light and dark, and crossing dimensions, also provided some inspiration for a “world of weird”.

“But that’s not enough,” Sims says. “Especially if you want to make it in New Zealand and about New Zealand. What if it takes place in New Zealand but in a region that’s weird?”

All the stories would take place in that fictional region, but not necessarily in one set time.

For now, Sims is working on what could potentially be the first episode of a television series, but is currently a standalone short film.

At first, he had planned to shoot it locally, but as his initial funding has come from Creative Communities in Palmerston North, he will have to shoot some of it over there.

He is about to launch crowdfunding through Boosted in the hope of raising enough to be able to pay the talent and crew for the 22-page shoot, expected to be over four days.

Sims says he did try the Film Commission Fresh Shorts scheme but was unsuccessful and had hoped to try for another scheme which was not running this year.

Not wanting to wait, he approached someone at TVNZ who suggested NZ on Air.

For his Boosted campaign, Sims decided to shoot a teaser.

“I’m shooting a teaser for a film that doesn’t exist to raise money to shoot the film that will hopefully exist one day.”

Derrick Sims and daughter Isla at work on the teaser for Shadow of the Deathbird which he will use to help in fundraising.

Working with his daughter, he has been shooting it in his garage, which means some late nights in very cold conditions.

He says when he’s worked on past projects, he’s found that for crowdfunding, it helps to shoot proof of concepts teasers.

Sims believes that if his project were to be picked up, it might encourage local filmmakers to come and work in the region.

He was teaching film at UCOL for five years and would often tell his students that the work was in Wellington or Auckland.

“I always hated that.”

Sims says he has tried to encourage local authorities to support projects not only being about local areas, but also being made here.

He’s been asked why Pahīatua?

“Why wouldn’t you? We’re centrally located, you can get anywhere you want.”

Sims believes there is potential to build a pool of resources here and bring filmmakers here and get them out of the hubs like Wellington and Auckland.

“It would be really awesome if we could make things here. We just need some vision and some backing.”