Exclusive Interview With Derrick Sims On Come Morning

WGTC: The score is great, and it does a ton to build the tension as the story went on. Tell me about working with Justin Slaughter. 

Sims: Well long story short, he (contacted me and) said, ‘Hey, who’ve you got scoring this film?’ And I wasn’t even thinking about that yet. I said, ‘I’ve had two other people contact me about scoring the film, you’re the third… If you want to send something to me, just based on what you know, what you’ve read, just send me thirty seconds of what you might think a theme would be.’ I didn’t expect anything back, but literally within a day he had sent me something. I listened to it and I was like, ‘Well it’s not right, but it’s pretty good. I’m going to send you the script now, and I want you to do another thirty seconds.’ He did the same thing, within a day, and I had to tell him, ‘You know what, I’m going to go out on a limb here. I’m going to send you a contract. I want to work with you on pre-production and ultimately have you score this film. But I really want to work on a theme, let’s build a theme before we even shoot this movie.’ And within two more days I think I had 13 original pieces of music. The 13th one I was like, ‘Wow, that’s it. You nailed it. That’s the theme of the film.’ Then I told him to take six months off so we could go shoot the film. Then he came on and did a great job.

Since Come Morning I’ve recommended him for so many films, and he’s ultimately done five or six films. No features, mostly shorts. But yeah, he did a great job. And that’s all him. There’s no orchestration. That’s all him on his computer. I originally wanted to have at least a three-piece group of stringed instruments, but we couldn’t afford to bring anyone in and do a proper recording. In a perfect world we would’ve done that.

I do think his music helps build the theme. The movie really picks up when Wes and Jack come into the story. You just have to sit with it. But when they come in that’s when it really starts. His music there, that was one of the last pieces composed, I had a different piece of his music in there and it was just too droney. I put it on a loop, it wasn’t originally composed for that scene, but ultimately the piece he came up with was really good. It reprises itself in the end too.

But yeah, I’m glad that you felt the tension built because, for lack of a better term, it’s a bit of a boring film. That’s okay, that’s what I wanted it to be. I want people to just sit down and go on the journey. I didn’t want it to be an A.D.D. film, a caffeinated film. I wanted it to be a film that I wanted to see. One where you sit down with the characters. Even though it is driven by the plot, you meet all these characters and it’s an interesting film. Now I haven’t watched it in three months, so now watching it again I’m like, ‘There aren’t too many films made like this, and I wonder if that’s a good thing.’

I wanted to make a film that was ambiguous. I like ambiguity in my films. I just don’t like it all to be spelled out. I want in the end you to have to sit back and think about it. I find that movies that I watch and in the end I don’t know what I think about it, they’re movies that I sit in the credits and not necessarily pay attention to the words on screen. I wanted Come Morning to be like that. Where you’re sitting there and thinking, ‘Did I miss something? I got a whole story, but there’s something else in there that I didn’t quite get.’ Not that they would want to watch it again, and I didn’t want to be one of those who’s like, ‘Oh, you’ve got to watch it twice,’ a Sixth Sense kind of thing, but I wanted people to think about it in the end. I didn’t want them to be satisfied, because I’ve found when I’m not satisfied at the end of a movie it becomes one of my favorite movies or at least something that resonates pretty long.

WGTC: Where to next for the movie?

Sims: We’re in the running at seven more festivals. I got contacted by another one a couple days ago saying, ‘We’re interested in your movie. Could you send it to us?’ So that’s nice. I’ve had that happen three times now. You know other festivals kind of scout each other and they’ve seen the trailer and stuff and they’re interested. They wave all the fees, so that’s nice.

After I submit to that one when I get back to L.A. we’ll be in the running at eight festivals, six of them in the United States, one in Scotland and one in Australia. So hopefully we’re going to be playing at some more festivals.

I just finished a film literally three hours before I left to come here, I was DPing a film, and the producer of that is from Lionsgate and he has big pals at Sony, Lionsgate, and Fox. They all came to the set of that film. He told me ‘These guys are going to be on the set tomorrow watching us film, I want you to bring a copy of Come Morning and give it to all three of them.’ So they have copies of the film, fingers crossed. I don’t know what that’ll lead to, or if it’ll lead to anything, but we’ll see.

WGTC: Do you have anything else planned in the imminent future?

Sims: I’m doing some editing when I get back to L.A. I’ve got three features scheduled for this year. If nothing else, Come Morning has been great for my career, and it’s good that I did shoot it, now I can use it as part of my reel. If Come Morning does absolutely nothing, in terms of financially or distribution, it’s already done a lot for me and some of the actors and crew members as far as getting jobs.

I had great producers on the film who literally gave me 100% creative control. They said, ‘Here’s this money, we trust you. Go make your vision.’ That’s awesome. I don’t think I’ve thanked them out loud very often, but since finishing the film, and working on this other film where the producers dictated the whole film, like ‘You can’t do that, cast this person, not this person,’ the last two features I’ve worked on, the producers have just manhandled the film and it makes me even more thankful that I had people who believed in my vision and honestly they’re not expecting anything in return. If it makes money for them, great. If it doesn’t, that’s okay too. You usually don’t get that. I hope I get that again. But I know whenever you’re in Hollywood you don’t get that. They want that money.

More than half of our funding came from two people that I’ve never even met. To this day I’ve never even met them. I’ve talked to them on the phone one time. They knew one of my producers and saw all of our work that we put into pre-production and said they’d help out. So that’s nice. All the people I know are poor (laughs) so they couldn’t help out. They wanted to.

As far as the film goes, I don’t know what else we have planned. If we don’t get a distribution deal soon we’re going to do a limited theatrical release in Arkansas, get a few digital prints made and take it to theaters there. It hasn’t even shown in Arkansas. In fact a lot of people came from Arkansas to see it here (in Mississsippi). But they deserve to see it. The local townspeople are just chomping at the bit, in my ear, ‘Let’s watch the movie! Bring it to Arkansas!’ But there aren’t too many festivals in Arkansas and I can’t just jump out there and say, ‘Hey, everybody come watch this movie,’ or put it on the internet. I think I’m going to have a screening in my hometown, which is about 400 people, at the local elementary school. The principal contacted me and said, ‘Hey, can we show your film?’ So someday, maybe in the next six months or so, I’m thinking about doing that. Invite the whole town to come watch it, and they’ll enjoy that. I’m excited for them to see it. I’m glad a few of them got to come tonight. One guy, I think he’s a local guy, said to me, ‘This may be my favorite film of all time,’ and I’m thinking, ‘It’s just because you know where all the locations are’ (laughs). But he said it’s right there with To Kill A Mockingbird and I’m thinking, ‘Oh goodness, please don’t compare me to that, that film is so awesome.’ But I’m glad he enjoyed it.

It’s weird, because a lot of the locals enjoy more of the summer blockbusters, they aren’t really into independent films. Come Morning is definitely an independent film. It doesn’t give you all the answers. Sometimes it poses more questions than actually gives you answers. Some things, they’re not ambiguous to the point where you feel completely cheated or anything like that, but if you go back and watch it again, and again, and you listen really closely, because sometimes I’ll only say the character’s name one time, there’s a lot more information in the film if you really pay attention and listen. And I hope that the local people can appreciate that, because it’s not going to be Transformers, it’s going to be something slow, and something that lulls along, and you just have to follow the journey. I hope that they enjoy that.

That concludes our interview, but I’d like to thank Derrick for his time. And be sure to look for Come Morning at a festival near you!