Come Morning (film)


Come Morning is a feature-length dramatic thriller written and directed by Derrick Sims. The film was produced by Fabled Motion Pictures and shot in October 2011 in Cleveland County, Arkansas. Come Morning premiered October 21, 2012 at the Austin Film Festival. The film won a special jury award for cinematography at the 2013 Oxford Film Festival and the Best of Fest Award at the Charles B. Pierce Film Festival. In November 2013, the film began a limited theatrical release, and it was released on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD on September 23, 2014 by Monarch Home Entertainment and Phase 4 Films. In 2016, Fabled Motion Pictures reclaimed the rights to the film and released it exclusively on Amazon Prime.

Plot

Arkansas, November 1973 - Frank and his grandson, D go on an afternoon hunt. Just before dusk, the two hunters wander into the darkening woods to track down their kill and, to their horror, find that instead of a deer, they’ve shot their trespassing neighbor, Marion Mitchell.
With a history of land disputes with the Mitchells fresh on Frank’s mind, he assures the boy that the only option is to hide the body deep in the woods. As the night draws on, Frank and the boy find themselves only deeper in darkness. Soon the lines between good and evil are no longer clear, and D begins to question if all will really be okay, come morning.
According to an article in @Urban Magazine, the story of Come Morning is completely fictional but was partially inspired by Sims' boyhood hunting trips with his grandfather.

Cast

Come Morning was shot over 12 days in mid October 2011. Filming took place just outside the small town of Kingsland, Arkansas, the boyhood home of director, Derrick Sims. Sims chose 1970s Kingsland, because he said “It captures the atmosphere and the hunting culture of southern Arkansas.” When asked why he set the film in 1973, Sims said hunting was different back then. "I didn't want the characters to bait the deer or have motion cameras to photograph them. I also didn't want them to have cellphones. There's just something unromantic about ."
According to the film's production diaries, during the final days of shooting it was 33 degrees. "We were standing in three feet of water...we had been shooting for 16 straight hours, and we were more like the walking dead than filmmakers. We had done the unthinkable; we had shot a feature-length film in just 12 days. That kind of thing doesn’t happen, and we fully understood why. Most films don’t call for heavy effects makeup, 75% night shoots, remote locations, living animals, bitter cold, shooting in water, gunshots, driving stunts...and child actors. Add an extremely low budget and 12 days of shooting on top of all of that. It’s pure madness".
Though the events of the film are completely fictional, Sims loosely based the characters of "D" and "Frank" off of himself and his grandfather who took him hunting as a child, and while the film takes place in a distinct cultural part of Arkansas, five of the more prominent roles went to actors from all around the U.S. However, there were still many roles filled by local actors and non-actors.
Due to tight budget constraints, the crew consisted of just ten people. Many cast and crew members served in multiple roles behind the camera including Sims, who served as the film's writer, director, cinematographer and editor. The film was shot on the RED MX with Cooke S4 Lenses.

Critical response

At the 2012 Austin Film Festival, Come Morning received generally good reviews. Austin Fusion Magazine said the film was "a subtle yet profound emotional roller coaster that will pull on your heart strings and unsettle your reasonings." KUT, Austin's NPR member station, said, "It’s an intense trip through the darkness of the woods and the soul, with phenomenal performances from a cast of unknowns and breathtaking cinematography."
After screenings at the Oxford Film Festival in February 2013, WeGotThisCovered.com called it "a film that is far more than entertainment – it’s a piece of art itself". Come Morning went on to win a special jury award for cinematography at the festival that year. Since then, the film has been praised by FilmThreat, Blu-Ray.com, Film School Rejects, Rogue Cinema, The Arkansas Democrat Gazette and many more.
The film won Best of Fest award at the 2014 Charles B. Pierce Film Festival.

Publicity

While attending the Oxford Film Festival in February 2013, Alexander Lowe of WeGotThisCovered.com interviewed director Derrick Sims about the film. The site featured the Q&A-type interview in their March 2013 update.
On November 29, 2012, Come Morning was prominently featured on the MPAA's website, TheCredits.org.
In February 2012, Arkansas Life, a publication of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, featured Come Morning in their Arkansas Artists edition. The film was also chosen, along with Jeff Nichols film Mud, as one of the top news stories of 2011 by SEARK Today.
The film has also been featured in @Urban Magazine, Blu-Ray.com, AMFM Magazine, Sync Weekly, Ozarks at Large on NPR, P3 Update, SEA Life Magazine, SEARK Today, Revel@Conway, and on multiple occasions, The Cleveland County Herald. Just before the shoot in October 2011, KQ102.3 did an on-air interview with Sims, Zac Heath, Thomas Moore, Maurice Mejia, and Richard Ledbetter.