SIOUX FALLS, SD (KELO) — Recent turbulence in the movie industry has impacted a filmmaker from Sioux Falls.
Celebrated writer, director and producer Nick Simon is in town to take part in this weekend’s SiouxperCon.
He shares what it’s been like over the past four years overcoming cinematic challenges amid the pandemic and labor strikes.
Moving from Sioux Falls to Los Angeles came with plenty of culture shock for Simon.
“I also didn’t move out there until I was 33, so I was a little older when I came. So, it was definitely weird, but now, it’s kind of home,” Simon said.
Simon’s successful filmmaking career that he built in Los Angeles was put to the test during the COVID-19 pandemic, when all of Hollywood was on lock-down. So he provided cast members with iPhones to record their parts in his movie called Untitled Horror Movie.
“We would walk these actors through everything on Zoom. So, we’d set up the cameras. They’d have to clap themselves and roll their audio, they had to do everything themselves,” Simon said.
Back then, no two actors were allowed to be in the same room during filming. Simon says he didn’t meet the cast in-person until weeks after the movie was completed. Film projects were slow to take off in the months following the pandemic. Then last year, the writers and actors strike hit Hollywood. Even though those strikes ended, Simon says the effects of that long work layoff are still being felt today.
“Everybody assumed everybody was going to pick up and start working again right after that, and nobody did. Even still, right now, I think people are in crisis mode out there,” Simon said.
Despite that crisis mode, Simon has a new project he’s working on.
“It’s a true story version of a film that came out in 1982, called The Entity,” Simon said.
Simon expects filming to begin by the end of the year. He says he’s looking forward to returning to work in an industry that doesn’t always stick to the script when it comes to global pandemics and Hollywood strikes stealing the limelight.
Simon will be at SiouxperCon Friday night for a screening of his 2017 movie, Truth or Dare. Saturday afternoon, he’ll be taking part in a panel discussion on horror films.
SiouxperCon is taking place at the Sioux Falls Convention Center through Sunday.
