Everything started with the Boggy Burn Bashers, a murder mystery set on a wild and windswept Winton farm, 16 years ago.
Edward Turnbull, then 16, press-ganged his siblings into helping him make it. They used a lot of tomato sauce.
Now 38, in Wellington, he is embarking on one of the most exciting years in his film career.
"It is exciting — a big new year for me. I have the Nuclear Priest season, a new job and a new film festival to establish," he said.
Turnbull has been teaching at South Wellington Intermediate, where he taught film alongside the rest of the curriculum.
Next month, he is about to start a part-time job as a visual arts teacher at Wellington College.
Plus, one day a week he will work for Unesco City of Film to establish and grow a school film festival in Wellington.
He is excited about scoring a four-week screening season in Wānaka for post-apocalyptic Nuclear Priest, especially as the cinema contacted him and not the other way around.
The low-budget movie was made over several years and features Dunedin actor Rimu Donavan, a labourer in his day job.
Camera equipment cost about $5000. Otherwise, it has been a labour of love in their spare time, weekends and on holidays, doing everything from making costumes to sourcing props from second-hand shops.
Turnbull is feeling a tremendous amount of optimism about showing the film in Ruby’s 37-seat cinema, given he organised his own audience of 20, including his mother, to go to the North Island premiere in Wellington late last year.
Earlier this month, he sold 11 walk-up tickets to a one-off screening at Auckland’s art house 16-seat Academy Cinema.
Nuclear Priest is so far under the radar, Turnbull — who enjoys a bit of black humour — can only but wish it was critically acclaimed. He has been using a sentence from Auckland film-maker Yardin Elayshiv to promote it: "The visual style was out of the gate."
After Boggy Burn Bashers, Turnbull went on to Canterbury University’s School of Fine Arts to study film-making.
His first sci-fi films were made as part of his course.
There is No Gold Here, based on the Central Otago gold rush and set in Naseby, was produced in his finals year, 2010.
Model 15, made in his honours year, screened in a sci-fi festival in 2012.
He met Donovan through Star Now, which connects actors with film-makers. Donovan pitched for the main role in There is No Gold Here and Turnbull thought he looked exactly like someone who should be on a mining site.
Over the years, the two have kept in touch.
So what is sci-fi acid western?
"It is a world where the gadgets and things that happen are outside our reality.
"It’s a surreal western set in a wild landscape," Turnbull said.
"[It was] filmed and pieced together whenever Rimu and myself had a spare weekend and costumes, props and locations were ready.
"It was a true labour of love, where we would brave the harsh weather of the southern coasts to film epic and unique visuals."
He would plan a sequence, create costumes, scout locations, send Donovan the script and then they would get together for a weekend outdoors filming.
After the Wānaka season, there will be a one-off screening of Nuclear Priest at Dunedin’s Metro Cinema on February 27, which Turnbull hopes his parents can get to.
"Mum saw it in Wellington but Dad hasn’t seen it yet.
"My brother in Timaru, I am hoping to get him down, too."
Turnbull would love to take his films back to Winton, where his parents live, but sadly, the Winton cinema no longer exists.
He would also like to take it to Christchurch, where he went to film school.
