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In this Spada Producer Spotlight we talk to Thomas Coppell about finding their way into producing, the mentors and collaborators who helped shape their career, why representation sits at the heart of their practice, and why the greatest opportunity for Aotearoa producers may be to stop worrying about what the rest of the world wants from us.

 

From the White Pages to the Industry

Thomas Coppell didn't set out to produce screen stories. A self-described "drama nerd" from Naenae College, they enrolled at university to study sociology, with an eye on social work. Then a  summer job through a family connection to Ngā Taonga landed them at Production Shed TV, where founder Yvonne Mackay handed them a list of people she needed on the phone: the head of sponsorship at Telecom, the CEO of TradeMe, the head of Grow Wellington, and Robyn Malcolm! 

“I was this little queer nerd from Naenae College who absolutely hated talking on the phone. But, using the White Pages and Yvonne’s little black book, I got every one of them on the phone.”

Yvonne saw Thomas’ value and kept them on, and over six years Thomas absorbed the industry from the inside, eventually switching their degree to film and media studies while effectively running the office. 

The turning point as a producer came with their first short film Shmeat, produced through the NZFC Fresh Shorts scheme, which went on to screen at NZIFF and internationally. “It was the first time I had produced something I had chosen, with a filmmaker I had chosen to partner with,” and it revealed what would become the foundation of Thomas’ practice: backing creative talent without reservation. 

That conviction carried them through two low-budget, high-learning web series with The Candle Wasters and the founding of their production company, Tomorrow, Rain. Then a formative internship on Savage with producer Vicky Pope gave Thomas insight into the producer role, and established a collaborative relationship that would carry through to Thomas’ debut feature film. 

“I managed to spread the internship between production and post, which meant I got this incredibly precious period of sitting in Vicky’s office two days a week for about six months and seeing the post-production process up close. 

Vicky was also running a writers' residency. I read all 56 applications, and one of them was Paloma Schneideman's feature Big Girls Don’t Cry. It was my favourite. I very tactfully put it in Vicky's pile and said, ‘You're going to love this one, and I want to be on it.’”

 

A Practice Rooted in Representation and Collaboration

Queer storytelling and youth narratives sit at the centre of Thomas's work, shaped by their own experience of growing up in Aotearoa without seeing that experience reflected on screen.

“At the beginning of my producing career, I was passionate about undermining systems that contributed to the underrepresentation of different voices. But when I made Tragicomic and Happy Playland, which were queer kaupapa made with queer teens, I realised that was when I felt most fulfilled.” 

Big Girls Don't Cry resonated with them precisely because it captures a pre-coming-out narrative, the disorienting period before language catches up with feeling, rather than a familiar coming-out arc. “So that's become my niche. I work on kaupapa creatively led by queer people.” 

"I feel most purposeful, and also most qualified, when I'm working with other queer talent," Thomas says. "I feel I can serve them honestly and truthfully and fight really hard for them. Maybe that's a limiter. But making anything is incredibly hard, and if you don't have purpose, it's very difficult to keep going. 

I've heard producing described as being about not creating barriers, but making things better. Our job isn't simply to follow rules. It's to problem-solve, push boundaries and create pathways."

Thomas is equally clear-eyed about producing as a collective act. Having produced solo for years, they now consider collaboration between producers essential and they have put this into practice across a number of online and TV series and films. “Over the past few years I've really valued working alongside producer peers - people with more experience than me, the same amount of experience, and less. The dynamic you get when producers collaborate to scaffold amazing creative talent is pretty magical”.

 

Backing Our Own Voice

Asked about the industry's biggest opportunity, Thomas points not to funding or infrastructure, but to confidence. Watching Aotearoa's films connect at international festivals, they see a generation of filmmakers succeeding precisely because of their specificity, not despite it. 

"Sometimes I think we pander too much to what we imagine the rest of the world wants from us," they say. “I think it would be a mistake for us to try to be anything other than specifically and unabashedly ourselves, in all our beautiful forms. If we hold our ground and are simply us, that's actually what people want to hear.”

It's a philosophy that has guided Thomas from a nervous cold-caller to a producer known for backing bold, distinctly local, and unmistakably honest work, and one they believe could lift the entire industry, if the sector holds onto it together.