A Hunter College Production: "Sleep Walker"

Well, I hope everybody has had a nice spring break. I know I had a very productive one: making a film with my fellow classmates from Hunter College. It was my privilege to work with such a great cast and crew and hopefully I can find (and reach out to) more Hunter students to share this experience with them.

*All photos are courtesy of Nathan Schrader*

SLEEP WALKER

SYNOPSIS
Chris (Joe Ferraro) accidentally kills his brother Jerry one night while sleepwalking. His friend, Jeff (Alexei Bakastov), witnesses him sleepwalking and realizes that he is the murderer. Now Jeff must tell Chris the horrifying news because Chris doesn't recall anything.

CAST & CREW

My cast and crew are all Hunter College students (except for the actors that played the parents).

From left: Joe Ferraro, Margret Somerville, Nestor Nadal, Artie Somerville, Daigoro Hirahata, Taylor Morgan, Alexei Bakastov, Nathan Schrader.

CHRIS - Joe Ferraro
JEFF - Alexei Bakastov
MOTHER - Margret Somerville
FATHER - Artie Somerville

WRITTEN, PRODUCED and DIRECTED by Daigoro Hirahata
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY - Taylor Morgan
CHIEF ELECTRICIAN - Nathan Schrader
BOOM OPERATOR - Nestor Nadal

PRE-PRODUCTION

As soon as I got the idea, I wrote the screenplay in about a week and told my good friend Taylor about making it into a movie and he was all for it. He proof read it and I edited it some more and began to draw up a full storyboard. This was around 3 months ago. The plan was from the start, to film during spring break so I had a lot of time... or so I thought. I finished the story board but not everything went as smoothly. I held several auditions to cast for my 2 characters and ran into many problems (like every film production) but finally casted Joe and Alexei 2 days before shooting. For the parents, I had this other couple who were supposed to play it but they dropped out a week before shooting which had to be switched. Luckily, my High School buddy's parents were willing to do it with a last minute notice.

Taylor checks to see if the shot looks good with Janice (my camera).

PRODUCTION

Shooting began on April 21st (the first Monday of spring break) and was scheduled to go into Tuesday at my house on Long Island. Being that my film consists around 46 shots (including 2 tracking shots and several other very complicated set ups), we were working under a hard schedule.

DP, Taylor Morgan, also taking the job of AD and setting up a shot list by looking back at the storyboard.

With everybody focused (and relaxed at the same time due to much comic relief on the set) we were able to get about 25 shots done. We had a few problems including the time when the smoke alarm went off during filming because the light gave off some smoke and when the neighbors started mowing their lawn which was caught on the mic. However, despite all the craziness, we had a productive day. My dedicated cast and crew all slept over (with the exception of Joe and the parents who live on Long Island) and started filming on Tuesday at 10 AM.

Filming shot #16.

Tuesday was the day where all the hard shots had to be filmed. Although we got many complicated zoom-dutch shots done on Monday, the 2 big tracking shots still had to be filmed. Not to mention a shot that took place outside, looking into the house which was the basis of an incredibly difficult light set up. The problem we encountered with the track was that there was a small bump dividing my kitchen with my dining room. I had a wheelchair move over it but not without the camera shaking heavily. So, we put lots or cardboard and towels over and around it to create a smoother track. It wasn't a Scorsese track but it was good enough and it worked. Miraculously we were able to get ahead of schedule and finished at around 2PM.

Joe getting his shirt all bloody for his character.

POST PRODUCTION

Sleep Walker was filmed in 720p HDV format (on my JVC GYHD110U) which was the first time I ever filmed in HD. Maybe it was due to that but my computer didn't automatically capture the footage without cutting out at least 3 seconds of video. In the end, I had to go through every take and manually capture all the footage myself.

The cast taking a quick break while Taylor and I set up for the next shot.

By Wednesday, the rough cut was done. I showed it to my father who had lots or criticism which escalated from "this sequence looks dull" to "you shouldn't be a filmmaker". It's safe to say that that pissed me off a little but I had to agree that some of the sequences were indeed too dull. The next day, I contacted Joe again and we re-shot some scenes, giving the film the much needed juice.

Currently, I am talking with a musician to come up with a soundtrack. Hopefully, the finished product will turn out nicely and I can get it in to some film festivals.