Mister Sleep was my first movie as a full producer. Micro-budgets demand a lot of flexibility and so I wore many hats. As creative director of the film, I set styles and designed many elements along beside Production Designer Christina Barth. I worked with director, designing the killer's mask and costume. With make up artist, Emily Schrieber, I designed the "hand of darkness" reaches out grab the main character early in the film.
Our team built multiple sets to bring Mister Sleep's world to life, stretching the limits of our very small budget. The coroners lab shows our commitment to quality and detail. Thankfully the community of filmmakers and enthusiasts here in Augusta helped us circumvent our limited budget. This gave the film a look well beyond the level of money spent.
The director wanted the titles to reveal part of the titular antagonist's backstory. To avoid both the look and cost of post-production digital effects, We built an eight-foot practical "conspiracy board" that showed Mister Sleep's trip of terror across America.
Because the camera would pass close to every document on the board, each element required a great deal of detail and care. There were more than ten crew and extras photographed as victims. The documents feature hand writing from twenty different people and I wrote four custom news stories about the killer. My favorite piece of trivia - we bought every red map pin in the Augusta area.
The quality, scale and detail of this project makes it one of my favorite projects to date.
