Racheal Cain is the director of Somnium, in which aspiring actor Gemma (Chloë Levine) moves from a small town to Los Angeles, where she takes the overnight shift at a mysterious sleep clinic. In the piece below, Cain, who grew up in Miami, making VHS movies with neighborhood kids, talks about her decade-long quest to get Somnium made. The film plays Sunday night at FilmQuest.
I suppose Somnium has been growing in me my entire life. When I was a kid, my dad made a sensory deprivation chamber out of fiberglass in our garage so he could seal it shut and float into the abyss during his nightly meditations. And as my parents wore out their yard sale copy of The Secret book on tape, I learned the law of attraction. But how could I, a 22-year-old with no industry connections and no money, manifest getting to make my million-dollar first film about, well, manifesting?
Racheal Cain and the Countdown to Somnium
2012. I boarded my one-way flight to Los Angeles with a messy new script and a solid plan: I’d crash on my friend’s futon in the corner of his dining room (yes — dining room — the living room had already been claimed by an aspiring actor) until I figured out my shit. My first love had just broken my heart and all I knew was I needed to get to L.A.
I secured my first room with a door (!) in 2013. I bartended nights and spent afternoons splicing that script into index cards which lived, in various arrangements, on my bedroom wall for the next year.
In 2014, I took my first paid gig from a promising ad on Craigslist. I should’ve picked up on the producer’s cryptic emphasis on “bikini movie” when he called to offer me the job, but my vision of raking in $200/day working poolside on a real film clouded my judgment. I spent the following weekend handing out ham and cheese sandwiches to an entirely naked cast. The producer wanted me to work full time. I politely declined. Instead, I created an Instagram account for my film-to-be. I knew stating my intention would help to hold me accountable. There’s nothing like the risk of public humiliation to keep yourself on track.
To my surprise, people started to follow along and, by 2015, I was connecting with creatives all over. A message from Lance Kuhns, along with a link to his cinematography reel, landed in my inbox one afternoon and I knew he was the one for the job.
In 2016, with my little team growing, I started working at the coffee bar of an established film studio. When I wasn’t steaming soy cappuccinos for celebrities, I applied for grants and labs. I was mid-latte art when I found out I’d been selected for the Big Vision Empty Wallet “Kickstart Diversity” incubator program in NYC, a weekend intensive which culminated in a big pitch opportunity.
I pitched the project and, by the end of 2017, managed to secure the first small portion of financing. But, by now, Lance and I were getting restless. Along with this little bit of financing, the film studio I worked for, which also had a branch in Atlanta, offered us a generous discount on gear.
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The script had always blended present day and flashbacks and, while I knew it was still finding itself, the flashbacks felt complete. I was excited to weave in the textures of small-town aesthetics and the real passage of time, and figured we could use the footage to cut together a sizzle reel. The Big Vision producers connected me with casting director Bess Fifer, and I soon had a list of actors in my inbox. Chloë Levine sat right at the top. My good friend and filmmaker, Xander Robin, had met Peter Vack at a film festival and sent me his email. We scheduled the shoot for March of 2018 in Georgia.
Meanwhile, 2,000 miles from where we’d soon be filming, I began the hunt for locations on Airbnb.com. I flipped endlessly through hundreds of listing photos across the entire state of Georgia, eyeing both exteriors and interiors (so many patterns of wallpaper), and managed to unearth some real gems.
But even better than the homes I found were the Airbnb hosts who would rise to become the real heroes of our flashbacks shoot. When I needed a music-venue location, one Airbnb host just so happened to be the brother of the frontman of popular indie rock band, Twin Peaks, who also just so happened to be in town performing at the Georgia Theatre in Athens during our shoot.
He made some calls and not only got us the location for free, but convinced the band’s manager to allow us to film them during sound check. And when a parking-lot location fell through hours before we were supposed to shoot it, another Airbnb host made some calls and secured us the most incredible abandoned cotton-mill exterior for free. The fee for my favorite location of the entire shoot, a beautiful 19th century farmhouse, cost me $100 for the entire day. God bless the South.
Upon returning to L.A., Lance and I knew we had captured something special. And it’s a good thing, because I’d soon find myself clinging tightly to that something special through some serious turbulence.
I spent the rest of 2018 working as my own assistant editor while prepping for a massive $60,000 Kickstarter campaign. Though we barely survived said Kickstarter, by the end of the year, we had somehow hit our goal. We had enough to keep moving. I hired my friend (and former futon lender) Kent Lamm to shape the flashbacks into a 25-minute storyline and to edit the sizzle.
But by far the best thing to come from the Kickstarter was a three-sentence email from a mysterious writer/director/producer named Maria Allred. She concluded her message: “I am curious, what is your budget?” By now, I had received many messages like this, but her brevity stood out. I agreed to meet her for tea and left knowing she was someone I needed as a producer. With Maria’s fervor, we secured nearly half the financing by the end of 2019 and began making offers for the remaining roles.
2020. N/A.
I felt an invisible clock ticking through all of 2021. Attaching actors started to feel like adding to a wobbly house of cards that could collapse at any moment. Any of our investors could pull out and it would all come crumbling down. Still halfway from our original budget, Maria and I knew we had to get scrappy. I opened up the script and started hacking. I figured, “if I’m not excited to shoot it, why should anyone be excited to watch it?” I deleted scenes. Condensed locations. Cut supporting characters…
And, hey, you know what’s really cheap? Black.
Entire sequences which originally called for elaborate set design would now live in an inky black nothingness. (I figured whatever was lurking in a viewer’s mind was probably creepier than anything I could put onscreen anyway.)
With the new script and bare-bones budget, we were ready.
The Los Angeles shoot was no easy feat. Week 1, a PA crashed the grip truck into a tree. Week 2, the picture car refused to start. Week 3, we had to cut and pause every five minutes after discovering a highly active train track steps away from our primary location. (Also, 99% sure it was haunted.) But Chloë, Peter, Lance and I finally reunited and, by mid-2022, we had the film in the can.
So how did I, a 22-year-year-old with no industry connections and no money, manifest getting to make my million-dollar first film?
Truth is, I think it manifested itself. I just had to learn to get out of the damn way. Sure, I was there to piece it together for 12 years. But it wasn’t until I allowed myself to let go of everything I thought it should be and instead just listen, that Somnium finally revealed itself from that dark and mysterious void.
Somnium plays Sunday at 8 p.m. at Filmquest, at Velour.