Alice in Somnia

In Depth with the Director - Bree Doehring

Hello Bree, tell us a little about yourself and your background in film.

I'm Bree. I'm a creator based out of Los Angeles, CA. Originally from the other Melbourne in Florida, I grew up with an aggressive desire to make stuff. When I was 17, I traded the beach for a lifetime's worth of debt and attended Savannah College of Art and Design. In school I found improv comedy, harnessed my writing abilities, and learned technical filmmaking skills. After graduating and working a few PA jobs, I moved to LA to work as a small-town big-dreams assistant to a renowned producer and started understanding the other (less fun but insanely important) pieces that go into production, like budgeting, scheduling, contract-writing. In 2021, I started freelance producing music videos, commercials, and short films so that I could have more time to write my own projects in between jobs.

How did Alice In Somnia first come together as a project?

As per usual, I couldn't sleep one night. I was lying in bed after hours of begging my brain to shut up, when I laughed. How ridiculous, I thought, that our minds can feel like a hellish purgatory. I started envisioning the inside of my head as a waiting room for sleep and the metaphor formed quickly, with the door-guarding Sleep Attendant at the helm. The next day, I threw all of my anxieties into a script. After attaching a few talented friends (including Emma as director, Emily Trio as editor, Mike Cionni as composer) and starting a Paypal to raise some funds, I was forwarded an email about a grant. The application was due in two days, so I quickly threw together a proposal and sent it off. I was so surprised when I learned I had won that I had to pull over to cry in the parking lot of a Mattress Barn. Shift Creative Fund gave me $12,000 and confidence that would last a lifetime. I added that to my crowdfunded $6,000 and made the film one month later, on February 20/21 of 2020. Everyone thought I was crazy for rushing pre-production, but I know now that it was just another benefit of my go-go-go anxiety. If I had waited two more weeks to shoot, the pandemic would have hit and who knows where Alice would be now. To our benefit, we spent the next year working on polishing and perfecting the film while locked inside our homes.

In a behind-the-scenes interview, director Emma Debany said that the main character Alice “is mostly just Bree”. How far off is she with that assessment?

Like most creatives, I've dealt with a lot of crazy ideas and thoughts spinning around in my brain. Mine just happen to be nocturnal. For as long as I can remember I've been anxious, fidgety, and slow to sleep. I'm up and I'm down like Alice, I overthink everything, and when I'm eager, I don't always make the best first impressions. In the last few years I've calmed down a little, but I still haven't found a good way to get songs out of my head. Please let me know if you have any tips?

Given the film takes place in a dreamlike liminal space, the rules of reality don't really apply to the script. How did you decide how far you wanted to push the surreal elements of the story?

The surreality of the film is a marriage of Emma's style and mine. She has a wacky, larger than life comedy-style, while I consider my humor more grounded and dry. There were more than a few drafts of the script that explored the limits of our dreamworld, but at the end of the day we decided the metaphor rang most clear when contained. Alice can't escape her own mind, the waiting room.

When creating characters and a world, it could be easy to get protective of your work and performance. How did you find the collaborative process of working with other creatives?

As mentioned, Emma and I have different styles, so it was definitely a marriage - but luckily one that did not end in divorce! We put the kid first. We listened to each other and explored each of our ideas to the fullest extent before saying no. I live by the rule of Yes. I actually have it tattooed on my arm. Alice in Somnia (which started as a silly sketch from my brain) turned into something so much stronger and deeper because of that collaborative process.

What was the biggest challenge in making this film?

Money. Time. Working a full-time job to support yourself while trying to find the time outside of it to make your own films. At the end of a long day post-coordinating a Quibi series and assisting said producer, I'd come home exhausted and work for 4 more hours on my own project. The film is a bit ironic because I really didn't sleep much through the whole pre-production process. The day we filmed I was running on 2 hours of sleep like an accidental method actor. Unfortunately, I've never had the liberty to not work, so the biggest struggle for me has always been balancing my pay-the-bills work with my heart's work while somehow finding the time to take care of myself.

What projects are coming for you in the future?

I'm currently developing a half-hour comedy for Alice in Somnia with my partner Mike.

Do you have any message for our Melbourne audience?

Stay weird and stay bold. Sometimes what you think is a hangup or an issue can actually be the source of a great idea. You can usually find comedy if you look hard enough.