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The inspiration for Thom Hilton’s latest film came from a dream.
“I went to this gallery and there was something in the gallery that had been taken from my house,” Hilton tells WW. “A couple of years later, I saw in New York City these two very beautiful people on skateboards, drinking coffee at the same time they were skateboarding, and I thought, ‘They’re going to that gallery.’ And then everything came from that.”
The resulting film, a short called Waking Up From a Nap on a Long Day of Doing Nothing, premiered May 7 with a sold-out show at the Clinton Street Theater. Further shows are planned throughout the summer, including a special event at the Academy Theater on June 10. (It will be screened before Angela Robinson’s 2004 film D.E.B.S. as part of the theater’s Pride Month programming.)
Waking Up From a Nap stars Ben Siver as Ezra, a young painter about to be featured in his first gallery show. With the support of his friend Anya (Katie Kell) and words of wisdom from his grandpa (Jim Browning), Ezra whiles away a surreal day in the Rose City, nervously awaiting his grand debut.
There’s an ethereal weirdness to his depiction of Portland, where strangers say the oddest things to the film’s heroes with little prompting or reason. At the same time, there’s appreciation for the city’s architectural beauty as Ezra and Anya glide down the streets on a sunny October day.
The project succeeds in capturing the angst and trepidation of sharing your art with the world and the need for friends and community to help face that fear. If there’s any criticism to be leveled, it’s that our protagonists have a rather muted reaction to the weirdness of their fellow Portlanders, leaving members of the audience to wonder if they’re meant to laugh at the joke or simply accept the eccentricities of life in the Rose City.
Waking Up From a Nap was financed partly through a crowdfunding campaign, raising around $7,000 on Indiegogo, and partly self-financed by Hilton. He also gave credit to the movie’s location sponsors: local businesses that allowed filming at their locations for free, including Artifact, the Southeast Portland consignment shop; the iconic Goose Hollow coffee shop Fehrenbacher Hof; and the Clinton Street Theater, where Hilton has hosted weekly showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show since August 2022. Hilton shared his gratitude for the film’s backers, saying he and the crew were “very lucky” to have so much community support on the project.
He also spoke highly of Portland’s film community generally, saying the city’s lively repertory scene underscores how committed locals are to watching and learning from different types of projects.
“The goal is not to make money,” he says, “but is to develop community and taste.”
Principal photography on Waking Up From a Nap went smoothly, with the only real hiccups being the “little joys” of improvisation and spontaneous filmmaking decisions. Hilton cited as an example filming in public parks, saying, “[You might realize] the best shot is at the dog run, so then you put an actor in the middle of a dog park and suddenly they’re acting with a bunch of strangers’ dogs. You just play along with whatever comes your way or, through the camera, learn to look at something differently that you’ve seen a million times in your life as someone who’s from here.”
Hilton is currently hard at work developing his next Portland-based short: a queer rom-com he will formally announce in August. “Somebody will get into the wrong car and there will be a big, evil, gay house party,” he teased. Until then, Oregonians can catch Waking Up From a Nap on a Long Day of Doing Nothing at screenings across the state and see Hilton’s lovingly surreal look at life in Stumptown.
SEE IT: Waking Up From a Nap on a Long Day of Doing Nothing screens at the Academy Theater, 7818 SE Stark St., 503-252-0500, academytheaterpdx.com. 7 pm Wednesday, June 10. $9.
