Haunting is a USC graduate thesis film directed by Ruifeng Lan. The story centers around a practicing psychologist plagued by the ghost of his late wife, for whose death he was partially responsible. This was a challenging shoot, particularly because the psychologist’s office was shot in a suburban house, and we needed to make it seem as if his office was in a tall apartment building.

The psychologist regularly sees his wife jump to her death in his nightmares. To film the jump, we build a balcony set about 5 feet off the ground. The added height of the balcony gave us about 9 feet for the actress to fall, safely onto a thick stunt mattress filled with air.

In reality, his wife did not jump- she fell, because he did not have the strength to hold onto her long enough. To film the psychologist’s view of his wife falling to her death, We placed the actress on a table draped in greenscreen, with several fans blowing her hair, and shot her using a moving dolly. I flipped and stabilized the shot in post and added background scenery shot at another location in downtown LA.

During one scene, an undead version of his wife stands behind the psychologist, and unbeknownst to him, her head rotates completely around in a terrifying reveal.

Moral of the story: Don’t cheat on your wife, or there is a slight change she will die tragically and haunt you for the rest of your days, which will be numbered.