MARYSVILLE — Marysville resident Roy Nestle has been passionate about filmmaking since he was a middle school student 26 years ago, and he hopes that his night of on-location filming in Marysville July 26 will bring him one step closer to making his own full-length film.

Nestle, who’s also an actor and a screenwriter, has been directing short films professionally, and submitting them to independent film festivals, for nine years, the past seven years of which he’s lived in Marysville. On July 26, the Marysville Cemetery played host to Nestle and his cast of nearly half a dozen actors, as well as close to a dozen crew members, as they filmed scenes from his film, “Akumu,” after dark.

“We should be finished with our Marysville shoots by tonight,” Nestle said July 26, standing beside the U-Haul truck that serves as his film’s prop closet, wardrobe and changing room. “The Marysville Cemetery and Police Department have been very nice and even allowed us to shoot after dark, which is not something they normally allow.”

While many film crews would prefer to shoot during daylight hours, especially if they’re budget-conscious enough to have spent only $500 on their productions, as Nestle has done to date, “Akumu” required natural darkness to fit the mood of its story, since the title of the movie is Japanese for “Nightmare.” “Akumu” will actually become a 30-minute “teaser,” intended to garner interest in a longer feature.

“The story line is complex and there are limits to how much of that you can do justice to on a low budget,” said Nestle, who films many of his scenes with handheld digital cameras.

“Akumu” is a Japanese-themed psychological thriller, similar to “The Ring” and “The Grudge,” which Nestle hopes will attract funding for a larger film, “The Dreamers,” featuring the same characters and telling much the same story, albeit in more detail. Nestle expects that many, but not all, of the scenes filmed for “Akumu” will eventually appear in “The Dreamers,” especially since “Akumu” introduces a few characters in different ways than “The Dreamers.”

Nestle is in the home stretch of making “Akumu,” since he expects it will only take two more months to complete the film that he’s already spent the past two years making. He applied for a permit to shoot at the cemetery in February of this year, and had only intended to use it for one scene until he realized that the setting lent itself well to a number of other scenes.

“Be efficient and simplify,” Nestle said. “Friends and family have kicked in for a lot of the costs and I’ve made my own props, as well as half the costumes. I’ve been able to apply what I’ve learned over the years about set design and makeup, so much that I look forward to making films where I only have to wear one hat,” he laughed.

Once it’s completed, Nestle plans to release low-resolution copies of “Akumu” onto viral video and social networking sites, from YouTube to Facebook, while offering the high-resolution version for sale on DVD. He believes this online teaser has the potential to attract investors, who could allow him to finish or option the film. While the current actors will retain their parts if funding is provided to finish the film as “The Dreamers,” they have no such guarantees of keeping their parts if the film is optioned.

“I just want this film to be made,” Nestle said. “I’ve always been interested in dreams and dream imagery, so this story line calls out to me. It’s about a man facing his own demons, so it’s man versus self, but it’s also man versus the unknown. You need a good story line, to engage your audience mentally. I love stories.”

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