I Am The Door – a short film

Watch the entire short here – 

I Am The Door

2018

6Min.

directed/written/shot/edited by Chris Ringler

additional shooting by Matt Woodbury

special effects by Chris Ringler

music by skeleton kids 

ACTORS

Ken MacGregor

Chris Ringler

When a man offers everything for access to arcane knowledge he must be wary of who comes bearing the keys to that door. 

I Am The Door is a short film I have made about the horror of wanting something so badly you’d do anything to get and then discovering that that cost was not enough.

Primary shooting was done in one day with one day of pick up shots for the beginning and end and three attempts/days to get the big special effect to work. The short came about when I had a creepy idea for a project and wrote it a few months ago. Even in its writing I knew that this was meant to be a slight project with a small cast and few sets. The only big thing that changed from page to screen was in removing one setting and making those parts audio only. Trying to coordinate my one actor’s schedule and finding a space that worked for that other scene – my own house seemed unlikely because I’d have to find something to do with our Husky and it didn’t seem worth it to put him out so I reworked the scene. While for me, it hearkens a bit too much to my first short film, THE LAST HALLOWEEN, in that I do that same sort of thing, I think it works for this film and am pretty happy with it. Especially paired with the imagery I shot for it.

The film stars actor and author Ken MacGregor and he’s fantastic. He was a trooper, coming an hour out to film and then putting up with bugs and miserably hot weather. After a friend had to bow out of filming I took over the other two parts in the film, one just a voice on a recording and one in costume. Another friend, filmmaker Matt Woodbury, took the camera for me and filmed the scenes I was in and he did a great job. The fun of it all, for me, was the blood and the set direction. I created minimalist sets, leaning on the woods where we shot for the atmosphere and decorating from there with a CPR dummy I have and some books I fancied up, with a friend, to look eeeeeevil! Sound effects in films FEEL too much like sound effects so I stuck with natural sound, though I futzed with the audio recordings to make a fake door knock SOUND like a real door knock and to try to clean up an issue within that recording. The issue remains but it’s minor I think. For the music I used some drops from the music a friend and I made for THE LAST HALLOWEEN. I called us Skeleton Kids and there you go. I think the music works really well and doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. Nor does the film itself. Not every movie is meant to be long. I said what I had to say and then ended it.

I personally see a lot of growth from my first film. There are still some issues but I think it’s pretty fun for what it is and the gross out scene, while flawed, works.

I like it and am honored that friends helped me make it. I  doubt there’s really a desire to see the film but hopefully folks that like my books my pick it up as part of a complication I may put together, to see what my other storytelling techniques are like.

…c…