The Door Between - a story about life and death

Hey Mark so privileged to have you review my movie!!!!!!!

- Subtitles: what a pain!!! But you know what, I think we got away with some really bad VO by staying put with Greek dialogue...

- Location: there was this old abandoned building somewhere by the sea at a place here in the suburbs that used to be a place to do some water cleaning or something in that area....had some huge empty pools that would fill with water...lots of metal ladders and pipes....could do for any kind of film!

- Lighting: Yep those were candles. We had no lighting kit. I am posting below the raw footage and the one you see in the flick...I had the exterior lighting as a source and then worked my way around in post....the hard part was to keep the necessary information without putting too much light in then staying focused on the artistic feeling that I have been doing in the previous shots, avoid as much noise as possible...it was exhausting....

- The end is a disappointment. I wouldnt put more to the end fight...having no experience in action scenes and directing those, no props and no skills to pull something like this through, I came up with the pan&zoom images that remind me of something like a comic....see the sequences in the form of a comic strip, like in the roof top where he kills me or at the part where the Father is holding him and he pushes him back...and the big jump in the end....THe problem is putting the story on screen. I had written that in the end, Stratos wins and we see him as the dawn is getting closer with the Father at his feet...so we know he won and seeing the dawn and him being a vampire..well 1+1=bing burning sensation....but I had a lot of problems doing this properly....we couldnt figure out how to portray the Father....he's supposed to be this ancient vampire...so to keep him restrained for the dawn to kill him requires some serious powers...but no VFX and no good ideas about some kind of props to hold him....we did that cr@p with him just lying there....and we didnt have time to think about it much since sunset was way behind us at the moment, it was raining and we were tired...maybe my end sequence voice over needed some refining to point out what has happened....I dont know...

- oh you didnt like the scratched look? and it was one of my favourites! at least you got the old film reel feeling that i was aiming for....I wanted to put something that would fit with a PAST MEMORY....I wanted to try something different than just play out the sequence in the normal way...maybe I should have done it like that...so far in all the things we ve done...i was so afraid about our lackings in so many aspects that I didnt let myself do the natural thing and went for the more artistic version to cover up all the flaws...but probably we create more flaws in that approach

I have to thank you again for all this!!! It meant a lot that you did this thorough review and it helped me!!!

Thanx!!!
 
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John, I just rewatched The Door Between. It is so cool how you put together a vampire flick this subtle. At around the 2 minute mark I love the color treatments and the moving lines. I also like the dolly shot as the guy comes outside to check things out, when the dogs are barking. The slow mo for the grab through the door was really smooth. The story was nice also. A man bitten and cursed to be a vampire, is seeking out his creator to kill him.

Some things I would do differently. When you get lights (Soon!) Make sure to light those night shots, as they were at a different level than your interiors. I think once you are able to light outdoors, it will add another level to your film making. Congrats on using the candles and getting some images with mere candle light. I would also make the vampire dude look more vampire-ish perhaps an older dude, less young boy looking. I would also have him making a bitnign expression as the main guy is pulled through the door, instead of a smile, so the viewer would get that he is a vampire who was waiting for the main actor. I like the use of color through out the short for vampire vision. especially the intro. I LOVED the intro to this movie and the music rocked! Congrats on finally getting that compression worked out and getting this submitted!
 
Okay one more weird thing. As I started to watch your movie...my lip started bleeding...really weird stuff. I reached up and found blood, and thought to myself.....Wow...that is a powerful movie LOL!!!!
 
Man oh man!!!! THANK YOU FROM ALL OF US INVOLVED!!!

- i was the vampire that pulled the lead inside the room from the open door!

- thanx for the lighting advice! i will get back to you with PMs after horrorfest cools down to discuss about the right way to go with a light kit

- GLAD you liked the intro, I know that in this compressed format the credits are not quite visible but I will get a nice copy uploaded in our website ASAP for those who want to have a better look at this movie

- My brother wrote some amazing songs in such a short notice....he is the hero in this!!! I will put links to the songs as well in due time...

- I dont know if you read this in this thread, all the sound was put in post by my brother, even the dogs barking...:) and yes we love that dolly shot sooooooooo much!!!! kudos to Stratos for building that dolly!
 
msconce said:
Okay one more weird thing. As I started to watch your movie...my lip started bleeding...really weird stuff. I reached up and found blood, and thought to myself.....Wow...that is a powerful movie LOL!!!!
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man first the vibrating cell phone, now this....you should stop watching these horror movies!!!!
 
VersuS said:
man first the vibrating cell phone, now this....you should stop watching these horror movies!!!!
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I know! This is freakin me out! I guess I am fine as long as no one eats my guts right!???
 
I LOVE subtitles. So that part of it wasn't a problem for me. The problem was
the fact this was a voice over. I would rather hear two actors interact with
each other. The scratchy look reminded me of back in the day (80s) when I
was editing with a SUPER VHS editing VCR.

We had to piggyback scene after scene and after a period of time, we'd get that
look. Thank God for digital.

I would like to see a film from you with true interaction. I think you can pull it off.
Show us and trust me, some of us don't mind subtitles. It's SEXY.
 
Thanx for the kind words Charli!!! So happy that you think there is some potential here and I will give try and give my best again in the future. I never thought subtitles could be sexy....hmm.....;)

Just to shed some light for the voiceover....
a) we knew for a fact that we couldnt act without any rehearsals and even then...it would be a disaster....I decided to avoid showing something just for the sake of showing it and try to work around it.

b) we have a very nice shotgun so we could do the boom and stuff and record during shooting...but with such a small crew there'd be no one to carry the boom....:(

However this is the last time I'm doing VOs (unless its part of a narration) coz I got bored with it and we lose valuable time with recording in the studio. So for the next films from me you can count on some really nasty acting! hahahaha ;)
 
If you speak in your native tongue with subtitles, trust me, I won't know how
bad/good actor you are, can't understand you, but I can read!
 
The Door Between


Script
Pretty good… actually quite original for this fest.

Acting
Most of it was very dark, and since it was in another language I couldn’t judge inflection and such, but it seemed good.

Cinematography
Surprised me here, I liked the very processed look of everything, and your day for night turned out very good! Props on that.

Editing
Didn’t strike me as bad… the long dialogue in the hallway seemed to drag a bit for me.

Score
Different than most, and I liked it.

Overall Impressions
This is a pretty decent flick… there’s a lot of potential here, and I think it may have benefited from a little more coverage in the scenes overall. Thanks!
 
Ok....shocked actually......thanx Brandon so much for a thorough review!!!! I love the fact that whoever took the time to write something about my work found some potential. This really gives me the strongest motivation to go out there and do something 100 times better! Cheers!
 
I am thrilled to announce that The Door Between has been sent to another festival in Greece, called Platform. The festival will take place in December and there is screen viewing for all the participants' films. So....exciting news for us!!!!!!
 
hey John - you cant have a Horrofest without a vampire flick! This is the only one I saw.

Your intro had me smiling :-) Loved it.. That was totally Dario Argento. The reds, the Goblin style soundtrack, the camera getting closer to the bloodied door.....

True - it would have been better if you could have lit it that way rather than done it in post with filters - but I could see the look you were aiming for. Was Argento a conscious influence on this bit?

Other things I really liked were the VO inserts. Calm, reflective, detached. And then coming back into the main story. It gave the piece a more relfective and human nature.

Downsides. I think far too much dialogue in the actions scenes in the middle. I almost felt that maybe the reflective pieces could have been all voice over while the action pieces more visual and not dialogue heavy. That would have provided more balance I think to the feel of the film and made the transition from these two strands more dynamic. Technically, ok it need work, but thats comes with practice, crew! and money.

I like the freeze frames and zooms at first, as it was more like a story unflolding, comic bookesque, but i thought it became overkill later on - like it became a device to hide the action you couldn't show rather than a first choice style.

Once again John I think you have shown that you have a nice vision and style, I would just like to see the technical aspects improve and rely more on visuals to tell the story - especially if you are going to have a VO aswell.

As always this is just opinion and you can take it or leave it - but there was a lot about this I liked. You had character at the heart of this, and thats always good.
 
Darkline said:
hey John - you cant have a Horrofest without a vampire flick! This is the only one I saw.
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True, true, I was amazed that there were no vampyres, werewolves, frankensteins, aliens and stuff.....heck you can do The Birds if you want to but no killer animals either....

Darkline said:
Your intro had me smiling :-) Loved it.. That was totally Dario Argento. The reds, the Goblin style soundtrack, the camera getting closer to the bloodied door.....
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I love that intro...going back to it again and discussing it with my brother, we thought that it would be better to avoid the graphics and put the credits over the image like a real movie would do...and not go artistic with it...but hey...things to learn right? The music is AWESOME....and FYI, my brother used THE MISSION as an influence...you must be aware of them ;)

Darkline said:
True - it would have been better if you could have lit it that way rather than done it in post with filters - but I could see the look you were aiming for. Was Argento a conscious influence on this bit?
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I love Dario but I didnt try to immitate any style during this, maybe the subconscious is stronger than we might think coz I always find myself having ideas that go back to movies but they're like ideas you know...I dont search in my mind to grab something from somewhere in specific....

Darkline said:
Other things I really liked were the VO inserts. Calm, reflective, detached. And then coming back into the main story. It gave the piece a more relfective and human nature.
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We dreaded the VO. We've had some previous experience from our very first 2 projects and we know that we cant act over a mic and its hard etc. However the VO in the narrative style kinda worked in the end but I hate myself for going the same way with the dialogue in the old building, my brother bought me that RODE NG last Xmas and I keep doing VO....how lame am i? Still I had no one to hold the boom so.....oh crap....

Darkline said:
Downsides. I think far too much dialogue in the actions scenes in the middle. I almost felt that maybe the reflective pieces could have been all voice over while the action pieces more visual and not dialogue heavy. That would have provided more balance I think to the feel of the film and made the transition from these two strands more dynamic. Technically, ok it need work, but thats comes with practice, crew! and money.
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Yeah the dialogue....well...if I used the boom...to record the voices in there...if my script was better...if if and if...i think the extent to the information through the dialogues would be well received...i guess you kinda were thrown off by that because of the factos above....

Darkline said:
I like the freeze frames and zooms at first, as it was more like a story unflolding, comic bookesque, but i thought it became overkill later on - like it became a device to hide the action you couldn't show rather than a first choice style.
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I loved those shots too. And yes I have to be honest, when we were planning the rooftop scene with Stratos we knew we couldnt do a proper action scene...so we decided to shot it in very slow motion and the use frames and screw them to make it have a comic-esque look. However people who've see it loved them and I am kinda proud coz it was a pain to do them...And yes (once again)seeing the movie again and again I realised I overdid it with that effect....lol....

Darkline said:
Once again John I think you have shown that you have a nice vision and style, I would just like to see the technical aspects improve and rely more on visuals to tell the story - especially if you are going to have a VO aswell.
As always this is just opinion and you can take it or leave it - but there was a lot about this I liked. You had character at the heart of this, and thats always good.
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Thank you very much for all the comments. Thanx for giving me a so detailed review coz it was REALLY HELPFUL. I like the fact that people comment on the same things I have seen myself so I know that I can see the errors of my work myself as well and i think that that's important, to be able to make clear and right to the point judgement of your pro's and con's. So thanx again!
 
No problem, I havent heard the mission but I will have a listen to see if I can see the influences. As it stands it reminded me or things like Deep Red, even some of the Dawn of the Dead soundtrack.

I guess what I was trying to say was I saw it as a film of 2 halfs. One of a man telling the story and the other of us seeing the story unfold. As it stood they were almost too similar because there was too much dialogue in the the non-voiced over strand of the story. I would have been happier seeing a real difference between these, a harsher transition. A totally different feel to the 2 sections, which it did have if you had cut some of the dialogue. But then again it's not my film!! hehehe.

But I see what your saying and if you had already spotted these things yourself then thats a good sign for your next production.
 
Hey John, wanted to finish my critique now that I was able to see the whole film.

First of all, your work is beautiful. You have such a different approach then the masses. And that is a GREAT thing. Your originality is so refreshing. I love it!

The camera work that you do is stunning to me. You throw in the most unexpected elements and do them so smoothly. The slow-motion at the door, the "time lapse" quality of the victim rising off the floor. The zooms into the frozen frames.

The cinematography is also wonderful for the most part. The scene overlooking the ocean is to dye for! The scenes where you did day-for-night worked really well. It would have been nice to have more light in the shots, but it worked for what you were doing.

The editing is just top-notch. You have a great knack for cutting a film!

I personally love the color saturation that you did in post. I feel that it works so well in this film. It is powerful without seeming out of place.

The love the way you tell the story. I find myself sad for this guy. He seems so haunted. I love the narrative approach.

The sound is, well... some of the best (if not the best!) in the festival. The score is great. I loved it. A lot of attention was given to sound and it shows!

I found the sequence in the "chamber" with the victim confronting the "father" to drag a bit. This may be because there is not enough diversity with what we are watching. The information is passed along in a timely fashion, I think that it is the lack of perspectives here. Maybe some different shot, c/u on faces and such. I have watched this scene several times and can't quite place my finger on it. I like the shots there and I like the story happening here. Something need to drive it. I will revisit this some more and try and comprehend what I am trying to say.

Also, in the chamber, the images change from Blue to Red and vice-verso without meaning. (or at least I haven't picked up the meaning.) I felt that one view was the victims and one was the father, but I it doesn't seem to follow a pattern. And at one point the victim picks up a chain and the colors change. I liked this, but I didn't see the significance of it... the chain that is. Did I miss that? I looked like it "woke" the father's presence.

And while we are here in the chamber, I didn't like visiting the zoom on freezes again. I don't know. I saw it once and it worked. I felt that I need something more powerful with this facedown.

All in all, I found this film to be completely original in it's approach and darn-near flawless in it's execution.

I applaud you, sir! Both you and Stratos!!!

Very nicely done!

Congratulations!!!

Ted
 
OK, lets pause the BTS cutting just a bit to comment on this post :)

First of all, I find your remarks VERY HELPFUL and along with what others said, I started to see clearer some of my flaws in directing this. Yes, the chamber. What a drag...imagine we were trying to get together for this shot a MONTH! We couldnt find a date that suited us all, needed to be a Sunday, no work, no shopping and stuff. So we went there around 5 in the afternoon and an hour later is started raining, clouds and such...we had no lights so after a while, about at the time when Stratos pushes away The Father, it was almost pitch black in there and YES I ADMIT IT I SHOT WITHOUT SEEING A THING in my viewfinder, just crossed my fingers that post would do some magic.....-sob-.....

The repeating zoom/red/comic touch was as I said before in another post, something I came up to cover the lack of action in the scene. However, I didnt see at the time the factor of boredom arising....so I now know that something good you should not spoil it by doing it more than once.

The story also in there dragged a bit...and to be honest....there was no actual script for that...oops. The first half of the movie...in the house...was shot a month before that. We had worked our butts off preparing that and we found it easier to do our work indoors, took our time, didnt care about weather,lights coz we had the lights in the house....so that story which had no actual dialogue but only action, was easier to pull. I see now that some shots there were really cool, like the out-of-focus rise of Stratos and his sudden urge to hunt....actually the first take had me taking off my glasses and leaving them in front of the camera so Stratos would pick them up (he is wearing the glasses of his first victim in the chamber) but we left that out.

The bit in the chambr with the chain that awakens the father is a very nice idea to say from now on! Thanx! Actually this shot was about Stratos looking around the place...and seeing some stuff that were laying around but in the end it was just rubbish. I needed some footage though to make something that move smoothly (didnt accomplish that in there though). The dialogue also....oh man...listen to this...Barouir who played the Father...had never seen the lines before.. LOL! So we go there, its time for his arrival and I hand out the dialogue. At one point, when you see Stratos in the other end of the corridor...he was reading from the script with his back turned. And then, when you see them in the same frame one standing next to the other...I was giving him his lines and had to start and stop his walking towards Stratos. Well, the Father's voice is mine. Recorded along with all the voices and VOs. S$it...I am giving too much away and people are still voting....hahaha

Some really big screwups we did:

a)we had all this makeup on both of them but nothing showed except for the scars in Stratos face and they were much neater than you can tell in the dark...

b)we go there, we start preparing the location, candles and stuff, and Miss X starts working on Stratos' makeup...she does his face, eyes and stuff and then he's all set and I walk up to him and say 'Ok , wear the glasses'...OOPS! Didnt think of that before doing the makeup.

c)we lit the candles way too early and it was blowing in there and they were always put out and had to go over them (100 candles in there) and after a while they had no wax left to burn and so ....

d)we brought the dolly, pipes to move onto...you ve seen the design....the whole board...carried it about 100m downhill from a rocky pathway that led to the building...and throughout the shooting we didnt use it....at some point we said 'oh, the dolly....crap'.!!!!

Fun Fun Fun!
 
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