Doors of Life: Write Up

Ahhhhhhhhh. Thats a breath of fresh air. After finishing this project, I really had to do one of those. The planning and production of this project was soooooo immense. This project started a couple of weeks ago when I had to hand in a proposal for a drama/storytelling project. So, the night before I had to drive up to Chicago for Machine tryouts, I woke up out of my sleep and wrote down on a piece of paper, doors of fantasies. This was the original idea, just one thought that a hallway of doors that led you to your fantasies. But on the car ride up to Chicago, Jesse and I had a long discussion on the upcoming films that I was going to do, which included Weightless, Doors of Life, and my last project that I have to shoot this week Wasted. Although we didn't talk as much about Doors of Life, we decided that we had to change fantasies to just real life situations. So, on this car ride, I wrote up a pretty complete treatment of the project. Here's the treatment:

Overview and Treatment:
Have you ever wondered what could have been if you decided to do something different? This story tells of the possibilities that could have been if you chose a different path in life. The main value and lesson that will be learned through the film is the immensity of your decision-making. Your life could change drastically with only one decision. Furthermore, it gives you a glimpse of what dedication and hard work can do for you in the long run.


The story begins with a man that has wasted his life away by lying on the couch, smoking weed, and watching TV all day. He looks extremely depressed and has no motivation to do anything. He goes to a door in his house as if it was a normal day, but gets sucked into an alternate dimension.

The alternate dimension consists of a hallway with many doors on the left and right and an exit door at the end of the hall. A man appears in the hallway at the other end and starts walking towards the protagonist. The protagonist asks, “Where am I?” The man looks at him with a grin on his face and explains that he is in the hallway to the doors of life. He explains to the protagonist that each door reveals the other direction that he could have taken if he decided differently. Furthermore, he tells the protagonist that if at any time he wants to leave, just walk down to the door that says exit. The man walks away as the protagonist is yelling questions at him.

The protagonist is left alone in the empty, deserted hallway. Nothing can be heard except for the ambience. He starts walking towards the exit, but is intrigued by the label on the first door: weed. He looks back and forth at the door and the exit, but decides to go into the door labeled weed. This transports the protagonist to a flashback of his first time being passed a joint/bowl. He is hesitating and the crowd that he is with is peer pressuring him to do it. After a moment of deliberation, he decides to just pass the joint. The crowd sighs and is unsatisfied. He decides to leave the party and go home. He is in a college dorm and decides to hit the books and start studying. A mini montage of him studying and saying no to going out and drinking and him graduating occurs. Cut to the protagonist coming out of the “weed” door.

The protagonist is extremely intrigued by the doors now and starts walking down the hall looking for more interesting doors. He finds one that says, “_____.” This door ends in the protagonist dying some way.

The protagonist comes out of the door and is frantically looking for another door because he is so frightened of what happened in the last door. He finds peace in a door that is labeled, “love.” The scene cuts to him and his girlfriend in college. They are talking about the plans for the future and what the next step is for them. The protagonist is talking about dropping out because he can’t handle the pressures and intensity of college. But his girlfriend is telling him to stay and she’ll help him along the way. He keeps disagreeing with her. But his girlfriend keeps insisting and starts talking about how they can both graduate together and move out to New York City and start a life together. The protagonist is extremely angry, but can see the purity that is in the girlfriend’s eye. He can see that she really means it and that she may actually be able to help him. Cut to a montage of the relationship getting closer and tighter. Also, the two graduate and leave for NYC.

The protagonist comes out of the door and is depressed because this has to end because he is at the end of the hallway. The only door left is the exit door. He reluctantly goes through the door and ends up in a nice apartment, where everything is different. A voice from the other room calls for him. He looks around and goes towards the voice. The voice is the girlfriend of the last door. She asks him, “What’s wrong?” because he is obviously crying and was in pain. The protagonist replies, “Nothing, everything is perfect.”

Well, the story was pretty thought out, but things needed to be changed and decided on. So, in class we had to pitch our ideas to the class and the top 4 would get chosen. And as you know, mine was chosen. I don't actually remember when the birth scene was decided or thought up, but I do remember that this would be amazing if we could pull it off. So, when writing the script with my partners, we decided that this would have to be the first door that he enters, which opened up a dilemma for us. We have the drug scene which ends up with him passing and becoming successful and the love scene which has him becoming successful. So, because I thought that it made more sense that we had at least one of the doors end with him failing and dying, we made that the drugs door.

OK, so thats everything that happened before we had to gather anything together. After my project was chosen and the script was written, I had to figure out the 10+ locations that we needed to shoot at, the complete prop list, a cast of at least 2 major characters and 9 smaller roles, and a shooting schedule. Like the other projects in this class, we have a week to do everything. Gathering all of the props took 3 hours and looking for a hallway that was suitable for our needs took about 3 hours too. As for actual production, we shot around 3 hours on wed, 3 hours on thurs, and 3 hours on fri. The best parts about the shoots were as follows:

1. We went to the psychology building and broke down this entire hallway. There were about 15 posters on the walls, 10 chairs in the hallway, and trashcans in the hallway.
2. There were only 2 doors that were open and unlocked in the hallway and only one end of the hallway with a door. We had to manage to keep continuity the entire time while shooting the ends of the hallways from the same side. Also, figuring out which way Frank would go in and come out of each door because the 2 doors that were open were on the same side. Lastly, we had to have Frank and another person in the room that he walked into so the door wouldn't lock.
3. I got to longboard with a steadycam down the hall.
4. For the apartment scene, Jesse had to smoke a bong for the first scene. So, because we are so smart, we decided to do this scene first. When the most important scene comes up where he finally sees Jenna in the apartment and realizes his life has completely changed, he comes in with a HUGE grin on his face after we told him he has to be confused at first and then extremely happy when he sees her. (probably my favorite memory of the entire shoot)
5. The party scene was a fun set up and my first time shooting a complete scene in POV. Thankfully, I could direct people while doing it, since we didnt use the sound.
6. The Birth scene... many of you are probably wondering how we did this. So, here's how we did it: There was a coffee table that Jess laid down on. The camera was set up behind her and a a little higher than her so we couldn't see her. Then we placed a construction garbage bag where her vagina would be with two people on the sides pulling it and stretching it out. The doctor was placed behind the garbage bag. We set up a white sheet behind the doctor and shined a light on it to keep the background completely white. So, as this is all happening, I zoom into the hole. Lastly, the audio was all done in post-production. And there you have it... Birth.

Finally, the editing process was actually extremely long for this project. I probably edited about 20 hours over the weekend. But, all of this hard work and stressing was WELL WORTH IT! I am EXTREMELY happy with the way that this project turned out. I hope all of you enjoyed it too.

And... That's a Wrap!