Raymond Abelak

Alexander Seltzer ‘s horror short film “The Door” brings One of Life’s Biggest Nightmares to the screen with short film “The Door” at LA’s Holly Shorts.

Synopsis: A year after their daughter’s disappearance, Kara and Felix struggle to move on in their own ways as their marriage falls apart around them. But when a mysterious door appears in her kitchen, Kara becomes obsessed with uncovering what lies behind it at any cost. Even as it threatens to reopen old wounds.

Today’s conversation with Filmmaker Alexander Seltzer from “The Door” has been edited for length and clarity.  For the full, un-edited conversation, visit our YouTube channel here.

 

Joe Winger: 

We’re here today with writer / director Alexander Seltzer from The Door, a short film playing at Holly Shorts in Los Angeles this August.

I watched your short, “The Door.”  It was tight. It was suspenseful. In my opinion, it’s everything you want a short film to be.

What’s the most important message that you want to share with our audience today about the short film? 

Alexander Seltzer: 

I like to make movies about things that scare me typically. 

So with The Door, I’ve been terrified of becoming a parent; and parenthood in general. 

I really wanted to make a movie about that and exploring my fears and where they come from, but in an interesting, entertaining way. 

I wanted to ask the question of the audience, of myself, of whether or not: does parenthood transcend morality?

Ultimately, I hope that audiences come away watching the movie asking that question of themselves. 

Would they do anything different to what our lead Kara does at the end?

Would they do what she did? Would they potentially do something else? That kind of moral ambiguity, I think, is very interesting. I know where I come down on it. And that’s part of the reason why I think I was afraid of having kids for so long. So yeah, that’s what I hope people get away. That’s one of the messages. I hope people come away with it. 

Joe Winger: 

I think among so many features and shorts, this one does ask a whole lot of questions.

And in my opinion like what good storytelling does is it doesn’t give us all the answers back. It really leaves us questioning ourselves and our world afterwards. So I think you’ve accomplished that. Congrats. 

Alexander Seltzer: 

Thank you. Especially in shorts too. In features you have more time to play.

But I agree with you.

Joe Winger: 

I’m not sure what your schedule is like, how many days, I’d love to hear that. 

What was the biggest challenge with your production, and what lesson did you learn from solving that challenge? 

Alexander Seltzer: 

We had three days but they were jam packed days.

Biggest challenge, I think one of the biggest challenges, I’m sure everyone says budget, my producer Mark [Delottinville] did a great job with what we had. 

I never really felt the pinch too much. 

Here’s a spoiler alert. 

There’s a sequence towards the end of the movie where you find out what’s behind the door and executing the that was probably the most challenging aspect and I knew that going in.

I shot some tests around my house but specifically all the stuff later on in the film like once we’re through the door and into the mirror world.  That I knew how to shoot. 

We had a very simple gag for that where we just flipped everything in post [production]. 

Within that, I had to coordinate with how some other heads of department like costumes, for example. Felix;  we had to make two different outfits for him, the same shirt, but one with the buttons on the left and one with buttons on the right.

So when you flip the image. The buttons stayed on the correct side, given that he was coming from the real world, things that no one will notice. 

But I was just like, I need this to match and be logical. 

But the transition from the real world into the mirror world, getting through the door, that was a bit of a challenge that was the most challenging.  Because I don’t have a very big VFX background.

Thankfully I had a great team, my DOP, Justin Black. My VFX supervisor, Nigel [McGinn], we worked together, we did some tests beforehand, and then on the day my VFX supervisor Nigel was there, so we shot out the wall and the door

That’s all built, it wasn’t real part of the house, so we built that.

We had a little green box essentially on the other side of the door that when she opens it, we’re looking at a green box, and then we had to flip around, remove the wall and shoot the whole kitchen area as a plate, but we got to make sure the parallax was correct.

We’d measure everything with a tape measure, make sure our angles were correct. So they would all comp together hopefully seamlessly in the end.

Then figuring out how to match her position.

So when she does open the door from the other side. Because we couldn’t build the kitchen twice, we had to fake that as well and that was challenging, but I learned a lot about the process of at least the VFX and, working on set with someone like that was a great delight.

Joe Winger:  

Something you brought up in two different ways.

One, I’m a big fan of movies that are simple stories, but incredibly well told.

You mentioned a second ago, your characters and how the wardrobe informed their behavior. Let’s actually talk with the cast. 

Alexander Seltzer: 

I was very lucky. We got to work with Tanaya Beatty, Raymond Ablack, and Mercedez Gutierrez.

Working with Tanaya and Raymond.  They’re pros, I’m just lucky they said yes, and they liked the script.

We didn’t have any time for rehearsals. We did one read through over zoom.

We flew her to Toronto where we shot the film and Raymond, thankfully, there was a hiatus filming on his Netflix show.  Everything worked out perfectly. 

They got the script, they got the tone I was going for pretty much off the bat. 

I think one of the most memorable scenes I had.  For me, the whole film revolves around the kitchen scene and the argument that kind of spills over into pathos understanding where the two characters can finally talk to each other.

We did that. I think we might have. We did some coverage because I knew I wanted to keep it interesting. So I think we spent a good chunk of time on that, but there were minimal notes in terms of me stepping in as a director. 

It was just like, let’s have fun. Let’s explore different variations.

I’m also an editor and I came up as an editor and I edited this film. So I knew, the godsend to an editor is variation rather than just doing the same performance 10 times and expecting it to magically work in the edit.

Their stars are just going to keep rising and hopefully one day they remember working with me.

There’s a scene at the beginning where Tanaya’s character, so Kara, she’s throwing out her kid’s belongings. 

We did that all in one take. 

It was pouring rain at the time, which was perfect because that’s what I wanted. 

We’re just shooting, shooting, shooting.  I think we had to do it seven times in the end because I wanted, when she dumps this box of children’s toys, I wanted the bear that has the kid’s name written on it in marker to fall exactly right so that when she slams the lid it’s just the little leg of the teddy bear sticking out with the kid’s name written on it in sharpie as we push in and land on it.

There’s no way to do that without VFX and we didn’t have the budget for that.

So we just had to keep doing it until it landed exactly how I wanted it to. And she was a trooper. She was like, yeah, she knew what I was going for. 

Joe Winger: 

Again, it goes down to the details of your execution.

What was the process like pulling together your production team and what were you looking for that you found there?

Alexander Seltzer: 

My DP [Justin Black] was one of the first people.  Obviously my producer, Mark [Delottinville] was the first person that came on board and he’s the one who actually made this thing happen. It wouldn’t exist without him.

Then my other producer, Sam Rudykoff incredible director in his own right.

For my DP, I went to my previous collaborator, Justin Black. I think he’s amazing. He’s shot a bunch. He’s shot features. He’s shot Apple TV series. He’s usually too busy for me these days, but I love him for that reason. 

But no, he’s got a great combination that I look for in DP specifically for a project like this, where I knew there would be some VFX and some visual storytelling challenges and the quirks that I wanted to figure out because he has that great combination of a technician’s brain, the science of cinematography, but also the artistic side as well handled and in one beautiful human package.

Thankfully Mark, my producer, actually brought and introduced me to a bunch of the other heads of department who I hadn’t worked with before. 

Like Logan [Graham Greene] and Misty [Fox] for hair and makeup. And Jennifer [Choy] for costumes. 

There were just a lot of really talented folks that I hadn’t worked with yet, based off of our quick first meetings.  These are my people.  They get the vision and it all worked out perfectly.

People like Misty, my hair and makeup, my costume designer, my DP, a lot of these people were coming off of things like the Star Trek series that was shooting in Toronto at the time during the hiatus. So timing is also a big thing. I got very lucky to be able to work with people like who knew their stuff.

Joe Winger: 

As a filmmaker, you’ve achieved something that everybody wants to do. Very few have done, which is you won Slamdance. 

Can you talk about what that experience was like and how that helped you in your journey as a filmmaker?

Alexander Seltzer: 

It was surreal. I’ve applied many times before. 

So when you find out you’re a finalist, I go in expecting nothing and just expecting to have a good time, maybe meet a few nice folks.

Winning it was great. Going to the festival was incredible.  It was my first time going to Park City. There was a cash prize associated with winning.  I put that straight into another film. 

It’s definitely helped me in terms of future projects.

Joe Winger: 

You’re playing at Holly Shorts coming up in August.

Whether it’s you as a filmmaker, whether it’s The Door as the short film, what’s next for you?

Alexander Seltzer: 

We have Holly Shorts. We’re premiering in Miami at Popcorn Frights. There’s a couple of other festivals I can’t talk about yet, but exciting times ahead.

I’m currently working on the feature script for The Door.  Hopefully I get to make that in the next couple of years. I have a couple of other features that are in various stages. I have some TV stuff that is at some places right now. 

Joe Winger: 

Usually people come to this website for food, wine, cocktails, even healthier options.

Whether it’s dinner and a movie for date night, or if you like to cook, can you share with us a dish you love or food pairing?

Alexander Seltzer: 

Yeah, I love to cook. I cook a lot, but this is probably gonna be so basic, but sometimes basic is good for a reason. 

Something I do with my girlfriend a lot when we go away to a cabin in the woods or a new place.  

A really good quality steak, some Maldon salt on there, some pepper, some butter grill that up nice.  And then some really like fresh tomatoes. Chopped up roughly, like wedges, thick, olive oil, balsamic, lots of garlic, a little tomato salad. Obviously you need Dijon mustard, that’s a non negotiable.  A juicy red wine.

And I’m a happy camper.  That’s my happy place.

Joe Winger: 

A good steak, a good wine pairing.  Yes, agreed. 

Whether it’s a website or social media, what’s the best way for our audience to follow you for now and in the future?

Alexander Seltzer: 

My website is just AlexanderSeltzer.com 

But the best place to track me is Instagram: Alex_Seltzer.  And my producer’s production company is BigPigCo.