Trailer for "The Demon Upstairs"

fade in:

EXT - SCHEIDER HOUSE - DUSK

SHAW, a well-dressed man in his thirties, gets out of his car and looks toward

THE SCHEIDER HOUSE,

a large, old abandoned manor house.

Woman(VO)

You don't believe...

INT - SCHEIDER HOUSE - FOYER - NIGHT

The near-total darkness is broken when Shaw turns on a set of utility lights on a stand, pointed at the main staircase. Shaw looks up the stairs.

WOMAN(VO)

... (beat) do you, Mr. Shaw.

The top of the stairs remains shrouded in blackness.

HALLWAY

Shaw(VO)

I've done over a hundred of these (beat) investigations...

Shaw walks away slowly down a long, very dark hallway lit only by the Coleman lantern he carries in his left hand. He disappears around a corner.

INT - CLIENT HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - EVENING

SHAW

... you know what I found? (beat)...

Shaw is sitting in a large chair, holding a drink in his right hand, speaking to someone off-camera. He takes a drink.

SHAW

... nothing.

INT - SCHEIDER HOUSE - STUDY - NIGHT

Shaw is writing at the desk, lit only by the Coleman lantern and a single utility light. He stops writing, puts down the pencil, and studies what he's just written.

THE PENCIL

rolls across the desk, from right to left. Shaw follows the pencil with his eyes, annoyed. After a beat, the pencil rolls back across the desk, this time from left to right. Shaw's expression changes to interest as he follows the pencil's movement.

FOYER

Coleman lantern in hand, Shaw very slowly begins climbing the stairs.

BEDROOM

Shaw turns on a small

DV CAMERA

and begins slowly panning around the room counterclockwise. suddenly a GHOSTLY FIGURE appears in the viewscreen of the camera, but is not visible to the naked eye. Shaw jumps.

FOYER

Shaw slowly continues up the stairs. Suddenly, the Coleman lantern dies out.

STUDY

Shaw is speaking to someone on a cellphone.

SHAW

There is a measurable, physical phenomenon at work here. I just have to figure it out.

BASEMENT

CELLPHONE VOICE

Shaw, stop screwing around, GET OUT OF THERE!

Shaw moves some dusty papers aside, revealing

A BOX.

Shaw opens the lid. He looks down into the box.

SHAW

(after a beat)

You gotta be kidding me.

HALLWAY

Shaw runs back up the hallway, towards the exit, the Coleman lantern swinging wildly. He is panting and whimpering.

UPSTAIRS

A door slowly opens by itself. Behind the door, is darkness.

BATHROOM

A large tub dominates the room. It is filled with blood. Shaw moves toward it. He reaches out to touch the surface of the viscous fluid when

A HAND

bursts up out of the blood and grabs his!

Suddenly the lights go out. In the total darkness are heard the sound of Shaw crying out, a loud splash and liquid settling.

The light comes back on. The surface of the blood in the tub is smooth and unbroken. Suddenly Shaw bursts up out of the tub, covered in blood. He spits out blood as he desperately grabs at the slippery sides of the tub to pull himself out.

HALLWAY

The hallway is empty. Suddenly the Ghostly Figure appears. Just as suddenly, the figure disappears.

FOYER

Shaw, covered in partially dried blood, swings a large axe at the front door.

UPSTAIRS

Shaw looks into the pitch-black room where earlier the door opened by itself.

SHAW

What do you want from me?

In the darkness, a pair of red eyes open, too large and too high up to be human.

FOYER

Shaw runs as fast as possible down the stairs. When he gets to the bottom, he stops and looks up in shock.

Floating near the ceiling is the Ghostly Figure. It's

EYES

are bright red.

BLACKNESS

The title fades in, "The Demon Upstairs", then fades out.

STUDY

Shaw is frantically rooting through a large duffel bag. He pulls out a

CORDLESS DRILL

with his left hand, looks at it for a moment, then groans. He pulls the trigger. The drill works and has a charge.

While it is still running, he turns the drill and points it at his left eye. The

DRILL BIT

moves steadily toward his eye. He screams.

BLACKNESS

fade out:

(c) 2012 by T. D. Fuhringer All Rights Reserved

Delays

Well we have new management at work and so far every staff member expect me has been fired. I'm the only one of the previous staff left. Until I know whether I still have a job this time next month, all movie production is on hold.

I've taken a creative break from editing 'A Conversation' to give me a fresh perspective on the material when I go back to it. I think it's going to come together nicely once my brain has had time to sort everything out.

In the meantime I've been working on some music and it's turning out better than I'd hoped!

A Conversation With the Devil - Gag Reel

'A Conversation' - Aftermath

It's over! Our shoot yesterday mostly went better than I'd hoped. Mostly.

On our last movie only 10% of the footage was 'useable'. I reviewed the transfer this morning and I'm happy to say that at least 80% of the footage from yesterday's shoot is 'useable' and half of it is good enough that I won't cringe when I show it to people.

We all had a really good time, lots of laughs, more food than we needed... and ladybugs. Hundreds of ladybugs. I guess they liked all the lights.

Here's some pictures!

Pretending to play Texas Hold'em, No Limit.

"It was like a huge bird, man!" - Ed cracks up.

"You mean a REAL UFO?" - Scott can't keep a straight face.

Ed and Scott trying to be serious... and failing.

Me giving Garrett direction.

Me not realizing the picture behind me is crooked... till we're finished.

"I've got to call my husband... I mean my wife!" - Garrett on zero sleep.

I've got a lot of footage to organize so give me some time. I'm going to cut the gag reel first because it's easier and it'll help me familiarize myself with all the clips.

Rehearsing two weeks before the shoot made a huge difference in the quality. Also the lighting is better than on our last shoot, though I still need a lot of practice before I win any awards hehe.

It's a shame the set started falling apart midway through the shoot. Also we blew the sound on about 4 lines of dialogue and several inserts of the cards being played ended up being the wrong angle. Other than that and my really bad hairstyle, everything else went pretty well!

Thanks very much to everyone who participated, I look forward to working with you all again someday. Sooner than you think actually. I'm planning another movie for June if my financial arrangements work out.

Stay tuned!

The Crunch

We're on track for Sunday.

I'm not finished the Flats, the Poker Table and the Shot List. I think everything else is ready. I have all the materials for the table and the flats now so it's just a matter of assembling them.

The hall is paid for. We have food, drinks and coffee. We have lights and spare bulbs, extension cords, tape, batteries, DV tapes, and bounce boards. We have all the props except the dartboard. I got chairs and sound blankets. We have camera, microphone, cables, a monitor and at long last a tripod.

Really looking forward to the shoot. I'll post some stills when it's over!

PS A dartboard would be nice if someone comes across one, thanks.

Pre-Production

Here's where we are at.

We will be meeting on Monday March 15th at 6 pm for a Pre-Production Meeting and Script reading. The meeting will be held at a East Side Marios, 750 Queenston Road, Hamilton, east of the LINC, and dinner is on me.

Ed Grainger has filled the role of John. Thank you Ed.

Unfortunately James Harris and Martin Birthelmer will be unable to participate in our current project. So Garrett Taylor has generously filled the role of Syd. Thank you Garrett.

If I am unable to find someone suitable to play Luke before our March 28th shoot date, I will fill the role myself.

Yesterday I completed 13 lighting setups in my basement, to pick a visual style for 'Conversation'. Here are some stills from the test.

#1 is the natural lighting of the room, practical lights only. Effective but boring.

#9 is a standard Hollywood 4 light Studio setup. Much better detail.

#8 is the same as 9 but with less light on the background. I like this one.

#10 is the same as 9 but with no fill light. Terrific contrast but muted colour.

I'll show everyone all 13 setups at our pre-production meeting, but I am pretty sure we're going to end up using some variation of 8, or 10.

Thoughts?

Where we are

It's now one month to go till our shoot date, Sun March 28th at 10 am at Caistor Community Centre.

A snag: Our hopes are with Anson Martin who has just suddenly lost his job and may have to move. He may be understandably unable to fill his role of playing 'John'. Best of luck Anson!

If anyone wants to be Anson's understudy, let me know please.

We will be meeting on Monday March 15th at 6 pm for a Pre-Production Meeting and Script reading. The meeting will be held at a restaurant and dinner is on me. I'm still hunting for the best deal on a private room.

This meeting will give everyone a chance to suggest script changes and contribute creatively to the project. We will also get a feel for how the script sounds and iron out any bugs.

What we still need:

Dartboard

Poker Table

Empty Booze Bottle

If anyone has one of these please let me know, thanks.

I now have a tripod and I think I have all the lights we'll need. I'll be running lighting tests this week to set a visual style for the film.

After that the only thing left is to build the flats, for the set. I've put it off to last because it's expensive and I'm still figuring out the best approach.

One month!