THE
CALLING is another short. Maybe 15 minutes,
maybe longer. It was shot in film and in color
with sound in the Super 8 format.
It
wasn't made for college, it was made to make a
short film period.
The
story was simple. My father, as an older person
named Elder, gets a call from Death literally
over the telephone. He drives to the cemetery as
Alice Cooper's WAKE ME GENTLY is playing and
when he confronts the Reaper standing amongst
the head stones he is transported into a dark
limbo. The Reaper talks to him about how he must
submit to his own death, but my father's
character says "NO!" The spell is
broken and daylight comes back and to the theme
of PATTON my father's character marches to his
car and drives towards the cemetery exit. When
the Reaper makes a tree limb fall in the car's
path, my father drives around it and out of the
gate. The last shot is from the rear window of
my father's car and shows the shrinking cemetery
as he simply told death he wasn't interested in
dying, goodbye!
I'm
not as comfortable with this casting. It's
personal. I shouldn't have used my father in the
role. It will make it hard to watch,
particularly given its story, when he really
dies in real life. When it was shot all of us
were younger including him.
