The Doctor will see you now.
Written and directed by Jordan A. Roman
PREVO is where independent short films premiere. Your first month is free, and Takers is waiting in it Thursday at 8 AM ET.
Free for a month with code TAKERSWAIT, then $5.99 a month. Cancel any time.
PREVO is where independent short films premiere. Your first month is free, and Takers is 4 minutes of it.
Code TAKERS applies for you: one free month, then $5.99 a month. Cancel any time. Already a member? Watch it here.
Here for Jordan?
Every person who joins through this page moves Takers up the ladder below. Know Jordan? This is how you show up. Found the film five minutes ago? You count exactly the same.
The turnout
3 people have saved their seats.3 people have turned out for Takers.
7 more for the Crew passes.
+ 3 more
PREVO Proven – one hundred people. Subscribers who joined through this film, plus members who watched it and left a Note. One person counts once, and nothing else counts at all.
First names only. Email prevo@prevostreaming.com to be left off.
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How they made it
Two overnight shoots, back to back, in April 2021. Mid-pandemic, so the whole crew wore masks. So did The Doctor.
Planned as five. Then Jordan decided every shot The Doctor is in needed his smoke, and one artist spent about a year on them.
Not one green or blue screen shot on set. The Doctor is an actor in a real costume, so the actress playing Kara always had someone to act against.
From Jordan's own notes on the shoot.
The first image Jordan had, before a word of the script: the Plague Doctor’s beak reaching out toward the camera like “a sadistic Pinocchio nose growing.”
Not a harness, which swings. Sofia Masson is riding a stunt rig called a parallelogram, a giant see-saw pushed down from the far end, so she rises and freezes dead at the top. The rig was painted out later.
About ten takes to land The Doctor’s hand on the exact beat the rig lifted Sofia. And L.E. Woods, inside the mask, could not see a single thing – on either night.
It was never in the plan on set. The black aura was added in post to every shot The Doctor is in, and the best reference for it was footage of an upside-down black jellyfish: always moving, slowly, as if underwater.
Jordan’s favorite effect in the film, built on Apparition in the Harry Potter films – down to the tiny camera jolt, the sound and the fake dust that sell an arrival.
Every storyboard has the action running left to right, the way Jordan saw it in his head. In the finished film, all of it runs right to left.
Director’s statement
Jordan A. Roman
Writer, director and co-producer
Takers is deeply inspired by my favorite psychological horror films such as The Ring, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser, A Cure for Wellness & Suspiria (2018). I was also fascinated by the idea of bringing in a dynamic and kinetic sense of action choreography and stunts from films like The Matrix or John Wick into the intense horror mixture to create a concoction of horrific intensity, that was also fun and thrilling to watch.
My goal was to introduce the audience to The Doctor, in hopes that he would be compelling and terrifying enough of an antagonist that he could lead an entire franchise and keep people coming back for more, much in the way of a Michael Myers in Halloween or Freddy from Nightmare on Elm Street.
A few of the films members are watching this week, all in the same free month.
Alexander Beale
Pat McCoy and Nicolas Alexandre
Brendan Sweeney
Chí Trân
Ryan Fajet and Paloma Ronquillo
Robin Takao D’Oench
Alexander Beale
John Liang
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Code TAKERS applies automatically. One free month, then $5.99 a month. Cancel any time.
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