The Golden Doorknob Awards

The Skip Landen Golden Doorknob Awards is an annual tradition in Park, and this year's event was celebrated during alumni weekend for the 40th anniversary of the School of Communications. The ceremony was entertaining as always, hosted by Peter Johanns, who made the entire auditorium laugh out loud with his stone-cold jokes about giving his kid away. The night started with some of the classic doorknob films from students in the past, there was a tribute to Skip Landen, the name behind the Golden Doorknob Awards, some previous award winners, and some other gags throughout the night before the montage of this year's official entries.

The winning mini-knob film, Death Door 3000, starred Canon Brownell and was the story of a young adult who becomes aware that he is currently in a doorknob film and must try to stay alive, and away from doorknobs. He eventually gets shot to death by a malicious door, in a hilarious ending. The entries for this year were creative, with some notable entries such as the The Man With The Golden Knob, a James Bond parody with amazing intro and ending credits sequences just like in the Bond movies. Second place went to Gerbert The Pervert, a wildly sexual and gory short film about two characters who attempt to murder a pervert, but the murder attempt goes horribly wrong. The gore effects were done very well, and they used swish pans effectively. The winning film was Happy Birthday, which I was a part of. It is the story of a young adult on the day of his deceased father's birthday going to pay him respects and give his father a message. He writes a letter to his father and leaves it at the base of Ground Zero, where his father was killed in the 9/11 attacks. There is a flashback to the day his dad left for work, and to the last words his father said to him. My roommate James Majeau came up with the story last year, he edited it and also starred in it. The film was shot over fall break in 2012. Rebecca Hersey was our colorist, Breanna Espina was our director of photography, Brian Felsenthal was our audio editor, and I was the special effects editor. When James was taking Fiction Field I, he used this for his news story project in this class, like we are now. I am so glad that I was a part of the production, it was a great experience and I enjoyed watching James' excitement when all of his hard work finally paid off. At the end of the ceremony our group met with one of the professors who was here when production classes were just getting started. He gave us a great piece of advice, and the one lesson he has learned throughout his 80 plus years of life. He told us there is no such thing as a boss, there are only teams and captains. Everyone is in it together, and has something to contribute to the team. If you help your peers out, they will help you out, we all learn from each other.