Watch 'Knock Knock'

Check out our new short film, Knock Knock. It was our submission for the My Annabelle Creation contest and that meant there were several guidelines we had to follow. The two most important were that it had to be under two minutes in length and it had to feel like something that could take place in The Conjuring universe.

Our web series The Strange Case of Lucy Chandler has been a massive undertaking, so the idea of taking a weekend to shoot something else and have it finished and uploaded within a week was really appealing. It became a really great way to shift focus, think about something completely different, and then return to Lucy creatively refreshed.

The quick turnaround time meant there wasn’t an opportunity to overthink anything. So once I had settled on the main hook of our entry, most of our prep time was actually spent trying to scale it back and make it as simple as possible. With only two minutes, you have to get it and get out. Trying to build any suspense or tension under those restrictions was frustrating at first, but that challenge became really fun.

The late 60s/early 70s aesthetic was an attempt to make it match The Conjuring films, but it also wound up solving issues like, “Why doesn’t she just use her cell phone to call for help?”

All in all, this is absolutely not something we ever would have put together on our own. So I’m glad we gave it a shot and I’m grateful for the experience. More than anything, it made us anxious to take on more of these bite sized projects while we continue to chip away at the larger ones.