THE GOLDEN DOORKNOB AWARDS

 

Who would have thought that a doorknob could inspire a beloved film school tradition?

 

The “Golden Doorknob” films are 5 minute (or less) exploring the topic: “death by doorknob.” It can happen to anyone, it could happen to you; a doorknob might end it all.

 

This is a decades-old filmmaking tradition begun by the legendary Ithaca College Professor Skip Landen in the late 60’s. Everyone loved Skip as you can clearly see in this clip.

 

The Golden Doorknob tradition is alive and well in the Park School with dozens of films produced each year in competition for the prestigious Golden Doorknob Awards. There is also a cash prize paid to the teams with the winning films, a program generously supported by alumni of The Park School in honor of Skip. We recently celebrated the 45th anniversary of the Golden Doorknob Awards and it looks like there will be “death by doorknob” for decades to come.

 

As part of the coursework for "Development for Entertainment Media", students were tasked to come up with an idea to showcase the doorknob films. The best idea (as decided by Park School Faculty) would be selected for production as a web series. A group came up with this idea: “Put the doorknob on trial” and the “evidence” would be the Doorknob Films. The Production Management Class developed the scripts and did pre-production for 8 episodes. Then, a group of students volunteered during summer to join in production of the series.

Here is the promo for the series, "Murder Trial of The Golden Doorknob".

 

In another course, "Senior Seminar in Digital Marketing and Distribution", students worked in teams to develop a distribution and marketing plan for the series including: crowd funding strategy; YouTube Launch, website design, social marketing plan including: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google search.You can see all the student’s work on “Murder Trial of the Golden Doorknob”: www.knobontrial.com