The Duel
Sparta, New Jersey | Film Short
Fantasy, Action
The Duel is an epic, action-packed fantasy-drama short film about morality and mortality. A mythic adventure spanning the sins of your past, how you face your own end, and what good you might still be able to leave behind.
The Duel
Sparta, New Jersey | Film Short
Fantasy, Action
1 Campaigns | New York, United States
81 supporters | followers
Enter the amount you would like to pledge
$13,000
Goal: $15,000 for production
The Duel is an epic, action-packed fantasy-drama short film about morality and mortality. A mythic adventure spanning the sins of your past, how you face your own end, and what good you might still be able to leave behind.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
A dying Warrior seeks one last chance at redemption - but first, he must draw a single drop of blood from Death itself in a duel of man versus myth.
Haunted by nightmares and the ghosts of his past, a nameless Warrior, past his prime, now lives a life of quiet regret. When he is struck by a fatal illness, he refuses to lie down and die old, forgotten, and damned.
Heedless of the cries of his Wife, the Warrior sets out on a fabled, mythic quest: to find the embodiment of Death itself and ask for a boon. After weeks of travel and nearly dying at the edges of the world, he finds what he seeks, and Death promises to grant him his request - for a price. The Warrior is given a wager: draw a single drop of blood from Death in a duel, and his illness will be healed and his life returned to him. Sick, dying, old and exhausted, the Warrior draws his sword for one last good fight.
But the stakes are greater than even Death realizes.
The Duel is the kind of film I’ve always wanted to make. Ever since I was a kid, watching Fellowship of the Ring on the big screen, I had a burning desire to make films of magic. The kinds of things that awed, stunned, made a new generation of children fall in love with the power of adventure on the big screen. Star Wars, Jurassic Park, The Avengers - big, epic, melodramatic, powerful, sweeping - and action-packed.
But that’s not the kind of thing you can go out and make on your own (but boy, as a child, did I try…don’t look up Dino Chaos on YouTube). It requires hundreds of millions of dollars, huge movie studios like Warner Brothers or Disney, stars, CGI and gear I couldn’t even imagine. It’s not the kind of thing you can just make as an indie, self-funded filmmaker, as a struggling bartender with no connections and definitely no money. But I had this script that called for period piece costumes and locations, stunts and CGI and makeup, fire and water and night shoots and who knew what else. I could have pivoted, aimed for something smaller, something easier (though no film is ever easy), something that seemed more in line with what the world was telling me was possible.
I refused. 
The truth is, we didn’t just want to make a film for the sake of it, written around a location we had with two actors in modern day dialogue. We love those films (and have made them!) but we wanted to take the kinds of films I grew up with, the expansive epics that got me into loving movies, and go: okay, why not us? Why can’t we do that? Is this even possible? Why does fantasy, or action, or sci-fi or large scale adventure have to be confined to studios with eight figure budgets and movie stars? Let’s tell the stories we want to tell.
With The Duel, we set out to make something that defies the odds - just like the Warrior’s quest. Something mythic, epic, legendary - something that seemed impossible. And when tasked with impossibility, with what seems like the inevitable, you decide how you want to face it - and we’re facing it head on.
But we can't face it alone.
We've gone as far as we can on our own and need your help to get this film across the finish line. Your money will go towards paying incredibly talented creatives and adding the finishing touches to the film in post-production. It will also help alleviate some of the debt we've incurred during production so that we have funds available for things like festival submission fees, DCP creation, subtitles, marketing materials, and more.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Cast & Crew Payroll
Costs $10,000
40 crazy talented hard-working insanely skilled creatives contributed their work in front of and behind the camera to bring this to life.
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Cameron A. Tubbs (writer/director) & K. Bevin Ayers (director/producer) - are an award-winning husband and wife indie filmmaking team who met in a knife class and have been together ever since. They both act, perform stunts, write, produce, direct, stunt coordinate, intimacy coordinate, and art direct in all their films under their indie company banner, Uncanny Films Productions. Both neurodivergent (ADHD and OCD) as well as disabled (lupus and a spinal cord injury) they find that combining their filmmaking styles delivers projects both expansive and detailed, epic and intimate. Armed with a passion for cinematic storytelling and a fully stocked medicine cabinet, they're an unstoppable team!
Uncanny's previous film credits include the horror short The Worm, which premiered at Dances with Films: NY and has won best horror short at multiple festivals. It is available on YouTube where it has over 30k views. Our first feature, the Appalachian horror film Acolyte, is currently on the film festival circuit with a premiere at DWF: LA and NY and has, so far, won awards for best horror feature and best actress.
Mark A. Rose - The Warrior. Mark A. Rose is a hulking 6’6" actor, stunt coordinator/performer, stage combat teacher, fight director, second degree black belt, internationally ranked fencer, and joyful beaming theatre kid. As a stunt performer you can catch Mark (he's hard to miss) on NBC's The Blacklist, ABC's Quantico, and Apple TV's Dope Thief as well as Telemundo's Reina de Corazones. He fight directs locally for NY/NJ theatre houses and is not someone you should try to fight.
Leana Gardella - The Guide. Leana Gardella is a NYC based actor, stunt performer, and intimacy director/coordinator. She has appeared in television and film on Law & Order, Roommates, The Beauty and recently stunt doubled for Lizzy Caplan in the film Drag which premiered at SXSW. She trains in wire work, Jeet Kune Do, and stage combat, and first worked with team Uncanny in their ridiculous parody play I Killed Batman as "Robin" (the Stephanie Brown one. If you know, you know.) She is also someone you should not try to fight.
Matthew Benjamin Canada - Cinematographer. Matthew B. Canada (real name) is a NYC based cinematographer who has worked on the feature films Acolyte, Man’s Best, and the upcoming Vacationland. He has previously teamed up with team Uncanny for Acolyte and The Worm. Fueled by black coffee, body armor, and a love for film, Matt’s greatest skill is effectively masking his stomach ulcers when Cameron asks him to do another 360 degree night shoot oner on a budget of about ten dollars.
Morgan Healy - Composer. Morgan Healy is a Los Angeles based composer and former folk artist with over a decade of music production and performance experience who team Uncanny view as their greatest discovery and (hopefully) forever collaborator. Classically trained and AVID certified, her first film score was for Uncanny’s feature film Acolyte, where she did her own throat singing. She has gone on to be a rising star as a composer in the indie film world, scoring the short films The Lost Boy and Ophiology.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
A dying Warrior seeks one last chance at redemption - but first, he must draw a single drop of blood from Death itself in a duel of man versus myth.
Haunted by nightmares and the ghosts of his past, a nameless Warrior, past his prime, now lives a life of quiet regret. When he is struck by a fatal illness, he refuses to lie down and die old, forgotten, and damned.
Heedless of the cries of his Wife, the Warrior sets out on a fabled, mythic quest: to find the embodiment of Death itself and ask for a boon. After weeks of travel and nearly dying at the edges of the world, he finds what he seeks, and Death promises to grant him his request - for a price. The Warrior is given a wager: draw a single drop of blood from Death in a duel, and his illness will be healed and his life returned to him. Sick, dying, old and exhausted, the Warrior draws his sword for one last good fight.
But the stakes are greater than even Death realizes.
The Duel is the kind of film I’ve always wanted to make. Ever since I was a kid, watching Fellowship of the Ring on the big screen, I had a burning desire to make films of magic. The kinds of things that awed, stunned, made a new generation of children fall in love with the power of adventure on the big screen. Star Wars, Jurassic Park, The Avengers - big, epic, melodramatic, powerful, sweeping - and action-packed.
But that’s not the kind of thing you can go out and make on your own (but boy, as a child, did I try…don’t look up Dino Chaos on YouTube). It requires hundreds of millions of dollars, huge movie studios like Warner Brothers or Disney, stars, CGI and gear I couldn’t even imagine. It’s not the kind of thing you can just make as an indie, self-funded filmmaker, as a struggling bartender with no connections and definitely no money. But I had this script that called for period piece costumes and locations, stunts and CGI and makeup, fire and water and night shoots and who knew what else. I could have pivoted, aimed for something smaller, something easier (though no film is ever easy), something that seemed more in line with what the world was telling me was possible.
I refused. The truth is, we didn’t just want to make a film for the sake of it, written around a location we had with two actors in modern day dialogue. We love those films (and have made them!) but we wanted to take the kinds of films I grew up with, the expansive epics that got me into loving movies, and go: okay, why not us? Why can’t we do that? Is this even possible? Why does fantasy, or action, or sci-fi or large scale adventure have to be confined to studios with eight figure budgets and movie stars? Let’s tell the stories we want to tell.
With The Duel, we set out to make something that defies the odds - just like the Warrior’s quest. Something mythic, epic, legendary - something that seemed impossible. And when tasked with impossibility, with what seems like the inevitable, you decide how you want to face it - and we’re facing it head on.
But we can't face it alone.
We've gone as far as we can on our own and need your help to get this film across the finish line. Your money will go towards paying incredibly talented creatives and adding the finishing touches to the film in post-production. It will also help alleviate some of the debt we've incurred during production so that we have funds available for things like festival submission fees, DCP creation, subtitles, marketing materials, and more.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Cast & Crew Payroll
Costs $10,000
40 crazy talented hard-working insanely skilled creatives contributed their work in front of and behind the camera to bring this to life.
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Cameron A. Tubbs (writer/director) & K. Bevin Ayers (director/producer) - are an award-winning husband and wife indie filmmaking team who met in a knife class and have been together ever since. They both act, perform stunts, write, produce, direct, stunt coordinate, intimacy coordinate, and art direct in all their films under their indie company banner, Uncanny Films Productions. Both neurodivergent (ADHD and OCD) as well as disabled (lupus and a spinal cord injury) they find that combining their filmmaking styles delivers projects both expansive and detailed, epic and intimate. Armed with a passion for cinematic storytelling and a fully stocked medicine cabinet, they're an unstoppable team!
Uncanny's previous film credits include the horror short The Worm, which premiered at Dances with Films: NY and has won best horror short at multiple festivals. It is available on YouTube where it has over 30k views. Our first feature, the Appalachian horror film Acolyte, is currently on the film festival circuit with a premiere at DWF: LA and NY and has, so far, won awards for best horror feature and best actress.
Mark A. Rose - The Warrior. Mark A. Rose is a hulking 6’6" actor, stunt coordinator/performer, stage combat teacher, fight director, second degree black belt, internationally ranked fencer, and joyful beaming theatre kid. As a stunt performer you can catch Mark (he's hard to miss) on NBC's The Blacklist, ABC's Quantico, and Apple TV's Dope Thief as well as Telemundo's Reina de Corazones. He fight directs locally for NY/NJ theatre houses and is not someone you should try to fight.
Leana Gardella - The Guide. Leana Gardella is a NYC based actor, stunt performer, and intimacy director/coordinator. She has appeared in television and film on Law & Order, Roommates, The Beauty and recently stunt doubled for Lizzy Caplan in the film Drag which premiered at SXSW. She trains in wire work, Jeet Kune Do, and stage combat, and first worked with team Uncanny in their ridiculous parody play I Killed Batman as "Robin" (the Stephanie Brown one. If you know, you know.) She is also someone you should not try to fight.
Matthew Benjamin Canada - Cinematographer. Matthew B. Canada (real name) is a NYC based cinematographer who has worked on the feature films Acolyte, Man’s Best, and the upcoming Vacationland. He has previously teamed up with team Uncanny for Acolyte and The Worm. Fueled by black coffee, body armor, and a love for film, Matt’s greatest skill is effectively masking his stomach ulcers when Cameron asks him to do another 360 degree night shoot oner on a budget of about ten dollars.
Morgan Healy - Composer. Morgan Healy is a Los Angeles based composer and former folk artist with over a decade of music production and performance experience who team Uncanny view as their greatest discovery and (hopefully) forever collaborator. Classically trained and AVID certified, her first film score was for Uncanny’s feature film Acolyte, where she did her own throat singing. She has gone on to be a rising star as a composer in the indie film world, scoring the short films The Lost Boy and Ophiology.