A WHEEL
OUT OF
KILTER
A film by Ross Morin
[email protected]
www.AWheelOutOfKilterFilm.com
(207) 577-1360
Genre: Drama/Horror/Philosophy/Sports/Documentary/Found Footage
Niches: Mountain bike culture, Zen and Buddhist Philosophy, LGBT Auteur,
Independent Filmmakers
Shooting location: Maine & Connecticut, USA
Mountain biking.
Philosophy.
Murder.
Logline
A Zen Buddhist mountain biker on the verge
of a nervous breakdown goes into the
woods and never returns in this genre
mashup of character drama, philosophical
documentary, bromance and psychological
thriller film.
Synopsis
Greg is a Zen Buddhist mountain biker who
makes short films about how to live a good
life but he struggles to practice what he
preaches. In the end, some bad decisions
lead him to his gruesome death. A genre
mashup of character drama, philosophical
documentary, buddy comedy and
psychological horror, A Wheel out of Kilter
documents the last two days of Greg’s life
as he heads deeper into the darkness of the
woods - and of his soul. As Greg is stalked
by a shadowy figure in the mountains, he
must face his own inner demons and learn
what it really means to be enlightened.
www.AWheelOutofKilterFilm.com
Cast & Crew
ROSS MORIN - Writer/Director/Producer/Editor/Director of Photography/Actor
Ross Morin is an independent filmmaker, editor and cinematographer from
southern Maine. He is an Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Connecticut
College where he teaches filmmaking. He grew up in Maine where he has
been making films since he was 13 years old. He is currently editing the
prequel to A Wheel out of Kilter, a short action thriller called Deadpoint.
His recent writer/director work includes:
Ad Noctum (2011), a short horror film about being dragged into darkness. It
screened in film festivals across the country including the Boston
Underground Film Festival and the Illinois International Film Festival where it
won the Best Short Horror Film award.
Les Moulins (2009), a short documentary about millworkers in a small New
England town. It screened in a number of festivals across the country
including the Athens International Film and Video Festival, and the Portland
Phoenix Film Festival where it won the award for Best Production.
His recent editing work includes:
Cigar Man (2014), a dramatic short about finding internal peace with a
terminal illness starring Steven Culp and M. Emmett Walsh recently screened
at the Raindance Film Festival in London and the Emerge Film Festival where
it was nominated for Best Dramatic Short.
A Man of God (2015), a dramatic short film about a fugitive priest who hides
with a family for the night, risking his life and theirs, is currently under review
by festivals and was recently accepted into the Cincinnati Film Festival.
MATTHEW HERBERTZ - Director of Photography/Actor/Assistant Editor
Matthew Herbertz is an independent filmmaker and cinematographer from
Indianapolis, Indiana. His recent filmmaking work has screened at festivals
around the country including the New Orleans Film Festival, DC Independent
Film Festival, and the Athens International Film and Video Festival. He is
currently working on a short horror film called Deadpoint that takes place in
the same universe as A Wheel out of Kilter.
BRIAN NEWELL - Editor
Brian Newell, a native of the Washington DC area, returned home after
graduating from Connecticut College in 2005 and has been working as a
freelance video editor for the last decade, primarily editing documentary
televisions shows for History, Discovery, National Geographic, Travel Channel,
PBS, and others. He enjoys making time for editing fictional pieces whenever
he can. He collaborated with Morin previously on Ad Noctum, the awardwinning horror short, in 2011.
KYLE CLARK - Composer/Assistant Editor
Kyle Clark is an independent film and music artist residing in southeastern CT.
His work explores the poetry of the spaces where visuals and sound meet.
Director’s Statement
Where are all the other Zen philosophy mountain biking bromance
thriller movies?
A Wheel out of Kilter was written as a short horror film but quickly
evolved into the largest project I’ve ever undertaken. Most horror
films are about the things that happen to a protagonist, but after
shooting in the mountains of Maine for a week, it became clear that
the film was about the protagonist himself, and far less about the
things that happen to him. Three summers of shooting later, it had
become a feature length dramatic character story about friendship
and resilience. While it retains its original horror/thriller elements,
the film better fits the under-represented genre of “found-footage
drama.” It was ultimately more inspired by psuedo-documentary
dramas like Chronicle, The Dirties and Getting Go: the Go Doc
Project than the found footage horror films like The Blair Witch
Project or Paranormal Activity. My little horror film had become a
feature length character study about a man’s descent into the
depths of his own hell.
It’s hard for me to know where the fiction A Wheel out of Kilter ends
and the documentary begins. I play the protagonist of the film,
Greg, and my director of photography plays the cameraman, Ben.
Throughout the three years we shot the film, we grew more deeply
interconnected with our filmic counterparts to the point where it
became difficult to tell when we were acting. The script grew
organically from “psychodrama” style improvisational sessions in
which we lived as the fictional characters when we weren’t filming.
We pulled from our personal experiences with friendship, family,
mental illness, love, and pain, and found that these elements became
the true heart of the story. The horror/thriller plot remained to
structure the story, but the ‘real’ film became about the friendship
and an exploration of the difficulties of unconditional love.
Unconditional love between two men, and unconditional love for
oneself.
I began mountain biking five years ago, just before starting this film,
and I felt that everyone else was faster, stronger, better. No matter
how few times I bloodied myself up crashing into rocks and trees, no
matter how fast I climbed hills, I realized I would never be as good
as the people around me. Why continue, I wondered, when I’ll never
be that good? Why play a game knowing that I will not win? These
questions inspired the themes of the film and ultimately plague the
protagonist, Greg, as he struggles with the question of “Why go on”
over and over again. He is fired from his jobs, kicked out of school,
rejected by his peers, and in the end, lost in the woods, hunted by a
man with a hatchet. Greg needs to find an inner resilience to keep
going; but as I well know - that’s easier said than done.
I think that the existential questions in the film are also at the heart
of Zen. Zen places as its central concern the issue of how to live a
peaceful and meaningful life in the face of death and suffering. Zen
philosophy is discussed explicitly in the podcasts within the film, and
is also present in the arrogant and violent ways that Greg behaves.
Zen is about finding peace despite the “Dukkha.” Dukkha is often
translated as, “suffering” but is better translated to, “a wheel out of
kilter.” Greg’s wheels are out of kilter, to be sure, and he rejects
advice on how to go about re-aligning them. He ignores his doctors,
throws out his pills and heads into the woods on a soul-searching
mission. In this case, his mission forces him to face his worst fears in
the darkest hours of the night. Alone.
This film is as personal as it is political for me. As a gay man, I am too
aware of the norms and values of a straight male masculinity that
privileges dominance and physical assertiveness. I hope that this film
questions traditional representations of masculinity and maleness,
and argues that taking violent and aggressive action is often a very
bad decision. I think that Greg’s poor decision making comes from
societal expectations more than any sort of mental illness that he may
have been (mis)diagnosed with. He may have been prescribed
medication, but I don’t think that the problem lies within Greg. His
erratic and fiery emotions are fueled by a society and world that
won’t allow him to be who he is. The more Greg tries to embrace
notions of masculinity and control, the more dangerous he becomes
to himself and to others. Perhaps if he could let go of his needs to
meet society’s demands, he could see and even embrace the
unspoken feelings he shares with his cameraman and only friend,
Ben…
This is a film that never stays put. It switches genre, style, form, and
tone without warning. It is at points a horror film, a tribute film, a
mountain biking zen buddhist philosophy film, a bromance buddy
comedy with some not-so-subtle homoerotic subtext. It is at points
strictly documentary, but it is never entirely fictional. It is a film made
by me in my most honest and truthful moments. I think that truth
defies genre and form, that the human experience is never one thing
for long, and so the film I’ve made changes in shape too. It is an
extremely personal film made with an almost unfathomably small
crew and a handful of equipment I borrowed from Connecticut
College, where I teach. I hope that the intimacy and rawness of the
film’s style convey the heart and authenticity with which I made it.
And I hope its questions haunt you as they still do me.
– Ross Morin, September 2015
Credits
Writer/Director/Producer - Ross Morin
Editor - Ross Morin/Brian Newell
Director of Photography - Matthew Herbertz/Ross Morin
Composer - Kyle Clark
Assistant Editor - Kyle Clark/Matthew Herbertz
Technical Information
Country of origin: USA
Completed: September 2015
Language: English
86 minutes
29.97 FPS
Aspect: 16:9
Shooting camera: Canon 5D, Canon XF 100, GoPro
Screening format: Blu Ray, DVD, digital file