The same pale clay doorway as the first reference, same paper, same pencil, same soft arch and worn floor and small oval handle.

The plaque and its words are gone completely. In their place the clay swells outward into one large raised shape running the whole height of the door, from just above the floor to the top of the arch: the key from the second reference, seen from the side. Moulded in the same white clay as the door, part of it and not attached to it, no paint, no colour, upper edges catching the light.

REJECTED TAKE

A rejected take is not rubbish. Some were rejected for one thing only, an aspect ratio or a colour, and are the better drawing otherwise. They are here so a later session can see what was tried before trying it again.

Phase. Phase 9 of 15, HE SEES THE KEY, AND GOES IN.

Hero’s journey. APPROACH TO THE INMOST CAVE. He can read the door, and he knows.

Element. THRESHOLD. Not the door, the line under it, and the last one he crosses alone.

Symbol. THE KEY, at the only moment in the film it is not gold. It is the door telling the truth about itself in the only language this house has.

Composition. FULL FRAME and near symmetrical: one subject filling the picture, no other arrangement needed. The film has been in one point perspective for three rooms and it stops moving here. Stillness after travel is what makes an arrival read as an arrival.

Balance. Centred and heavy at the bottom, a pyramid, which the book gives for anything that must feel unshakeable. This door is not going to open by accident.

The scene bed. One piece under the whole scene. It does not restart at a cut.

instrumental, no vocals. the low drone thins to almost nothing, one held note.

This shot. The same piece, re-arranged. Change the instruments, never the key or the tempo.

everything drops away except a single sustained note and room tone. no percussion, no melody, no movement. a very long decay, then near silence.

SPACE, which the book says is what is left when the others stop, and should not be filled. The ordeal is comprehension, so the loudest thing here is the absence of everything else.

THE CONFIRMATION, NOT THE SURPRISE. By now the audience can read the doors, so this one does not startle them, it satisfies them. That is a better feeling and a rarer one.

COACH BRAIN came off the door for this. A name would have told us who; a key tells us what, and what is the thing he came for. He does not know yet that the two are the same.

It is also the last frame of the approach. Everything before it is searching and everything after it is meeting.