The Mark

"The Mark" was a short film written by J. Anthony Cangialosi and Brandon Scott Jensen, directed by Jensen in April of 2008 during Jensen Entertainment and Red Starr Productions unintentional "Year of Filmmaking," It was preceeded by "the end," and "Fall" and was followed by "Fall 2" and the feature-length movie "Canon."

Collectively, the shorts are known as "The Canon Chronicles." This movie marks the THIRD in that series.

Story
It tells a modern story of Cain and Abel casting two athiest brothers, Cain and Abel, who are offered proof of God's existance by The Archangel Gabriel in a dream, but only at the cost of that which each holds most precious.

Easily the darkest of the Canon Chronicles, "The Mark" is overtly sexual in the portrayal of Cain and his girlfriend, the hooker, Mariella. The couple is shown in bed, having sex, doing drugs, and discussing what each holds most precious. Cain talks about love being most precious, and the love he feels for Mariella. Meanwhile Abel is shown pawning his fathers watch while Ely and Gabriel ponder what the brothers will sacrifice. While Luc is shown to purchace the watch from the pawn shop, the brothers are forced to choose whether they will sacrifice their most prized posessions.

Continuity
This is the only Canon Chronicle in which both Ely and Luc are featured but do not speak. This is because the addition of Luc was by the co-writer and actor J. Anthony Cangialosi after the initial draft written by Brandon Scott Jensen. Jensen felt he wanted to save Luc for the feature which was already in the process of being written, but couldn't resist Cangialosi's clever cameo.

'' SPOILER ALERT! ''

When writing the end scene with Ely and Gabriel, Ely calling Gabriel "brother" was not meant to be literal, but upon further thought, Jensen found the idea of God not only having a brother, but having the ability to relate to Cain and Abel immensely fascinating, and so Gabriel being Ely's brother became part of the continuity as well.

Origins
The initial draft was far less dark and there were no drugs, sex or violence. Jensen had initially thought to challenge himself to write a script that was inspired by the dark tale of Cain & Abel but was "PG" in tone. After deciding that this simply would not serve the story properly, he reversed this idea completely to make an overtly dark tale with intense scenes of realistic drug use, sex and graphic violence.

Tecnichal
For several of the cast members, this was the first, and in some cases, only short film with Jenesn Entertainment/ Red Starr Productions. Several crew members were brought on from another short involving Jensen and AD Brandy Montano.