Lookbook
This is a brief summary of the stylistic and artistic ideology behind look, sound, and feeling of Consider the Benefits.
Consider the Benefits is a dark tale. The characters are deeply unhappy. The story is ghastly. It must be funny or it does not work. Besides, the funnier it is, the darker it is. Somewhere between those two is our truth. This must be a total comedy in both sight and sound. It is essential to utilize creative techniques to create opportunities for humor in both image and sound, not just for what is considered cinematic. With that said...
Death is (sometimes) funny
Ensemble Framing
Digital filmmaking means you can do anything. That creates bad habits.
I want to establish distinct visual rules for the camera as though it were a character in the film itself. I want to utilize Ensemble Framing. The rules are simple: Avoid unmotivated or unnecessary close-ups, camera setups, and edits. Motivate scenes with conscious of the whole body -- framing movement, hands, eyes and using deliberate blocking. Avoid going for conventional camera setups and find a way to show something else, or at least get a joke in the frame somewhere.
Paper, Propane, Proof of Purchase
Our characters are chaotic, so is the world around them. The price of a life is questioned, its value ascribed to sheets of cluttered paper in dusty government buildings, sorted over and over until disappearing into the bowels of a forgotten archive. Ash covers everything. People are underslept, hungover, folding back covers on trashy paperbacks, perched on stools long overdue for repair in dive bars drinking well tequila instead of whiskey because somebody told them that whiskey is a downer and tequila is an upper but they're not really sure they believe that.
Not that it matters.
