The Exchange
A miserable model and a struggling college student who become unknowingly connected through a pair of thrifted heels. The Exchange is a dramedy short film Written and Directed by Lucile Lyon, and produced by Jasmine Bonds and myself. I served as the Director of Photography and Editor on the project.
I wanted the film to balance a sense of realism while also emphasizing the absurdities within it. I chose to light the film with as much motivated light as possible for a sense of realism. To help emphasize the absurd moments, I shot these moments with wider lenses. To help give the two main characters a distinct feeling, we shot the scenes with the model all on a tripod to give the feeling of being stuck in place, and all handheld for the college student to give a more chaotic and unsettled feeling to the character. My main references were Shiva Baby, Beef, and Bottoms.
As the Cinematographer,
As the Editor,
I had to balance both the comedy and drama of the film. We wanted to keep the pacing fast for the comedy, but slow it down for the more dramatic scenes. Our goal was to be able to flip between the two without the audience feeling the stop-and-go nature of the changing pace. Especially because we had two main characters, we wanted their scenes to feel distinct on their own, but cohesive when put together.
The Exchange is currently being submitted for film festivals and should be available soon.