Growing Greed
A college student who makes fake positive COVID tests to pay the bills but must decide whether or not to fake a negative COVID test for $1000. Growing Greed is a dramedy short film Written and Directed by John Carrigan, and produced by Baine Avent, Loralai Falchick, and Lucile Lyon. I served as the Director of Photography, Editor, and Colorist on the project.
As the Cinematographer,
I wanted to create a look that emulated the feeling of being isolated in college during the pandemic. We chose to light the film with overhead lighting and bounce that light to give a sterile look to everyone. We shot a lot of the film on sticks, but once the COVID outbreak began we used handheld camera movement and more movements such as pans and tilts while on sticks to emphasize madness of the scenario. We also reflected this with the lens choices, using mainly standard focal lengths, but using wider lenses for close-ups. My main inspirations were Evil Dead 2 and Severance.
As the Editor,
I wanted to emphasize a dry sense of humor to reflect the reality of how people coped with being isolated in the pandemic. We wanted to build the pace up, starting off slow and gaining momentum as the outbreak began. We gave a lot of space between cuts at first and over time used quicker techniques like jump cuts. We also needed to balance the comedy without deflating the emotional beats of the story.
As the Colorist,
I felt that the color should be desaturated with a heavy emphasis on the shadows and contrast. We wanted a stylized realism to the color, and it was very important for us on set to get this with soft key lighting that gave a smoothness to the image, as well as keeping the light at a neutral color temperature.
Growing Greed is currently being submitted for film festivals and should be available soon.