Visually, sonically, cinematically the film will be both grounded and impressionistic as it reflects Phineas’ strange odyssey; what Phineas hears and sees. The overall intent is to create a world embued with a pervasive atmosphere of threat, a world fueled by visceral impulses, a world that is carnal and sensual and lethal.

 

There are two main environments: the urban winter and the sun scorched desert, and within them, a contrast of cool and warm tones that will inhabit the entire film. Slate, sapphire, and cobalt blue versus rust, amber, and mahogany. Sodium vapor street lights on dirty snow at night. A vast swath of pale blue sky against a vista of backlit and parched amber desert. As the story progresses from the city to the desert, the palette will become increasingly warmer.

 

Both environments will be photographed for scope and detail; for dynamic visual range. A cityscape silhouetted against roiling winter storm clouds and a roach scuttling across a besmirched sidewalk. A vulture gliding through a desert sky and a mini dust-devil swirling across a sunbaked road.

 

Deep blacks, negative space and shadow will be key components of the framing.

 

The camera will be kinetic without upstaging the story. The actors will be photographed in a realistic and unadorned way. Naturalistic lighting. Fluid, life-mirroring blocking. Intense close ups where warranted.

 

At the core of the story is a protagonist both lucid and deranged. He sees the world through cynical, intensely observant “cop’s eyes.” He notices small details. He sees the bizarre and weird in the everyday; he sees the idiosyncrasies of human behavior, and he sees things that aren’t there. He hallucinates and these hallucinations will feel real. As the saying goes, “It’s not a hallucination unless it feels real.” These hallucinations will also be real, i.e. practical as opposed to computer generated visual effects.

 

Phineas will observe it all, the mayhem, the weirdness and the hallucinations with a detached, sometimes sardonic sense of wonder.

 

In terms of touchstone films, “Man on Fire,” “True Romance” and ”Badlands”  would be on the short list. The first two for the visceral, impressionistic, hyper-textured Tony Scott of it all, the last for the subjective, ethereal quality and sense of wonder that infuse Terrence Malick films.

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