Dying A Little

Two private operatives report to a corrupt, unnamed town to investigate the murder of an idealistic district attorney. As the further the leading detective ventures, the more he realizes how far the roots of corruption in this unassuming town reach.

This film is a project I've been developing from some time. The concept of the project is a Neo noir in a contemporary setting that isn't a genre pastiche. My goal here is to take characters and motifs reminiscent of the works of writers like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson, and incorporate them into a fatalistic modern noir that touches on things like conspiracy, greed, and injustice. From the very output, I've wanted to avoid gimmicks assorted with a lot of modern projects in this genre, so no VoiceOver, trench coats, expressionistic lighting in favor of something that feels both classic and modern. Some cinematic references include: Klute (1971), Chinatown (1974), Se7en (1995), Miller's Crossing (1990), This Gun For Hire (1942), and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011). Literary references would be Dashiell Hammett's novels "Red Harvest" (1929) and "The Glass Key" (1930).