Creating Uncomfortable Humor with Two Handheld Canon C500s in Sundance Hit 'The Overnight'
Humor never gets enough credit in filmmaking, much less uncomfortable humor.
In a genre departure from his first feature, Creep, a thriller co-starring Mark Duplass, director Patrick Brice unveiled his latest film at Sundance 2015 as something of a romantic comedy. The Overnight is a romantic comedy, which careens through 80 minutes of delightfully strange, subtle, and in-your-face humor of young couples, prosthetic penises, and sex scenes with great punch lines.
A very strange evening between couples, played by well-known actors Adam Scott, Taylor Schilling, Jason Schwarztman, and Judith Godrèche, The Overnight is a great study in uncomfortable humor. We caught up with Patrick at Sundance and talked to him about how, among other things, he used two handheld Canon C500s to achieve this freewheeling rom-com.
Thank you, Patrick!
One of Patrick's main points about his filmmaking strategies with The Overnight is that he takes characters that audiences are used to seeing in bigger, broad comedies, and puts them in a more realistic world through the use of (among other things) a handheld aesthetic. What do you think about the strategy of humor in filmmaking? Have you seen Patrick Brice's last feature, and are you looking forward to The Overnight?
