ShortComedy
Earth Account
- A Film By
- Kim Jae Bum (Seal Kim)
- Cast
- Lee Yejin
- Production
- Analog Seal Maker
- Award
- Best Work, Green Initiative 60-Second Film Festival
Give a subject like this an inch and it turns into a film that lectures you
Handed the subject, the first thing to settle was not the story but the tone. A brief that says encourage ESG in sixty seconds will become a public service announcement if you leave it alone.
The plan opened by writing the tone and manner down on its first page.
A short film built on a bright, casual mood, with a quiet but quirky wit and humour
Aiming at sketch comedy grounded in ordinary, lived-in performance
Planning · Tone and manner
The tone reference pinned to the board was not a public campaign but a construction company advert. What was needed was a way to handle a heavy subject without a straight face. The story only rolls if the lead is someone who wants fried chicken, not someone teaching a lesson.
The subject is never spoken. It is in the name
The lead is called Lee Suji. In the plan, ESG is written in brackets beside her name. Nowhere in the film is this ever explained.
No profile on the message bubbles
The whole story rolls on a text conversation, and who is on the other end has to stay hidden to the end. The plan notes exactly why it uses message bubbles with no profile showing.
Leaking electricity and water are invisible
So every appliance and tap in the room spools out a receipt, with the sound of a printer running under it. Waste makes a noise and piles up on the floor.
The lead lies in the middle of it, weighing up whether to order fried chicken. There is not one line of explanatory dialogue.
Receipts spool out of the electronics in the room and from the dripping kitchen tap. The printer sound is louder than everything else.
Planning · Directing note for the opening scene
Pay first, get it back later
One word from a friend and she starts closing off the energy leaking out of the room. Each time she does, money quietly builds up in a certain account.
The order of the storyboard was itself the account. A practice appears first as a trial, and after the Earth's reply the same thing returns as a resolution.
It is not a structure where doing something good brings an immediate reward, but one where you pay first and get it back later. Which is exactly what an account does.
Fixing a broken chair
It creaks, but sitting on it, this thing has another ten years in it
Out to the recycling point at night to peel the labels off bottles
An empty night out there feels like something might appear
Bottles and labels cleanly separated, and it feels good
Running to work
Her stamina does not hold up and she is nearly late
On a bicycle the commute is a pleasure, morning air and all
The story had already gone round on paper
The synopsis was written through to the end before shooting, and the scenes were cut out of it. The twist is already there in the last sentence.
Planning · Synopsis
The friend was named Earth,
and the account the money kept
piling into was the Earth Account
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