A flight attendant along with her beverage/snack cart and a male passenger are seen free falling through the sky. Clearly this was a bit of sky diving that wasn’t planned.
“What were you thinking?” asks the flight attendant.
A flashback to “10,000 feet earlier” supplies the answer as we’re taken to inside a plane. We see the guy, appearing quite weary, get up from his seat to go to the bathroom. The lavatory “occupied” light goes off. He glances at the flight attendant standing next to the beverage cart and without looking opens what he assumes is the lavatory door.
The only problem is that it’s the emergency exit, which once opened, wreaks havoc on those inside the plane as he, the attendant and the cart are sucked out into the wild blue yonder.
The spot then returns us to the present as the free fall continues, only now the twosome is joined by another passenger who explains, “It was after 3 p.m.. Your blood sugar was low. Have some Emerald Nuts. They’ll keep you sharp.”
The tired guy obliges, eats some nuts poured out of a container by the other free fallin’ passenger, immediately feels a quick pick-me up, and flashes the proverbial “thumbs-up” sign.
As the impromptu sky divers move further away from the camera, the canister of Emerald Nuts is in the foreground for all of us to plainly see. A voiceover relates, “Banish the 3 p.m. slump with the natural energy of Emerald Nuts.”
Baker Smith of Santa Monica-based harvest directed “Falling” for Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco.
Bonnie Goldfarb and Scott Howard exec produced for harvest with Rob Sexton serving as head of production/producer and Mala Vasan as line producer. The DP was Tony Wolberg.
The agency team included co-founder/creative director Jeff Goodby, managing partner Robert Riccardi, creative director Steve Simpson, copywriter Erik Enberg, art director Will Hammond and producer James Horner.
Editor was Geoff Hounsel of Arcade.
Post/VFX house was Moving Picture Company.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More