This is a teaser for Deep River, an online series by Adam Stephenson (Rudolph, Cyberpunks) and Jason Lupish. It's actually one long scene that sets up the tone of the series and introduces us to the main characters. It's a crime tale about working-class people caught up in extraordinary circumstances, like Scott Frank's The Lookout and Steven Soderbergh's Bubble.
An establishing shot suggests we're in a particularly lonely and desperate stretch of the Midwest. Edward waits for his girlfriend in the parking lot of a strip club. Roxy gets in; she's chatty and looks like she's just spent the last several hours giving table-dances. He has a thousand-yard stare and looks like he's been up all night hatching a get-rich-quick scheme. Turns out he has: the couple has been evicted, and he's come up with a plan that will "pay a year's rent in a night's work."
The editing and lighting put us unambiguously on Roxy's side. She's beautifully backlit and delivers many of her lines in medium close-ups. Edward is never seen speaking alone on camera; the camera either stays on Roxy or shows both of them in two-shot. This editorial approach is not without its problems. The girl is a far better performer - the part where she talks about how her "life is s**t" is a highlight - and so we start to wonder if the editing is there to compensate for weak acting. When Edward blows up in her face, the camera cuts to two shots outside the car. This effectively defangs him, because we never actually see him getting angry.
But this is only one scene and you can't judge an actor's performance by one scene alone. The intro and outro music do a nice job of setting up an ominous tone while still reminding us these characters are people we should care about. The beautiful title card shot significantly opens up the visual possibilities for the series. I'm really excited about this. I love the genre - the best example would have to be Carl Franklin's One False Move - and the series looks like it's going to be relevant to the economic anxieties of the day.
