"The Accountant Looms; Derby just fucks around"

I have yet to delve into the mise-en-scene of Little Worlds - if you can call it that - but today's comic provides a good initial example of how we're trying to give personality to these static images. In presenting The Accountant and Derby as...well, not quite opposing figures in Lev's ongoing ambiguous experience - I can say "starkly different" figures, in all certainty - we tried to put them in places and postures that fit. That's pretty vague. During the shoot, I put it thusly: "The Accountant Looms, Derby just fucks around". Hence, their placement as seen below (the picture of Lev and Derby is a little small, click on it for the unedited original)



An interesting detail in this strip is that Lev is visually empowered by the low angles. This contrasts with the plotline in which Lev is running from some...thing? There's the one shot from on high, but beyond that we're always looking up. To an extent this happens because we like to frame our shots carefully. We don't want to include random passers-by in our comic without their knowledge, if we can avoid it. We sometimes need to take pictures in two different locations but have them fit into the same continuity. Actually, the pictures you see here were not taken all that far from each other, but in realspace Lev's route wouldn't be very practical at all, and so we withold the context and you don't notice! If Halifax were a more vertiginous city we might have larger problems doing this. Personally I think it's also kinda neat to rationalize the angles in-fiction: Lev might be running, but Lev is still (mostly?) in charge of his mind*. Maybe. The alternative is that while "we" might be looking up at Lev, he is in turn looking up at The Accountant, who looks down on Lev...

...and you.

*If that is indeed where we are. Man, WHO KNOWS?