Producer & Production Design
A couple attends an intimate dinner with a visionary biohacker promising eternal youth, only to realize his pursuit of perfection comes at a gruesome, cannibalistic price.
For this sketch, I produced and designed the world to function as a psychological thriller in the vein of The Menu, creating a deceptively elegant space that gradually reveals itself as something deeply sinister. The production design was crucial in satirizing the cult-like obsession around current longevity leaders and biohacking influencers, exposing how aesthetic perfection and pseudo-scientific claims can mask genuine danger.
The tonal shift from dinner party sophistication to genuine horror was achieved through strategic lighting choices. As the dinner progresses, we gradually introduced darker elements. The bow and arrow on the wall becomes menacing, the light changes from blue to red, the space becomes chaotic rather than calming. When the basement gym is revealed, the production design had completely transformed the space from aspirational to nightmarish. This sketch uses production design as social commentary to show how the language of wellness, optimization, and eternal youth can become a vehicle for something grotesque and predatory.
Co-Written by Ian Michaels & Austin Nasso
Producer Lana Spehar
DIRECTOR Austin Nasso
Director of Photography Riley Barker & Christy Knudson
For this sketch, I produced and designed the world to function as a psychological thriller in the vein of The Menu, creating a deceptively elegant space that gradually reveals itself as something deeply sinister. The production design was crucial in satirizing the cult-like obsession around current longevity leaders and biohacking influencers, exposing how aesthetic perfection and pseudo-scientific claims can mask genuine danger.
The tonal shift from dinner party sophistication to genuine horror was achieved through strategic lighting choices. As the dinner progresses, we gradually introduced darker elements. The bow and arrow on the wall becomes menacing, the light changes from blue to red, the space becomes chaotic rather than calming. When the basement gym is revealed, the production design had completely transformed the space from aspirational to nightmarish. This sketch uses production design as social commentary to show how the language of wellness, optimization, and eternal youth can become a vehicle for something grotesque and predatory.
Co-Written by Ian Michaels & Austin Nasso
Producer Lana Spehar
DIRECTOR Austin Nasso
Director of Photography Riley Barker & Christy Knudson
