The Lighthouse Census

Intimate vérité documentary teaser, handheld 16mm texture, natural available light. Opening: a weathered keeper climbs a spiral iron staircase in pre-dawn dark, one hand trailing the rail, storm lamps swaying; honest room tone only — boots on iron, wind moaning through the tower, no music. Cut to: close-up of cracked hands trimming a wick and polishing a first-order Fresnel lens the size of a car, prismatic rainbows crawling across a lined face; a sparse solo piano enters under the squeak of cloth on glass. Cut to: vérité kitchen framing — the keeper at a table with a storm radio hissing, laughing quietly at a question we never hear, then falling silent and looking out the window for a long time; only the kettle and the gulls. Final shot: extreme wide from the sea at dusk — the beam sweeps the water and catches the camera lens full-on while the keeper's silhouette stands tiny in the lantern room; one slow swelling string chord under a single rotation of the light, cut to black on the beam's next pass. Muted maritime 16mm archival grade with soft halation, organic film grain and gate weave, natural volumetric beam light, ultra-detailed, patient handheld vérité movement, documentary trailer pacing, no text, no captions, no watermark.