Pickups of the pickups

Yesterday I reshot the wide shot of Ben eating breakfast. I put blinds in the window which makes the shot look a lot better. Part of the problem was the lack of texture and modulation on the walls. I also shot the insert of the clue map. I was just going to dissolve from the map to the desert but Ben said it was too unceremonious. Plus he said it takes up too much mindspace to ask an audience to make that leap and that in fact, if you underscore everything, it doesn't read as being obvious. It just makes things clear. So we need to have Ben's character pointing or drawing a line to where he's going on a map. Ben is right. But now I have to do pickups of pickups. Whine, whine, film is so literal, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Also, my quandry is figuring out how to level the shots. They always look crooked. Do you level the character? The background? Split the difference? These dining room shots are problematic for any number of reasons.