Each show comes with specific challenges
Although Smolkin’s job as director of photography is essentially the same for both shows, we were curious to know if those different jobs came with different challenges. For The Magicians, Smolkin shared that the coordination of all departments was key, especially when incorporating CGI or special effects. “Usually our CGI sequences are storyboarded so that everybody knows where an explosion is going to happen, or where’s the monster going to appear, and what are the elements we’re going to get,” Smolkin says. “Because my lighting affects what the computer graphics are, our camera move affects it, what angle our camera is at, what height, what focal length… All that stuff gets calculated by them. So it’s a big coordination.”
Good Behavior also requires a lot of forethought as well, but it’s the type of pre-production that seems to differ. “Good Behavior has a lot of locations. It’s kind of a road show. So we often would have what’s called location moves, a company move. Like we would have two or three in a day, which is pretty rare. Usually you only have one. So you start somewhere in the morning, and if you’re really lucky you shoot in one location all day. Then you get the full day to shoot. But often you have one company move, and that means you’re going to shoot in the morning in one spot, and then after lunch you shoot down the road.” Smolkin made it clear that Good Behavior didn’t often have that luxury, stating, “Because there’s so many locations and they’re always traveling, we would do that two or three times a day. And every time you would do it you would lose about an hour, or even two hours. So your day keeps getting shorter and shorter of what you can shoot. But you still have to shoot the same amount of stuff. In that way it’s very challenging.”
The process of location scouting is relatively collaborative
Since location moves are such a vital part of working on Good Behavior, we wanted to ask Smolkin how he managed to actually see all of these places before filming even began. “It’s the same as The Magicians in that there’s only one DP on the show. Sometimes TV shows have two DPs so you get to prep with the director. What happens is, the director will usually get there a week before his or her episode. They’ll go with the location scout who’s already found a bunch of ideas, and they’ll find what they think is best. Then, oftentimes, they’ll send me pictures or come to set and talk to me about what they’re thinking. [They’ll also] show the gaffer and the key grip, and we’ll sort of talk about the shooting process.”
From there they do what’s called a tech scout. It’s a thing that happens on all shows, Smolkin explains. “[The] second unit will take over the set for a half or a full day, and I’ll go with the key grip of the department, the production designer, the director, and the location manager. We’ll go and look at all the locations we’re going to use in that episode. What ends up happening is we’ll discuss what happens in the scene, where the director is thinking the actors will be and what they’ll do, and then sometimes it’ll be quick and then sometimes it’ll be like, ‘What if we use this room instead of that room? Or what if we turned 180?’ That’s partially because it might look better, or it might give us a feature that we might need for the story, or sometimes you get to a location and it’s perfect looking east and then they’re like, ‘Oh we can only be here in the afternoon.’ Then you’re like, well we need to shoot West.” Basically, this is where they do a rough overview and run-through, preparing as much as possible beforehand so when the crew arrives to film they have a game plan in place.
For example:
“The location department [for Good Behavior] found this incredible scrapyard. It’s a working scrapyard. It’s disgusting but also beautiful. It’s industrial, piles of trash, and metal… And what they do is put dirt down so the tractors and bulldozers can drive over it. This show is very much grounded in reality, so what we try to do — what I always try to do — is build the lighting into the set. Rather than having some magical moonlight or something, I try to find a realistic reason for why there’s light at night. So we brought in these construction lights that you see when you’re driving down the road or if there’s big construction on the highway. There are self-powered generators, so we parked them in different spots in the scrap yard. And then we obviously had the car on fire. Then the rigging team had these great little magnetic construction lights that they were able to put on the roofs of buildings. So we sort of lit the yard like it was a scrap yard, but this was an extra pretty one.”
All of these elements come together to offer emotional beats in visual design
Smolkin shared that as beautiful as this scene was to look at, it was also incredibly important storytelling. “We have a very specific visual language on the show,” he says. “Good Behavior, for me, is about relationships. It’s about caring for relationships. […] When they’re connected, we want to show them together. We do a wide frame and it’s just two little people next to each other, or we do an over the shoulder that puts the two people together. But then as they break up, we do frames that separate them. So it’ll be a big wide shot and it’ll be Letty alone or it’ll be what’s called a short side, where it’s just Letty and a bunch of empty space behind her. What that allows the editors and director and the showrunner to do in post is when the emotional moment comes where they’re breaking up, you can literally separate these two characters in the frame. And when they’re together you have to put them together. And I think that just says so much about where they are and it’s a subtle subconscious way of telling that story. I think that scene in particular is where everything comes together.”
How the love of cinematography can evolve
“I think what I remember the most is looking through a viewfinder,” Smolkin starts. “I loved that I could selectively choose what was going to be seen and I loved that it was sort of its own world. I think as I got more and more into cinematography and more and more into making movies and television, what I loved the most is creating a world. I love that you can find a world that tells the story. and has a look that is true to the story. When you see the show or the movie, you know exactly where we are and you know why we’re there and you’re helping to tell these stories by creating this world. I think that’s what first drew me to it and I think it’s just gotten bigger today.”
While listening to Smolkin speak, it became incredibly clear that despite wanting to imprint an aesthetically pleasing look on each show, ultimately he’s there to serve the story. If his input isn’t doing that, then he isn’t doing his job. Regardless of how pretty you can make a frame, how quickly you can make things happen, or how well you are at communicating, all of those aspects have to come together to support what’s happening in the story.
You can catch The Magicians Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on the Syfy channel and Good Behavior will be returning to TNT this fall.
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