As director of photography on both The Magicians and Good Behavior, Elie Smolkin takes us behind the scenes to give us insight into what it actually takes to bring a show together.

Last week Hypable had the opportunity to speak with Elie Smolkin about his role as director of photography and what that position actually requires. As we spoke with him, we learned a lot about the technical aspects of filming and how those elements always have to come together to serve the story first.

What a director of photography does on set

“I translate what’s on the page onto the screen visually,” Smolkin begins. “So I’m in charge of the cameras, the lighting, the grip, which are sort of the engineers of the set. I’m in discussions and a big part of choosing color schemes and working with the art department on how the sets are going to look.”

It’s a hefty job once you start adding everything up: “In pre-production my job starts with deciding where the locations are, what they’re going to look like, where the window is going to be built into the set, what kind of practical lamps are going to be on set, what type of colors we are going to use. Then when we’re shooting, I work with the director and actors and tell them where the cameras are going to be, what kind of lenses we’re going to use, what shots we’re going to do, and also [how we’re going to] light the set.”

Which means pretty much everything you see on screen Smolkin has had a hand in.

Working with executive producers and directors

Smolkin explains that whether he works with directors or executive producers really depends on what type of project he’s working on. “When I do features or commercials, it’s really the director that I work with to define the look and plan out how we’re going to shoot it. On a TV series, because we have rotating directors, and because on our TV series there’s only one director of photography, I don’t get a lot of prep time with the director.”

It’s not just time management that factors in either. “We’re trying to make one show even though each episode [has] a different director,” Smolkin says. “So I work with our executive producers. We’ll get together at the beginning of the season and we’ll talk about the look.” From there, they adjust throughout. “Anytime something new comes up in the series, usually I’ll get together with the production designer, Rachel O’Toole, and we’ll talk about what we want that world to look like, what we want this new thing to look like, and then we’ll pitch it to the showrunners.”

The director of the episode is often part of that discussion, Smolkin says, but oftentimes he and the showrunners must address these issues before shooting even begins.

Collaboration and set building

Since Smolkin has such a crucial role in the look of a show, we thought it would be interesting to ask him how new sets get built. To explain, he spoke about the huge castle set that’s become a centerpiece for The Magicians season 2. “It’s a giant set. It’s like 6500 or 7000 square ft. How it works is, we read as many scripts as we have and we talk about what we need in the set. We need a big throne room in the first couple episodes — the whole throne scene — and we need a bedroom. We need a hallway, we need a dungeon… So those are the things that we practically look at. Like, ‘Okay, what are the pieces of the castle that we need?’ From there, the production designer, O’Toole, comes in with a bunch of ideas and drawings and samples. And we talk about [things like] what’s going to be outside the window? How are we going to light it? Do we want a lot of windows or do we not want a lot of windows? Do we want a ceiling?”

Ceilings are apparently a big deal during set design. “A lot of sets don’t have ceilings, but Rachel and I, we really like ceilings in sets because we like to be able to go really wide and to get the wide angle, to make it feel like a real location. We have to talk about how that works, though. Because a lot of times on a set — you put your lights above in a lighting grid — so when you make a ceiling, you’ve taken that option away. So we talk about where the windows go, what color the floor should be, what color the wall should be, because all of that affects the amount of light that can come into the set.”

After those conversations, O’Toole has a drawing (a rendering) made up that illustrates and takes into account the way Smolkin is going to light it. After that’s done a few times, eventually it goes to the executive producers for their feedback and subsequent approval.

The effect color has on ‘The Magicians’

Another big deal when it comes to the visual look of a show, especially for The Magicians, is coloring. “We knew that there was a lot of worlds in the show and that all of our characters were going to jump from world to world and it’s going to happen many times in an episode,” Smolkin reveals. “When I was putting together a pitch for the interview to get the job, I came in with an idea of separating the worlds by color and by lense and lighting. It clicked perfectly because that’s what John and Sara, our creators, had in mind as well.”

“We wanted to create a visual language that just told the audience right away where they are.” Which means each specific world needed its own set of rules and defining properties. “For New York,” Smolkin says, “it’s the place that has the least amount of magic. So the idea would be — we wanted it to feel as real and gritty and as imperfect as the real world can be. So we go handheld. We use wider lenses, so that you can see more of the city. Everything is kind of cold. It’s either blue or green and we use a lot of fluorescent lighting. We go with the idea that they’re in New York, so the tall buildings block out the sun, so it’s always soft light when you’re in Julia’s loft. You’ll never see a sunlight streak. It’s always sort of overcast, and that’s on purpose. It’s to make it feel kinda down.”

Brakebills, on the other hand, has a very different feel. Here, Smolkin explains, “You’re kind of in the Julliard of magic. You’re in the Hogwarts. You’re in this idyllic place where there’s a lot more magic. It’s safer and refined and so we used very new lenses that are glossy and clean. We never go handheld; we’re always on a dolly or a steadicam, and we use warm light. We try to approach it like it’s magic out. It’s very orange and caramel.”

They’ve even created shorthand to emphasize just how important these rules are: “We have a saying in New York called ‘Norange,’ which is ‘no orange.’ We try not to put any orange in New York so it feels different.”

The Neitherlands is a world between all the other worlds, so the tactic here is to go as devoid of color as possible without becoming black and white. “Color scheme-wise, we sort of reference an old film trick, which is called bleach bypass,” Smolikn highlighted. They also shoot everything at a dutch angle in this world. “We alternate which side goes up and which side goes down so that when you’re editing it, it cuts nicely.”

All of these strict rules are implemented for a purpose. “We try really hard to stick with all of those things so you know that when Julia is in New York and she goes to Fillory in the last episode [of season 1] there’s no question about where she is. I think that’s important to the storytelling and I also think it tells a lot about the world that they’re in.”

Rules are made to be broken

As Smolkin so eloquently put it, “Yes, rules are made to be broken. This kind of goes back to what we were saying about directors and executive producers as well. The first time we see Niffin Alice as part of something only Quentin can see — [she] kinda pops in and out of frame — was an episode where Chris Fisher was the director. Chris is also one of our executive producers, so that’s an example of where a director kind of sets a look that everybody afterwards has to follow.”

Of course, as director of photography, Smolkin was included in all of these discussions. “Chris and I talked a lot about how we could show that Alice is inside Quentin’s head and how we could show that she’s transformed. You know regular Alice, she doesn’t move very often; she’s very insecure and quiet. We knew by talking to Olivia that [Niffin Alice] was going to move a lot and she was going to have a lot more energy, so we wanted to show all that.”

Together they developed this idea to use a handheld moving camera when filming her — essentially breaking the previous Breakbills rule they had so consistently reinforced. The technical aspect of filming these scenes are as follows: “Basically how we have to do it is two fold. You have a camera operator who has to walk about four inches from Olivia’s face and move with her. Luckily, they’re both excellent at that, otherwise they’d would run into each other. Then we have to film the scene with both Quentin and Alice in a wide angle. Then we shoot the scene again, traditionally, where Alice isn’t there.”

All of these very technical rules and strategies are there to serve the story. Whether it’s something you understand on a subconscious level or not. “I think so far it’s been pretty effective. It stands out as not a normal thing that we see, in any of the worlds,” Smolkin says.

Individual projects trump genre

With all this talk about different worlds and Niffins, we had to ask if fantasy shows required a different mindset as opposed to more traditional projects. “In a way I approach all projects the same in that I read the script several times and then I try to find what the story is. What the arch of the character is. What the main characters are fighting for or what their main goals are,” Smolkin reveals. “Then I try to develop a look that tells that story. I think that’s the most important thing. I’m here to make stories and to do it visually. So that’s always the same. But every story is so different.”

This led us to the other show Smolkin has been working on recently, Good Behavior. “I work on another show called Good Behavior on TNT, and that is kind of, in a lot of ways, the opposite of The Magicians. It’s really only two characters, there’s really almost no VFX, and it’s rooted in very real and dramatic narratives. So I start off the same way, where we try and discern how we’re going to tell the story visually. But then it’s very different,” Smolkin stresses. “The Magicians has many more different worlds, so the look is always changing and it has an opportunity to do really big effects, which can be really fun. But Good Behavior, on the other hand, is fun because it’s about crafting frames that just let these phenomenal actors play within them. Both are challenging. Both are fun. But they’re so different.”

Read on to learn more about working as a DP and how ‘The Magicians‘ and ‘Good Behavior’ differ

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.