October 30, 2024

The creepy cinematography of Smile 2: DP Charlie Sarroff

In the horror film Smile 2, pop star Skye Riley, preparing for a world tour, encounters a troubled friend who passes on the sinister “Smile” curse. As Skye’s life spirals into chaos and her sanity deteriorates, she must confront the terrifying entity and its deadly grip before it consumes her and everyone around her.

Cinematographer Charlie Sarroff and director Parker Finn wanted to be sure that the sequel to Smile was more than just a rehash of the same basic idea. They wanted to push and elevate the basic storyline into something bigger, while keeping what worked in the first film intact. Smile 2 definitely has a much bigger scale, with stage lighting and live performance sequences for pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott). Early on, Charlie knew he would have to film and light stage performances. He worked closely with lighting designer Brian Spett to get the stage lighting just right. Together, Charlie, Finn, and production designer Lester Cohen created a color palette consisting of reds with silver and blue elements. “Being a cinematographer is about surrounding yourself with great people and then asking them for help,” says Charlie.

Charlie wanted some scenes to “bloom” more, almost so that they looked overexposed. Some parts of Smile 2 were shot on Kodak film to create this effect, and then the film went through a skip bleach process to add to the bloom effect. Then the film was outputted to digital for mastering and further color correction to really make the reds pop. Charlie feels that the process adds a lot to the look. “It smooths out the film, and adds twinkle to the lights. It just infuses into the image a little bit more. I think it can help effects and makeup, too, without being super grainy.”

Smile 2 used many of the same camera movements and lenses as Smile, including plenty of zooms to add to the discomfort. Charlie used a very specific lens for people with the smiling curse. “I shot each smile on a very wide lens, a 28mm- when you’re that close up on that lens, it makes people feel extremely uncomfortable. We never used long lenses,” he adds. “I used a lot of zooms, for specific moments when heavy things are going down to hone in on something. Zooms provoke a different emotion, especially at the end (of the film.) Zooming in shows that Skye is getting closer to the curse.”

Smile 2 is in theaters now.

Find Charlie Sarroff: https://charliesarroff.com/
Instagram: @charliesarroff

Hear our previous interview with Charlie Sarroff on Smile: https://www.camnoir.com/ep187/

Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: https://hotrodcameras.com/
Sponsored by ARRI

The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com
Facebook: @cinepod
Instagram: @thecinepod
Twitter: @ShortEndz

October 12, 2022

Charlie Sarroff, cinematographer of the horror films Smile and Relic

Cinematographer Charlie Sarroff loves to shoot horror movies, and he knew when he read the script for the horror film, Smile, that it would be fun, gory and dark. This week (10/12/2022) Smile is still the number one movie in America, with the biggest opening of September and the highest box office take overall for its second straight week. Charlie and Smile director Parker Finn first met at a SXSW event, where each had movies showing at the festival. They found they had similar tastes and sensibilities. Finn loved Charlie’s previous work on the horror film Relic and asked Charlie to be Smile’s cinematographer. Movies such as The Ring, It Follows and Rosemary’s Baby were big influences on their approach to Smile. Charlie chose to build a sense of suspense with camera movement, so the audience feels as though a lurking presence was there at all times. They almost exclusively used wide lenses and no over the shoulder shots so that the character of Rose would always feel isolated. Every scene Rose is in, she is meant to feel disconnected from other people. Smiles were also a big motif in the film, of course, and served as a metaphor for the masks everyone wears.

As a kid, Charlie really loved skateboarding and video production became a big part of it. He had a camcorder and recorded skate videos of his friends. Charlie knew early on that he enjoyed shooting and editing more than directing, and he decided to go to film school in Melbourne. Friends in film school asked him to shoot their movies and he worked his way up, filming music videos and commercials. Charlie’s biggest break came when director Natalie Erika James asked him to shoot her short film Creswick which she expanded into the feature film Relic and was picked up by IFC. At first, the film’s backers wanted to go with someone more experienced to shoot Relic, but Charlie prevailed and the film ended up going to Sundance and SXSW.

Find Charlie Sarroff: https://charliesarroff.com/
Instagram: @charlie_sarroff

Find out even more about this episode, with extensive show notes and links: https://camnoir.com/ep187/

Sponsored by Arri: https://www.arri.com/en
Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: www.hotrodcameras.com

The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCinematographyPodcast
Facebook: @cinepod
Instagram: @thecinepod
Twitter: @ShortEndz