#elie smolkin

[esqueletosgays]

TAROT (2024)

Directors: Spenser Cohen & Anna Halberg Cinematography: Elie Smolkin

[lyrelarkisforthebirds]

Laird Behaim doesn't alter time itself. That would be insane. Laird alters the perception of time. Lost hours, dulled senses, mental quicksand—these are a chronomancer's weapons. At the head of his family, Laird's position is more secure than ever. Yet the old police chief can hear the bells toll. Ten, eleven, twel— 🌃

Laird is the third Toronto Horror character, a set of five playable Arkham Horror investigators inspired by Wildbow's Pact. Laird's cards lean towards collecting assets and solving problems indirectly. Playing as Laird, your aim is control.

A huge thank you to v-wind and Elie Smolkin for the art on this one! The Behaim Circle is in your debt. 📘💙

Laird Behaim and Eleventh Hour art: @v-wind.

Zeitgeist hand and pocketwatch: Elie Smolkin.

Zeigeist background: @v-wind again!

Other Pact + Arkham Horror designs:

Rose Thorburn Jr.

Fell Atwell.

Maggie Holt.

Blake Thorburn.

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Tarot

Do you need some form of divination to predict that Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg’s TAROT (2024, Netflix) would be an idiotic collection of missed opportunities? On a purely technical level, it’s well made. Cohen and Halberg use the camera professionally, the mostly young cast, though too old for their parts (some embarrassingly so). are perfectly adequate until they all start screaming at each other, and cinematographer Elie Smolkin’s color palette is vibrant, a distinct improvement over the depressing steely grays of too many recent horror films. But you can’t go home humming the camera work, and this script is borderline idiotic.

A group of college students partying in a rented house in the Catskills run out of beer, so they decide to search the place to see if they can steal some liquor from the owners. What is this, PORKY V: SOBRIETY’S REVENGE? After breaking into a locked basement clearly marked as off-limits, they find a deck of antique, hand-painted tarot cards. Wouldn’t you know it, one of them (Harriet Slater) knows how to read the cards and combine them with astrology. So, she reads her friends (not in the good RuPaul way) and — this may come as a shock to you if you’ve never seen another horror movie — they proceed to die in ways related to their readings. The Major Arcana cards that had turned up as their outcomes even come to life to facilitate those deaths. The first two even look cool, with little glowy bits, but the others are just mundane. So, of course, the potential victims act as stupidly as possible to make it easier for the haunted tarot deck to do them in. One reading warns the person to think before running, so of course she runs right into her painful death. They go into dark rooms to investigate strange, threatening noises, separate when they should stay together, and one even follows the voice of a friend she knows to be dead. It comes as rather a surprise to realize the script was based on a novel, “Horrorscope” by Nicholas Adams, rather than The Darwin Awards.

There’s a lovely older actress named Olwen Fouéré who turns up as an astrology expert they consult for help. It’s the kind of role usually taken by some name or semi-name to help sell tickets, so it’s nice to see the role going to a seasoned Irish stage actress who has nothing to offer but talent.

[saturdaynightmatinee]

CALIFICACIÓN PERSONAL: 5 / 10

Título Original: Tarot

Año: 2024

Duración: 86 min

País: Estados Unidos

Dirección: Spenser Cohen, Anna Halberg

Guion: Spenser Cohen, Anna Halberg. Novela: Nicholas Adams

Música: Joseph Bishara

Fotografía: Elie Smolkin

Reparto: Alana Boden, Jacob Batalon, Humberly González, Olwen Fouere, Avantika Vandanapu, etc

Productora: Alloy Entertainment, Screen Gems, Ground Control, Capstone Pictures. Distribuidora: Sony Pictures Releasing

Género: Horror

TRAILER:

[sesiondemadrugada]

The Stand (Josh Boone & Benjamin Cavell, 2020-21).

[ilexa]

Holy balls, I just noticed the book next to Quentin’s is Elie Smolkin, AKA Olivia Taylor Dudley’s boyfriend (and Magicians crew).

The Magicians + Speculative Fiction Tropes

Great Big Library of Everything

[fourframesatatime]

The Final Girls (2015) Dir. Todd Strauss-Schulson, Cin. Elie Smolkin

“At least I get to see her, even if she is being chased by a psycho with a machete.”

[lizardkingeliot]

[x]

[brakebillskids]

[amessinadress]

❥ Olivia Taylor Dudley ❥

[dockerifique]

"...Good Behavior is fun because it’s about crafting frames that just let these phenomenal actors play within them...”

“...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.” 

[nine-frames]

The Final Girls, 2015.

Dir. Todd Strauss-Schulson | Writ. Joshua John Miller and M.A. Fortin | DOP Elie Smolkin

[allaboutjmo]

🎬 ICYMI #Surface episode 7 “It Was Always Going to End This Way" ( @apartment3creads) is streaming now on Apple TV +

📸 Cinematographer Elie Smolkin

🎥 Directed by Jen

[highkingfen]

Picture by Elie Smolkin

[sesiondemadrugada]

The Stand (Josh Boone & Benjamin Cavell, 2020-21).