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
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