Eliot Rockett
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“You Don’t Have a Lot of Control Over a Head Exploding”: MaXXXine Cinematographer Eliot Rockett
After the 1970s grit of X and the Technicolor sheen of Pearl, Ti West and cinematographer Eliot Rockett turn to the 1980s with MaXXXine. Shot with the same combo of Sony Venice and Vantage MiniHawks, the L.A.-set story finds adult actress Maxine Minx’s big break into mainstream films curtailed by a series of giallo-esque murders. With the movie freshly out on VOD, Rockett spoke to Filmmaker about the concluding chapter in the trilogy. Filmmaker: Ti talked in an interview about how MaXXXine is his first film shot in L.A. despite living there for 20 years. X and Pearl were both […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Aug 8, 2024 -
“Either It Blows Up or It Doesn’t”: DP Eliot Rockett on Pearl
Despite their dissimilar filmographies, I have great affection for both the arthouse friendly A24 and the drive-in exploitation of American International Pictures. That’s why I’m such a sucker for the story behind the making of A24’s Pearl, which follows AIP’s old philosophy that if you’re going to go to the trouble of hauling a cast and crew out to a remote location, you might as well make two pictures while you’re there. Pearl began life in a New Zealand hotel room in October of 2020. While in a government-mandated two-week quarantine ahead of making the 1970s-set horror film X, writer/director […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Nov 11, 2022 -
“Ninety Percent of the Lighting Was Done Pretty Much How You Would’ve Done It in 1979”: Cinematographer Eliot Rockett on the Period Horror Film X
“The story can’t just change midway through,” exclaims a pretentious adult film director incredulously in X. It certainly can in a Ti West horror film, where one of the joys is often the shift from the methodical pace of the opening to the blood-drenched mania of the finale. Set in 1979, X finds a group of ambitious but inexperienced filmmakers heading to a remote Texas farm with dreams of making the next Debbie Does Dallas. However, the troupe fails to inform their hosts – an elderly couple who rent the crew their bunkhouse – about the purpose of their visit, […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Apr 21, 2022
