Golden Age of the Silver Scream: Sam Thomas

This week on The All Worlds Traveller, I’m pleased to share an impromptu Hitchcockian October black-and-white session I’m calling Golden Age of the Silver Scream, featuring actor Sam Thomas!

Sam Thomas

Unedited headshot straight out of camera from our session with Sam.

I briefly met Sam in summer 2016 during the preproduction photography session for playwright Dustin Spence’s outstanding drama Promise of a Rose Garden, produced by Babes With Blades Theatre Company. In the years that followed, we ran in the same circles but rarely ran into one another until the post-quarantine years when we began working on the same projects. Rumor had it, Sam was also a fantastic game master and storyteller.

Makeup artist Jacque Bischoff working her magic on Sam Thomas.

In 2023, Sam decided to move back to Missouri. Wanting to make up for lost time, I invited Sam to the Sentinel Comics Role-Playing Game group I was putting together, where I quickly learned that all the rumors were true. Sam’s characters were as brilliant as they were hilarious and vulnerable. Sam played Glork, aka the Cosmic Cask, a shapeshifting chibi alien confined to a space suit where Glork contains a parasitic cosmic entity that would overrun the world if left unchecked. That same year, I brought Sam into Distant Era’s Gods and Heroes of the Aegean series, where we’ll see her as Circe… eventually.

This fall, Sam came back to town for work and reached out to get some new headshots done while she was in Chicago. The resulting session with me and makeup artist Jacque Bischoff was among the best we have ever done. As we were wrapping up, I asked whether Sam might like to do a Silver Screen look. She hadn’t brought anything for it, but Distant Era MVP Elizabeth wore a similar size and loaned Sam a dress.

Golden Age of the Silver Scream

It started off like Distant Era’s other Golden Age of the Silver Screen sessions. We took a couple serious/glamor shots, summoning the vibe of Old Hollywood as best we could. Then we spontaneously fell headfirst into Halloween-themed scream queen looks that lasted the rest of the session.

Unsurprisingly, Sam was absolutely brilliant acting through these looks. With each shot, Sam looked like a character straight from a Hitchcock film.

Because we didn’t plan this part of the session, every look was pure experiment. Lighting-wise, I avoided the fresnel for the most part and stuck with hard reflectors and an optical spot. I’d share which ones if only I could remember.

We took about one hundred and fifty frames or so before we called it a day. Here’s a mix of ten Sam Thomas screams from the different lighting looks we set up.

The Opposite of Suspense

Sam’s session was laid back start to finish. She had a plan for the headshot looks she wanted, and we captured those one after the other. Our headshot lighting was as close to perfect in camera as possible. As we went through the looks, Sam approved each one, and we moved on to the next one. (Stay tuned for these headshots in a future edition of The All Worlds Traveller.)

Minimal, weird dappled lighting here, the main light source firing through a snoot masked with holes poked in black foil.

Afterward, the Silver Screen part was a blast, and we just kept having more and more fun. Which is the way every experience is with Sam, from gaming to hanging out. Jacque and I were proud of the session and Sam was happy with the results. In contrast to our theme, there was no suspense whatsoever, just good times with an incredible team of wonderful people.

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Steven Townshend is a fine art/portrait photographer and writer with a background in theatre, written narrative, and award-winning game design. As a young artist, Steven toured the US and Canada performing in Shakespeare companies while journaling their moments on paper and film. In his transition from stage to page, Steven continued to work as a theatre photographer, capturing dramatic scenes while incorporating elements of costume, makeup, and theatrical lighting in his work. Drawn to stories set in other times and places, Steven creates works through which fellow dreamers and time travelers might examine their own humanity or find familiar comfort in the reflections of the people and places of a distant era.