Unit 2: David Fincher

For our directions unit I will be using David Fincher as my inspiration. Fincher has famously directed very well-known and highly popular films including:

Se7en (1995)

Fight Club (1999)

Panic Room (2002)

Zodiac (2007)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

The Social Network (2010)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Gone Girl (2014)

However, he has also directed two episodes of the extremely successful television series, House of Cards. And has directed a number of music videos for artists such as Justin Timberlake, Madonna and Aerosmith. As well as being talented in so many different areas of directing, he also works as a producer on many other projects. Such as producing twenty-six episodes of House of Cards (including the two that he also directed), and films such as Love and Other Disasters (Alek Keshishian) and short films like Star (Guy Ritchie).

Fincher is very particular with his work. He often tends to use the same producer, cinematographers, music and actors in his films. His most frequently used producer is Ceán Chaffin, as she has produced all of his most popular films except for Se7en. He seems to have two main cinematographers for his work, Jeff Cronenweth (Gone Girl, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Social Network, Fight Club) and Darius Khondji (Panic Room, Se7en). Since directing The Social Network, Fincher has only used Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for the music in his films, which I see as him finding his feet with music for his films due to the fact that he used to always vary his musicians before using Reznor and Ross.

        

Most notably for his audience, Fincher likes to use the actor Brad Pitt for a lot of his work. Pitt's first role in a film directed by Fincher was one of the lead rolls in Se7en as Detective Mills. Since then they have become close friends and Pitt has gone on to star as a lead in both Fight Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Trade Marks

Panic Room

• Single frame inserts. His films often feature several single frames that flash on the screen in the middle of a scene (e.g Fight Club, Se7en)
• Fluid tracking camera shots
• Silhouettes. He frequently has characters in the shadows where we can't make out their face (e.g Kevin Spacey in Se7en and Brad Pitt in Fight Club)
• His films often end in a suicide, either attempted or successful
• His films often have low-key lighting with green or blue tinted colour temperature
• Wide shots
• Downbeat endings
• Often displays end credits as slide shows (e.g Fight Club, Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) or scrolling downward (Se7en) rather than the traditional upward scroll
• Low angles
• Backstories filled with flashbacks
• References to the band 311 (e.g poster in Fight Club, police car radio call in Zodiac)
• Static shot, unfocused background with character walking into focus
• Posters almost always feature close-ups of characters' faces
• Frequently collaborates with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for musical scores
• His films often centre on people with poor social skills and few friends. E.g The Narrator in Fight Club, Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Amy Dunne in Gone Girl
• Films about finding a serial killer (e.g Se7en, Zodiac, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)
• Frequently starts his films with creative title sequences that express the theme of the film
• Almost all of his camera movements are static or highly controlled. He rarely uses a handheld camera. His films often include a single handheld scene, or in The Social Network and Gone Girl, exactly one handheld shot
• Production design is usually either stark and modern, or dark and heavily decaying
• Shot looking inside a character's fridge

Se7en

The main thing that I love about David Fincher's films is how dark and edgy they are. I plan to use every trade mark of his possible and will be as creative as I can with my work. I'm really looking forward to creating dark, mysterious sequences with a variety of camera movements and shots similar to his, focusing on a 'loner' character, just like almost all of the main characters of his films. It'll be very exciting to create work that has such a dystopian feel to it.

Lastly, here is short video discussing Fincher's techniques, and what he 'does and doesn't do'. I found it extremely helpful and plan to constantly refer back to this while creating my work...